Middle and Late Bronze Age Metal Tools from the Aegean, Eastern ...

turmoil enable hoard preservation in the archaeological record, but do not necessarily
cause metals to be deposited.
IV.C: Tools in hoards: frequencies, preferences and statistics
The recurrence of specific tools in hoards signifies that they were intentionally
selected. As previously mentioned, tools are the primary component of Mediterranean
hoards. Of the 13 MBA and LBA Cretan hoards, tools makeup 66% of the contents on
average. Implements are regular components of hoards from the Greek mainland (61% in
18 hoards) and Cyprus (44% in 20 hoards). Figures 5.1‒5.4 present the prevalence of
metal implements as well as the tools types within the Mediterranean caches. In the
following pages, an overview of the hoarded tools by region highlights their prominence
and tendencies of occurrence. Subsequently, the data from the hoard tools are explored
statistically to ascertain whether there are meaningful patterns of tool selection in hoards,
both regionally and cross-culturally.
Tools in Cretan hoards (Fig. 5.1): Tools represent the highest proportion of
contents in Cretan hoards, assemblages which are typically small. The bulk of Cretan
examples belong to the LM I period, placing them at least two hundred years prior to
most Cypriot and Mycenaean hoards and well after the EBA‒MBA examples.
Minoan hoards best resemble the EBA‒MBA Aegean metal collections in terms
of their compositional size and preference for wood- and stone-working implements. Not
every carpentry and masonry implement was stockpiled on a regular basis. For example,
only six Cretan saws were recovered in caches, despite the ubiquity of the implement in
other MM and LM contexts. Other tool types are even less common. Agricultural tools
are conspicuously absent from Minoan hoards, and metallurgical implements are almost
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