A Transitional Phase in Minoan Metallurgy

Abstract

In 1961 Miss Sandars published her important paper on the ancestry of the Aegean long-sword. She argued that the long-sword was an Aegean invention under Syrian influence, and traced some of the features of the long-sword back to the Early Bronze Age weapons of Crete. The present writer has recently published a comprehensive survey of these Early Bronze Age weapons and demonstrated that in E.M. III and M.M. IA several Syrian features were adopted for the Minoan long daggers. It has also proved possible to illustrate an influx of actual Syrian daggers, probably in M.M. IB–M.M. II, and to suggest the place they should occupy in the development of Minoan metallurgy. Despite these various inquiries, however, the vital transitional period of Minoan metalworking—M.M. IB–M.M. II—remains obscure. Apart from one or two exceptional pieces like the Mallia swords and the decorated dagger from Lasithi the products of this period have gone unstudied and their importance to the emergence of the long-sword and broad dagger has gone unrecognized. It is this situation which the writer seeks to remedy. This paper attempts to trace the development of the four main weapons of M.M. III–L.M. II (the long-sword, short-sword, broad dagger, and ‘winged’ dagger) from the end of the Early Bronze Age. A catalogue gives details of thirty-two weapons which the writer considers to belong to this transitional phase. Many of these were found in association with material of M.M. IB–M.M. II date, but some are not closely datable and others are probably to be dated to M.M. IA or possibly even E.M. III. This is because the qualification for entry into the catalogue has been that a weapon is of a transitional character, rather than of a certain date. In fact the transitional phase would seem to overlap to some extent with the end of the distinct and quite individual Early Bronze Age phase of metallurgy.

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