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

Syria-Palestine is not accidental, for these two eastern Mediterranean areas were in
regular contact as we know from the distribution of high value commodities including
luxury items along with textual references to exchanges between the rulers of Alashiya
and Ugarit and relations between Alashiya and Kizzuwatna (and other Hittite vassals). 767
Based on the number of metallurgical tools from MBA Anatolia and Crete, a
technological metalworking link between those two regions may have existed. This
proposition is not unreasonable, for substantial signs of interaction are well documented
between Protopalatial Crete and Anatolia. 768
Cretan metallurgical operations are known
from the third millennium BC, so MM smiths undoubtedly adhered to an indigenous
tradition, open, however, to external influences as evident in the production of tin-bronze.
Thus Cretan smiths perhaps became aware of or were influenced by Anatolian practices
at the beginning of the second millennium BC, if not before. In terms of the
carpentry/masonry tools (Fig. 3.26a, b), Crete, Anatolia, Cyprus, and Syria-Palestine took
the lead during the MBA, while the Greek mainland and islands lagged behind—
predictably enough, given their comparative lack of urbanization, construction and
industrial production. During the LBA, carpentry/masonry tools are most popular on
Crete and Syria-Palestine (based on regional percentages rather than total numbers).
These implements are also highly common to the Greek mainland, Cyprus and the eastern
Mediterranean shipwrecks. It must be kept in mind that commensurate proportions of tool
categories cannot confirm trans-cultural dealings in craft work, yet hints of interregional
links are discernible.
767 Beckman 1996a; Beckman 1996b; Wells 1996.
768 E.g. Carter and Kilikoglou 2007; Aruz 2008, 86-87, 101-122; Weingarten 1994.
332