DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0287
200
0. Bates
brakes and of small canals or streams, where the sluggishness and shallowness of the waters
are brought home to us by the fact that the boatmen generally propel their craft not with
paddles, but with punting poles.
Besides the scenes themselves, the tombs afford yet further evidence which demands
passing notice; I refer to the hieroglyphs of the inscriptions. When well cut, the glyphs —
especially those of the Old and Middle Kingdoms — sometimes throw a great deal of light
on technological details. I have more than once, as the reader will presently see, had
occasion to cite a hieroglyphic sign by way of illustration.
I regret that in writing this paper I have not had access to an adequate Egyptologi-
cal library. Owing to this cause I have not been able to consult several works of impor-
tance — the tomb of Mera, for example, although it has been published by G. Daressy,
I know only from a partial and summary line drawing reproduced by J. de Morgan. Lack
of books and of philological knowledge, moreover, have prevented me from attempting
to deal with the terminology of Egyptian fishing — a phase of the subject which certainly
ought not to be ignored. Despite these drawbacks I hope that, if some important evi-
dence has of necessity been overlooked, little which is really essential to the subject has
remained wholly unnoticed; and that even if it has, this paper may serve as a useful point
of departure for a more complete treatment from abler hands.
In my endeavor to make my treatment of the subject as complete as the materials
at my disposal permitted, I have dealt not only with fishing, but with the chase of the
hippopotamus as well. This I would not have attempted had these animals not been
hunted in boats, and with harpoons often indistinguishable from those employed in
the capture of large fish. Had I wished to give a complete picture of the occupations of
the marsh men, it would also have been necessary to discuss the technology of fowling —
a subject so important as to deserve special treatment. I have here confined myself to
an account of those devices by which the ancient Egyptian secured animal food from the
waters of the Nile, being well aware that such an account, even were it perfect, would yet
leave some important phases of the life of the fisher folk untouched.
It ought to be said that in drawing the illustrations listed below I have in several
cases restored the original, when the restoration was absolutely certain and desirable from
the point of view of clearness. I need hardly say that in no instance have I trifled with
my sources in this respect — such restorations as I have made have been in the nature
of supplying a foot, an eye, or a profile to a figure, or of rendering by an unbroken line one
which in the original was here and there imperfect. Figs. 116-118, 120, 202, 205-208,
234, 241, 242 represent objects found in the course of my own excavations at Marsa
Matruh (Paraetonium) and at Gammai (Second Cataract): for the sources of the other
illustrations the reader is referred to the subjoined list. The letters accompanying the
0. Bates
brakes and of small canals or streams, where the sluggishness and shallowness of the waters
are brought home to us by the fact that the boatmen generally propel their craft not with
paddles, but with punting poles.
Besides the scenes themselves, the tombs afford yet further evidence which demands
passing notice; I refer to the hieroglyphs of the inscriptions. When well cut, the glyphs —
especially those of the Old and Middle Kingdoms — sometimes throw a great deal of light
on technological details. I have more than once, as the reader will presently see, had
occasion to cite a hieroglyphic sign by way of illustration.
I regret that in writing this paper I have not had access to an adequate Egyptologi-
cal library. Owing to this cause I have not been able to consult several works of impor-
tance — the tomb of Mera, for example, although it has been published by G. Daressy,
I know only from a partial and summary line drawing reproduced by J. de Morgan. Lack
of books and of philological knowledge, moreover, have prevented me from attempting
to deal with the terminology of Egyptian fishing — a phase of the subject which certainly
ought not to be ignored. Despite these drawbacks I hope that, if some important evi-
dence has of necessity been overlooked, little which is really essential to the subject has
remained wholly unnoticed; and that even if it has, this paper may serve as a useful point
of departure for a more complete treatment from abler hands.
In my endeavor to make my treatment of the subject as complete as the materials
at my disposal permitted, I have dealt not only with fishing, but with the chase of the
hippopotamus as well. This I would not have attempted had these animals not been
hunted in boats, and with harpoons often indistinguishable from those employed in
the capture of large fish. Had I wished to give a complete picture of the occupations of
the marsh men, it would also have been necessary to discuss the technology of fowling —
a subject so important as to deserve special treatment. I have here confined myself to
an account of those devices by which the ancient Egyptian secured animal food from the
waters of the Nile, being well aware that such an account, even were it perfect, would yet
leave some important phases of the life of the fisher folk untouched.
It ought to be said that in drawing the illustrations listed below I have in several
cases restored the original, when the restoration was absolutely certain and desirable from
the point of view of clearness. I need hardly say that in no instance have I trifled with
my sources in this respect — such restorations as I have made have been in the nature
of supplying a foot, an eye, or a profile to a figure, or of rendering by an unbroken line one
which in the original was here and there imperfect. Figs. 116-118, 120, 202, 205-208,
234, 241, 242 represent objects found in the course of my own excavations at Marsa
Matruh (Paraetonium) and at Gammai (Second Cataract): for the sources of the other
illustrations the reader is referred to the subjoined list. The letters accompanying the