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

Tsountas (Mycenae), Kalydon-Psorolithi, Anthedon, Thebes Arsenal, Orchomenos,
Athens Acropolis, Kierion-Karditsa, and Salamis assemblages.
Of the four Mycenae caches, the Mylonas and Poros Wall examples each have
distinct tool kits, while the Schliemann and Tsountas hoards produced reduced versions
of the standard set. The tools common to the Mylonas and Poros Wall hoards were
double axes, chisels and knives. The hoarded Mylonas tools are a well-defined collection,
enviable in its diversity as a functional craft kit: four double axes, one broad chisel, one
narrow chisel, two knives, and two awls (Plate 5.28). 660 The sizes of the knives, awls, and
double axes vary slightly, while greater disparities are seen among the chisel forms. 661
The Poros Wall hoard contained numerous oxhide ingot fragments and broken or
distorted objects, leading to its interpretation as a foundry assemblage. 662
Yet the hoard’s
utensils imply a coherent kit: one double ax, one broad chisel, three narrow chisels (of
different sizes), one drill, three bent knives and one small hammer (Plate 5.17). The broad
chisel is malformed, but it could have been functional on some level. A small broken tip,
devoid of any utilitarian capability, is all that remains of one narrow chisel (not pictured).
The bent and deformed knives were also unusable, but the other tools are intact and
improbable as metallic scrap.
The tools from the Schliemann and Tsountas hoards are notably different from the
other Mycenae assemblages. The Schliemann hoard yielded four double axes and five
knives, collectively representing nearly half of that assemblage.
663
Other tools like chisels
are absent, meaning that the Schliemann items constituted a partial tool kit. The Tsountas
660 Mylonas 1962, 406-408.
661 The cutting width of the four double axes varies slightly between 5.35 and 6.15 cm while the object
length falls within the range of 19.7 and 21.6 cm.
662 Wace 1953; Stubbings 1954.
663 Schliemann 1878, 74-75; 111; Calder and Traill 1986, 149, 206 n. 36.
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