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

his reconsideration of third millennium stone “battle-axes,” Doumas argues that these
objects are misnamed and should be identified as hammer-axes. Valued by metal smiths,
the hammer-axes were used to produce sheet metal or metallic vessels. 46 The importance
of terminology and its implications for functionality is captured by Hutchinson’s
assessment of the same stone axes found throughout Europe in addition to the
Mediterranean: “we must face a depressing possibility…that our splendid battle-axes
with which our Indo-Europeans are supposed to have fought their way through Europe
were nothing more than the tools of miners, masons, and carpenters.” 47
The true
identification of these specific stone objects is irrelevant for the current project, yet this
example highlights the ramifications of an object’s name and the importance of
distinguishing tools from weapons.
This study deliberately excludes weapons in an effort to concentrate its analysis
on tools. A few object types in the database, like certain axes and dagger-like knives or
razors, could have functioned as weapons, but I have followed previous scholarship in
designating them as tools. In his work on Cypriot metals, Catling identifies swords,
rapiers, dirks, daggers, spearheads, javelins, spear butt-spikes, and arrowheads as
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weapons. As for the Greek mainland, Tripathi lists Middle Helladic and Early
Mycenaean weapons as swords, daggers, spearheads, dirks, arrowheads, and
Schlachtmesser. Primarily found in burial contexts in the Mycenae Shaft Graves and the
Messenian tholoi, Schlachtmesser are large knives characteristic of the Early Mycenaean
period. 49
They are impressive and could have served as weapons, but are included in the
46 Doumas 1998, 158-159.
47 Hutchinson 1950, 62.
48 Catling 1964.
49 Tripathi 1988. For the listing of the Schlactmesser, see pages 184-185.
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