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

Hittite capital. Yet the object implies the ability of Hittites to acquire tools and possibly
technology from foreign areas, if not also craftspersons, and it calls to mind the half-cut
block before the entrance to House A at Ayia Irini, Keos, which has been taken to be a
piece abandoned by a possible itinerant Minoan mason, who was unfamiliar with the hard
limestone of the islands. 773
Until more evidence is forthcoming, the question of a Hittite-
Cretan craft association either directly or circuitously, remains to be demonstrated.
Shafted, doubled-ended and/or combination tools (double adzes, double axes, ax-
adzes, double-hammers, ax-hammers, adze-hammers and pick-adzes) resemble one
another in their concept and basic form. Excluding the double axes, the tools are
primarily LBA types, and occur consistently on Crete and Cyprus. Other cases have
turned up on the Greek mainland, Anatolia and Syria-Palestine, but not with the same
frequency as on the two islands. The Cypriot shafted double-ended tools first appear
during the 13 th and 12 th centuries and are not indigenous to the island. These implements
were regularly stockpiled in hoards as components of eclectic tool kits, and are
conceptually Minoan in form. The combination tools on Crete and Cyprus are prime
candidates for gauging interregional connections because, excluding the double axes,
they are principally restricted to those two areas. Yet the probable interregional link with
these tools is perplexing for the implements were utilized at different periods on each
island: the Neopalatial era on Crete and roughly two centuries later on Cyprus.
One might expect 13 th -century Cypriot tool connections with the Aegean to
resemble Mycenaean rather than Minoan traits. Parallels between tool preferences on
Cyprus and the Greek mainland, however, are lacking. The employment of pendulum
saws and tubular drills, evident in Mycenaean masonry, is unattested on Cyprus—in all
773 Cummer 1980.
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