Temple 4040 stood alone on the high place of Megiddo, its weathered mudbrick in an active state of collapse. Rather than rebuild the temple, a second wall was erected inside the old one, and the space between them filled with collapsed mudbrick. Archaeologists discovered an interesting artifact in the fill of this wall which proved to be an important clue for dating the Stratum XIV temple—a socketed eye axe.

As you may recall, the typical axe of the Early Bronze period was of the crescent axe. Their broad blades, made from arsenical copper, were useful for slashing but did not have much penetrating power. As helmets and armor became more common, the slashing axe was replaced by a new type made with a narrower, stiffer blade, and cast from bronze instead of copper. Openings in the blade (“eyes” or “fenestrations”) served a decorative purpose and also made the blade easier to cast—a cast object with a uniform cross-section cools at an equal rate. The axe was attached to the handle by means of a cast, hollow “socket” capable of withstanding a sharp blow against a hard object. In contrast, the flat blade of a crescent axe was embedded in a slot in the handle, and was therefore liable to bend on impact.

Kfar Monash (Canaan)

Amarneh (Syria)

The casting of a socketed eye axe required a more advanced knowledge of metallurgy and casting than was required to cast a crescentic axe. In order to produce the socket, the metal-caster used a mold core (see image below) to create a void in the mold. Crescentic axe heads, on the other hand, could be cast in an open mold and hammered into shape, a much simpler process. Although “cored” molds were not new—the Sumerians and Caucasus-people used this technology to produce socketed axes as did the Ghassulians to produce their scepters—but these were cast from arsenical copper. In contrast the socketed eye-axes of the EB IV-MB I were cast from bronze and they were the dominant type rather than a luxury item possessed by the elite.

ARC / Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

It has often been observed that the Bronze Age really ought to begin with the EB IV, for although bronze objects have been recovered from the Royal Cemetery of Ur (ED II-III) and from the Tomb of Khasekhemwy (Dynasty II of Egypt), bronze was nevertheless rare due to the scarcity of tin.¹Oren 1971, 131 The nearest known supplies were located in the Carpathian mountains of central Europe and the mountains of Iran and Afghanistan. In the southern Levant, the use of bronze for making weapons does not become widespread until the arrival of Amorites. These pastoralists may not have known what was in their gu-nunuz-bread but they knew where to find tin and how to cast bronze.