Tepeköy Höyük I. Erken Tunç Çağı, Sabahattin Erdoğan,Yusuf Çiftçi,Mikail Erçek, Editör, Ege Yayınları, Ankara, ss.189-196, 2023
Ethnographic studies show that stone tools in various forms and sizes have
uses for food production and woodworking. Two stone tools made of grey
basalt were discovered in the Early Bronze Age III layers in Tepeköy Höyük,
which is at the side of the Muş-Varto highway. One of them is a celt and the
other is half of a broken shaft-hole stone hammer. Celts created an important
part under the stone tool industry in Southwest Asia since the Neolithic Age,
and the way they were found during archaeological excavations revealed
that they were not always in use as tools in daily life, but sometimes gained
meaning as cult objects. However, the rim deformation in the example from
Tepeköy Höyük shows a re-sharpened mouth, and that is evidence for using it
as a tool. In addition, the shaft-hole tools made of different materials such as
stone, bone and horn, continued alongside the bronze examples which began
to appear in the Early Bronze Age. By the half stone hammer discovered in
Tepeköy Höyük being broken at the shaft-hole, which is the weakest part, and
splitting a large chip from its back indicate that the hammer seems to be used
in heavy works like for example mining practices. Such works requires hart
hitting, breaking and crushing.