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

since the values of individual objects are wide-ranging. Needham acknowledges this
difficulty by noting that objects can be “imbued with characteristics of being. Such
considerations affect the range of ways in which objects might be valued, but also
impinge on the practical matters of the longevity of use-spans or the treatment of material
at the close of its life.” 100 Saving tools (and other objects) as keepsakes would
demonstrate that implements were valued for reasons beyond their functional practicality.
In the archaeological record, the Ta 700 Linear B tablets and a Linear A-inscribed tripod
from the Mycenae Shaft Graves indicate that memento-hoarding occurred in the Aegean
Bronze Age. 101
Three passages about tools—posted on display panels in the Man and Tools
Museum of Greek Folk Art in Athens—articulate the bond that individuals have with
their implements and emphasize that tools, as transferrable wealth, are regularly saved
over time. These quotes convey the social and personal values placed on modern Greek
implements, and suggest that metal tools were equally important to prehistoric
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craftspersons.
These ethnographic quotes are considered below:
Tools as a source of life and security
Man makes tools and devises techniques to harness nature, to make use of raw materials
to process them, so that he can create what he needs. Tools enhance his power, realize his
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dreams, and ultimately ensure his survival.
Tools before the Industrialization…
There were many different tools. Some simple, some complex, all created from the
wisdom of experience passed on from generation to generation. Most of them are
100 Needham 2001, 277.
101 Ventris and Chadwick 1973; Palaima 2003.
102 Another Greek ethnographic collection, the Museum of Cretan Ethnography, is located in Voroi, Crete.
The importance of tools in quarrying and architecture is evident in the museum’s architecture displays. See
photographs of these displays on the museum’s website:
http://www.cretanethnologymuseum.gr/imke/html/en/4201.html
103 Polyzoi 2009, 69.
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