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

number of utilitarian and small craft tools are also known. The carpentry/masonry
implements are diverse, but flat/single axes and shaft-hole axes typify the selections (Fig.
4.28). The single/flat axes are similar to those from Cyprus, while the shaft-hole axes
have parallels in Anatolia and Cyprus.
Although tool similarities are evident among the MBA repertoires from Cyprus,
the Levant and Anatolia, Aegean tool traditions differ from the eastern
Mediterranean/Anatolia during the early stages of the second millennium. Crete lacks
natural metal resources, yet the island was connected to an international metal market,
acquiring sources from Cyprus, Anatolia and another Near Eastern source. This
conclusion is based on recent analyses of copper found at Quartier Mu, Mallia. 741 The
island’s metallurgical industry—documented in the EBA with the specialized smelting
site at Chrysokamino—was thriving in the early second millennium, if the metal tools
and architectural developments are any gauge. For example, the large limestone
orthostates at Protopalatial Phaistos clearly were worked with bronze chisels. 742 Yet only
a few sites can testify to metalworking from this period. Slag from MM Mochlos implies
an early metallurgical operation, 743 while Poros-Katsambas yielded a large MMIIB
crucible with residue lining its interior surface, a result from copper melting. 744 A
Protopalatial metal workshop existed at Quartier Mu, Mallia, and one product was tools,
as indicated by molds. 745
The organization of craft activity in this complex and the
evidence of copper-alloy objects at the site indicate the advanced nature of metalworking
and other industries on Crete.
741 Poursat and Loubet 2005.
742 Shaw 2009, 52, figures 62e, 86, 88.
743 Brogan 2008, 165.
744 Dimopoulou 1997, 434; Dimopoulou-Rethemiotaki 2004; Hakulin 2004, 42, appendix I.5.
745 Poursat and Olivier 1996, 53-56, entry C23, plate 52d.
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