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

Cyclades, the Aegean had to import most of its metal sources from the east, and recent
lead isotope analysis of copper from Protopalatial Mallia confirms this assertion. 138
Copper seems to have be absent from Crete, though this issue has perplexed scholars for
over a century. 139 There are hints of a Middle Cypriot international metal industry, as
implied by the references to Alashiyan copper in the 18 th century Mari tablets, and a few
remnants of metalworking on Cyprus from that time. 140 The metallurgical remains from
MC Kadatya and the LM IB Cypriot copper ingots from Mochlos may testify to a more
sophisticated MC and early LC metallurgical industry than previously recognized. 141
The
exportation of MC copper was in all likelihood a small-scale operation, and the
distribution of the MBA tools conveys that copper from that period was consumed mostly
on Cyprus.
Of the 1208 MBA tools known from the study area, more than half were found on
Cyprus. Catling attributed the “great numerical richness of the metal objects” from the
EC and MC periods to the island’s copper resources, since the assemblage of items
142
“clearly shows a vigorous exploitation of the raw material.” Yet the abundance of
metal tools on MBA Cyprus is also accounted for by social phenomena specific to the
Cypriot early second millennium, when many tools were deposited in cemeteries along
the northern coast of Cyprus. Keswani argued that indigenous nascent elites exploited the
copper-rich island for competitive consumption of metal; subsequently they advertised
their newfound wealth and prestige in the mortuary realm. 143
While MBA tool disparities
138
Poursat and Loubet. 2005.
139
Muhly 2008a, 35; Tzchali 2008.
140
Heltzer 1989, 8-9, 24-25; Kassianidou 2008.
141
Kassianidou 2008, 256, 266; Soles 2008, 143, 156.
142
Catling 1964, 76.
143
Keswani 2004.
65