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

Gender responsibilities are investigated differently in the Aegean, using limited textual
and iconographic evidence.
The Mycenaean Linear B tablets reveal aspects of female roles otherwise
undetected, including prestigious cult positions associated with certain rights and
privileges, as well as more mundane labor duties. 85 The Pylos and Knossos tablets
document an impressive quantity of skilled female workers (over 1,400 in the Pylian
tablets) who appear as dependents of the palaces. 86 Nosch notes more than 750 dependent
Pylian women who produced textiles as their primary task, yet other household activities
are also occasionally ascribed to them. 87 These data demonstrate the complexity of
gender skills, which have too often been ignored in prehistory because, as Kopaka
argued, “Aegean gender activities are illustrated only by a few, fragmentary and
unequally informative pieces of evidence. The existing documentation is mainly
dominated by some sets of anthropomorphic images.” 88 Kopaka notes that the “gender of
the producer” has not been adequately considered, leading her to question the gender
roles of “hunters, gatherers, cultivators, shepherds, bee-keepers, bronzesmiths, seal
engravers, perfumers, jewelers, tablet-kneaders and scribes, woodcutters, masons, textile
workers, breadmakers, firekindlers, water carriers, warriors, and defendants.” 89
Although
these inquiries are not answered in the Aegean realm, such probing accentuates severe
gaps in the scholarly understanding of craft activities. Ideally, the responsibility of each
gender should be considered in discussions of craftsmanship, yet it is difficult to ascertain
how gender roles dictated preferences for metal tools and their affiliated craft traditions.
85
Nosch 2003, 22.
86
Killen 1979, 133; Billigmeier and Turner 1981, 3. Chadwick 1988, 89-93.
87
Nosch 2003, 15.
88
Kopaka 1997, 526.
89
Kopaka 1997, 527-528.
48