DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0327
240
0. Bates
from its butt depends a line held by an attendant: how the line was bent on to the head it
is impossible to say. The harpoon shown in the hieroglyph given in fig. 65 is fitted into a
foreshaft in the early manner. It is not barbed, but is of a bisymmetrical leaf form much
like the New Kingdom hippopotamus harpoon in fig. 78. Actual specimens from the
Middle and New Kingdoms are very rare: I have not been able to find heads any of
which could be regarded with certainty as harpoons. The two points shown in fig. 71,
72 might either have been set in foreshafts and used as fish harpoons, or have been solidly
hafted as spears. It is perhaps worth while noting that they are not very well finished,
though they are perfectly serviceable points.
A few words ought here to be said regarding the relative ages of the types which have
been described. Petrie, in his attempt to establish the relative chronology of all the arte-
facts of the predynastic period, naturally did not fail to consider so interesting a class of
objects as the harpoons. The range of the non-metallic points he placed between S. D.
38-58,140 within which limits, he asserted, certain changes in form could be distinguished.
‘‘The earlier [scil. harpoons] have two teeth and are well worked”, he writes, “later on
only one tooth appears, at about the fifties, and the work is coarser”.146 The range of
the broad bladed hippopotamus harpoon of copper Petrie declared to lie approximately
between S. D. 35 and 60.147 Statements of so precise and minute a nature, when applied
to objects of an origin so remote, are always liable to revision, and the present instance is
no exception to the rule. The accumulation of evidence has shown that one is here justi-
fied only in making chronological divisions on broad lines. The bone, ivory, and horn
harpoons, irrespective of type, range from near the beginning of the predynastic period
to the advent of historic times, when the two-barbed type, as has been seen, was imitated
in copper. These copper derivatives themselves belong to the very end of predynastic
times and to the protodynastic period. The heavy copper harpoon which Petrie carries
back to S. D. 35 belongs in reality to the late predynastic period, after a chronological
point which would about correspond with his S. D. 65. In the representations on the
Egyptian monuments this single barbed type, or one very similar to it, appear as the
characteristic harpoon of the Old Kingdom; symmetrical two-barbed examples are shown
in scenes of the Middle and New Kingdoms, and, as has been noted, an actual specimen
of a bilaterally barbed harpoon head or spear head, dating from the New Kingdom, has
been found (fig. 71). In the Late Period the harpoon seems to have become rare, though
we hear of its use in hippopotamus hunting in Graeco-Roman times. To judge from
some of the harpoons represented as divine attributes in the Ptolemaic period, the favorite
146 Petrie, Diospolis Parva, pl. 3 (sequence table).
146 Ibid., p. 22.
147 Ibid., pl. 4.
0. Bates
from its butt depends a line held by an attendant: how the line was bent on to the head it
is impossible to say. The harpoon shown in the hieroglyph given in fig. 65 is fitted into a
foreshaft in the early manner. It is not barbed, but is of a bisymmetrical leaf form much
like the New Kingdom hippopotamus harpoon in fig. 78. Actual specimens from the
Middle and New Kingdoms are very rare: I have not been able to find heads any of
which could be regarded with certainty as harpoons. The two points shown in fig. 71,
72 might either have been set in foreshafts and used as fish harpoons, or have been solidly
hafted as spears. It is perhaps worth while noting that they are not very well finished,
though they are perfectly serviceable points.
A few words ought here to be said regarding the relative ages of the types which have
been described. Petrie, in his attempt to establish the relative chronology of all the arte-
facts of the predynastic period, naturally did not fail to consider so interesting a class of
objects as the harpoons. The range of the non-metallic points he placed between S. D.
38-58,140 within which limits, he asserted, certain changes in form could be distinguished.
‘‘The earlier [scil. harpoons] have two teeth and are well worked”, he writes, “later on
only one tooth appears, at about the fifties, and the work is coarser”.146 The range of
the broad bladed hippopotamus harpoon of copper Petrie declared to lie approximately
between S. D. 35 and 60.147 Statements of so precise and minute a nature, when applied
to objects of an origin so remote, are always liable to revision, and the present instance is
no exception to the rule. The accumulation of evidence has shown that one is here justi-
fied only in making chronological divisions on broad lines. The bone, ivory, and horn
harpoons, irrespective of type, range from near the beginning of the predynastic period
to the advent of historic times, when the two-barbed type, as has been seen, was imitated
in copper. These copper derivatives themselves belong to the very end of predynastic
times and to the protodynastic period. The heavy copper harpoon which Petrie carries
back to S. D. 35 belongs in reality to the late predynastic period, after a chronological
point which would about correspond with his S. D. 65. In the representations on the
Egyptian monuments this single barbed type, or one very similar to it, appear as the
characteristic harpoon of the Old Kingdom; symmetrical two-barbed examples are shown
in scenes of the Middle and New Kingdoms, and, as has been noted, an actual specimen
of a bilaterally barbed harpoon head or spear head, dating from the New Kingdom, has
been found (fig. 71). In the Late Period the harpoon seems to have become rare, though
we hear of its use in hippopotamus hunting in Graeco-Roman times. To judge from
some of the harpoons represented as divine attributes in the Ptolemaic period, the favorite
146 Petrie, Diospolis Parva, pl. 3 (sequence table).
146 Ibid., p. 22.
147 Ibid., pl. 4.