C Cucini, M P Riccardi and M Tizzoni

Reprinted from

Historical Metallurgy

Volume 53 Part 1 for 2019

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Changes to the publication of Historical Metallurgy will mean that your paper will be available online in the near future. You will be supplied further details of how to link to your online article at that time.

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The metalwwww.academia.edu/121322751/Metalworkers_and_their_Tools_Symbolism_Function_and_Technology_in_the_Bronze_and_Iron_Ages?email_work_card=reading-history orkers and their tools : symbolism, function, and technology in the Bronze and Iron Ages 

The presence of metalworking tools in burials, hoards, and sanctuaries, from the Bell Beaker period until the Iron Age, invites the question of what link there was between the artisan and his tools, but also between the artisan and society. In these specific find contexts, tools not only provide technical evidence but also acquire a specific symbolic value, as they form part of certain rituals. For example, in the Late Iron Age of Continental Europe, these ritual aspects of artisanship relate to the profound upheavals in society that lead to the emergence of oppida. But tools are also technological items that answer to a specific need, and therefore should not be separated from their function and from the technical purpose for which they are employed. 

The “Metools” conference which was organised in Belfast in June 2016 as part of the HardRock project “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: context, function, and choice of early metalworking   E’ A ç” (M Sł C,N. 623392)   “M A  Europe” commission of the International Union of Pre- and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP). Its aim was to shine a spotlight on the tools of the metalworker, whether in metal, stone, terracotta or organic materials, to follow their evolution from the appearance of metallurgy at the beginning of the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, as well as the place held by metalworking and its artisans in the economic and social landscape of the period. 

This volume brings together the various communications that were presented at the “Metools” international symposium to some sixty European researchers. It contains 12 papers by 22 authors. 

The papers, written in English and French, present new data from the British Isles, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Corsica and cover a wide range of topics that make up some of the latest research on metalworking during the Bronze and Iron ages. Two projects involving experimental archaeology and various prospection methods used to detect open air metallurgy workshops are presented here. They underline the difficulty of identifying metalworking features in the archaeological record and give insight into why this is the case. Gold metalworking is the subject of two papers that give a comprehensive overview of the tools and the techniques required for this intricate and highly specialised artisanship. Other works shed light on the metalworking tools themselves found in domestic contexts, with detailed analyses of their use during specific stages of the metalworking process. Special emphasis is given to the rare tools found in hoards and their significance in these ritual contexts. This conference intended to provide a forum for developing a better understanding of the role metalworking and metalworkers played in society, and of the evolution of that role during the period conventionally referred to as the Metal Ages.