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

thriving metallurgical and craft industries. 730 His analysis neither separates the Aegean
into different cultural spheres nor adequately compares the Aegean’s tool patterns to the
eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia. 731
While Deshayes’ monograph was used as a
springboard for the current study, there are significant differences between the two. My
analysis focuses on the tool distributions and regional tendencies from the MBA and
LBA periods within a more restricted, yet still expansive, area. As such, this investigation
presents the most up-to-date distribution of metal tools from the Aegean regions, the
eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the level
of craft interaction among these areas.
In light of the previous work on metal tools, there are four notable contributions
of this project: 1) for the first time, there is a comprehensive overview and discussion of
Mycenaean metal tools—with a full list of the region’s implements in the catalogue; 2)
the evaluation of the Late Cypriot implements and their connections to other regions is
updated, thus presenting a general picture that has not been discussed comprehensively
since Catling’s 1964 monograph; 3) the operative value of broken tools is re-considered;
and finally 4) deliberate tool kits are recognized, particularly within hoard and shipwreck
contexts. The first two points have been emphasized in the preceding paragraphs, while
the latter two issues have been overlooked by previous scholarship. Metal tools are
regularly found as damaged or broken, yet earlier studies have undervalued the worth that
these fragments may have retained. Pieces of tools are commonly understood as scrap
metal meant to be recycled through melting and recasting. Although this procedure must
have occurred, it is a mistake to assume that all broken implements are devoid of any
730 Deshayes 1960, 401.
731 Deshayes does compare Mycenaean tools to the Balkans; this is an important point that was not
developed in the current study because it was outside the geographical limits established for the project.
312