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

given to stockpiled tools. Thirty-five percent of the utensils in the database were found
with at least one other implement, primarily because of the prevalence of tools in hoards
but also in burials and from shipwrecks. The significance of intentional tool groupings,
such as kits and hoards, represents an important research topic of this project, which is
described in more detail in Chapter 5. In the following sections the subdivisions by
function (see Figs. 3.4a, b) will be discussed in order; for each category, the tool patterns
will be presented by region, period and context.
V. Agricultural tools
Metal agricultural tools facilitated mundane tasks—such as digging and removing
earth, tilling hard and compact soil, and reaping cereals and grains—pigeonholing them
as ordinary implements. The infrequent appearance of these utensils in metal, however,
challenges this categorization (Fig. 3.4a, b). Metal agricultural implements had a special
economic value, indicated by their restricted chronological and geographic distribution.
Metal tools likely increased work productivity, yet they were not essential, and stone and
wooden agricultural utensils were successfully employed throughout the Neolithic and
Bronze Age. Linear B tablets document significant agrarian industries on the Greek
mainland and Crete, but the scattering of metal tools does not convey such a grand
picture of agricultural production. Bronze implements for farming were expensive to
produce and were probably objects for the privileged rather than essential, everyday
items. Common farmers could not have afforded these bronze tools, judging by the tight
control of metal that the Palace of Nestor maintained in allocating resources to the
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