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

possible that merchants, metal smiths, or even an administrative authority stockpiled the
material and were the consumers of the tools rather than the craftspersons. 765
The material recovered from Uluburun and Gelidonya is perhaps the closest one
can come to relating a set of tools to craftspersons, for tool kits were undoubtedly
included on these ships. Did the set belong to mobile craftspersons on board or to the
ship’s crew, who would have utilized the implements in the maintenance of the vessel?
The implements do not seem to be cargo, for tools are not envisioned as everyday
commodities and, normally, were not valued by elites. It is reasonable for artisans, if they
were mobile, to have taken advantage of the fastest mode of travel at that time:
international sea-voyaging vessels. The Uluburun and Gelidonya evidence provide a
strong argument for craft mobility. By being on board merchant vessels, craftspersons
would have taken advantage of an easy and perhaps regular mode of transportation
between their homeland and many ports of call.
Having acknowledged that tool distributions are not directly indicative of
craftspersons, is it possible to glean any information about craft activities from these
patterns? In the following sections, I identify inter-regional tool connections and possible
cross-cultural links in craft industries based upon the dispersal of metal implements.
Foreign or foreign-inspired tools are found throughout the study regions, but how should
one interpret their significance to craft operations? Do they indicate that craftspersons
operated far from home or were they objects traded indirectly? Foreign tools reveal some
connection, even indirect, between neighboring and remote areas, but the exact nature of
765 th
The Kutalla hoard from 18 century BC Mesopotamia is an example of a state-owned hoard and tool
collection; see, Moorey 1971.
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