EARLY BRONZE AGE DAGGERS IN CENTRAL ... - Bilkent University

individual used in his or her daily life in addition to some grave offerings which were
placed near the body. The metal finds recovered from the graves were composed of
pins to attach the fabrics, as well as items which might be associated with gender of
the deceased. This item group is personal accessories such as earrings, necklaces,
bracelets, axes, daggers and fragments of cups. Although most burials were of a single
individual, graves eight and nine each contained a male and a female placed together
in the same burial (Harmankaya-Erdoğu, 2002). Suggested by the finds from similar
grave sites, such as Resuloğlu and Alaca Höyük graves, these items would have been
found in situ in proper locations, e.g., earrings would be found by the skull, bracelets
on the arms, necklaces on the chest, and so forth. This is important for the discussion
of the daggers as they were often found at the hip level of the individual. More
essential to this discussion is that grave number ten contained female associated items
such as a gold ring, copper neck ring, a bracelet in addition to a copper dagger and an
ax which are usually associated with male burials. The daggers recovered were not
rendered useless except one from grave number nine which was intentionally bent.
There were no remnants of furnaces or other metal working evidence such as
molds, crucibles, ores or slugs recovered from Ahlatlıbel. This caused some scholars
to suggest that the metal artifacts from Ahlatlıbel were obtained from somewhere else.
Yakar suggests that the metalwork of Ahlatlıbel belongs to the Pontic region,
particularly Çorum and Tokat. He comes to this conclusion based on typological
grounds and chemical analysis. A shaft-hole axe, a mace -head and double-spiral and
hammer-headed pins are shown as the evidence for the Pontic origin of the Ahlatlıbel
metal artifacts (Yakar, 1985a: 34). As Yakar himself admits, however, the negative
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