Casson, Stanley: The technique of early Greek sculpture (Oxford, 1933)

8 PREHISTORIC PERIODS
made of bronze or copper, and it is hardly credible that
such a tool could cut into the surface of hard breccia of
this type without being immediately blunted or broken after
a few strokes. The evidence, indeed, from these gouge
marks seems to me to be decisive (see Appendix, p. 236).
They can only have been made with a steel or iron gouge.


Fig. 1. Curls cast in solid bronze (from Knossos).
It may be added that the pedigree of the figure is
unknown and the doubts cast upon its authenticity on
grounds of style and general character are serious.1 Leaving
these on one side we can at least say that on purely
technical grounds the statuette does not conform to the
known practices of Minoan times and that one tool, hitherto
unknown to the Minoan repertoire, but a favourite stone-
worker’s tool to-day, is extensively used on the surface. The
fact that that tool must have been of steel or iron makes the
attribution of the statuette to the Bronze Age untenable.
ii. Wood. The only material in which it seems certain that
large statues were made in Minoan times in Crete was wood.
This knowledge we owe to the brilliant inference drawn by
1 Journal of Hellenic Studies, xlvii (1927), p. 299.