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

producing and consuming metal tools was quite different on LM Crete as compared to the
other LBA state-level societies. Perhaps this evidence illustrates that LBA craft activity
was more centralized—possibly with tighter control—on the Greek mainland, Cyprus,
the Levant, and Anatolia. This observation may explain why tool similarities among
multiple regions in the 14 th and 13 th centuries are comparatively rare, despite a well
recognized international style for many craft products. 822 The Neopalatial evidence—
both in terms of the distribution of tools on the island and the number of instances of
Minoan craftspersons who traveled—suggests a dissimilar type of craft organization in
relation to other regions. On the other hand, the link between Mycenaeans and Hittites
resembles the type of relationship between palatial entities as described in Near Eastern
texts, like the Amarna tablets. 823
The fashioning of luxurious commodities and their exchange plays a crucial role
824
in dictating the political relationships between Near Eastern states. The exchange of
skilled persons between Near Eastern powers is part of this system, for such individuals
“are requested, refused, and dispatched like gifts.” 825 The movement of artisans by a state
is documented early in the second millennium in the archives at Mari. 826
In the LBA, the
Amarna tablets imply that specialists traveled reciprocally between courts. The king of
Alashiya requested from Egypt (EA 35) an expert in vulture augury (a person with an
unusual skill whose desirability may have been on par with that of a master craftsperson)
822 Feldman 2006.
823 Moran 1992.
824 Feldman 2006; Zaccagnini 1987.
825 Zaccagnini 1983, 253. For the ethnography of elite relations and craftsmen, see Helms 1993, 34.
826 Zaccagnini 1983, 247-248. For the opposite scenario, where artisans where transported from rural to
urbanized areas, see Wattenmaker 1998, 49.
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