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

second millennium BC. Such cases are listed in the database as unknown, yet deserve to
be included in the current dataset, for they date in all likelihood to either the MBA or the
LBA. The EBA‒MBA transitional category is a result of objects from Early and Middle
Minoan tholoi burials, prominent in the Mesara. A considerable number of tools (n=78)
are dated to this broad period because of the difficulty in dating such contexts. 39
Other
transitional periods are also problematic; tools from the Shaft Graves (MH III-LHI),
Neopalatial contexts (MM III-LM I), and Old Hittite levels (1650-1500 BC) are classified
as from LBA, despite the possibility of their existence at the end of the MBA. The issues
pertaining to these transitional phases preclude a clean division of the tools into either the
Middle (2000‒1600 BC) or Late Bronze Age (1600‒1050 BC) categories (see the
chronological table on page xxiii). Basic chronological trends are evident from the
database, but these tendencies are general. The overall pattern would be tighter if each
individual tool had a clearer date, which unfortunately often is not the case. In the study
of carpentry and masonry tools, the implements are separated according to different
phases of the LBA (e.g. early LBA or 1600-1400 BC; peak LBA or 1400-1200 BC; and
late LBA or 1200-1050 BC) to provide a more accurate assessment of the propensities of
tool consumption.
The Greek mainland, Greek islands, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, Syria-Palestine, and
shipwrecks from the southern coast of Turkey represent the classification options in the
database for where a tool was found. More specific locales within these places (e.g. site
by site) are tracked and discussed for the carpentry and masonry tools.
39
Branigan 1968; 1993, 12-15; 143-148.
40
A site by site entry for all tools in the dataset is listed in Appendix 4, the catalogue of MBA and LBA
tools.
40
Thus the
regularity of wood- and stone-working implements in smaller regional areas like the
30