DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0399
286
Editorial Notes
hartebeeste (?) horn. The encl which passes through the collar has been whittled to a
point; the other is 3.5 cm. wide, and its hammered aspect and the smooth polish of its
sides attest its use for digging. The implement must have been held in the right hand,
and swung from the left shoulder with an out-and-down stroke, as is shown by the
oblique wearing away of one side of the blade. From marks of the hard usage seen on
the heel of the crotch, and from the earth packed into several cracks in the wood, the
implement was evidently used as a dibble as well as a hoe. Except for the lack of a
strengthening cord binding the two arms together, to prevent splitting at the crotch, the
implement is practically identical with the mattock anciently used in Egypt from the Old
Kingdom until Graeco-Roman times.
4. A bronze celt from the Egyptian Delta. In 1913 the Peabody Museum ac-
Fig. 2.
quired the bronze celt shown in fig. 2 (P. M. no.
B. 135). The specimen was brought in Cairo,
and was said on very good authority to have been
found near Zakazik in the Delta. It measures
12.1 cm. from one extremity of the cutting edge
to the other, and 18.5 from the center of the edge
to the rim of the helving-socket. This socket
itself is rectangular with rounded corners, and
measures externally 5 X 3.7 cm. The material is
almost certainly bronze and not copper. The
whole outside surface of the specimen is thickly
coated with a compact, smooth, non-lustrous, light
green patina. Inside the socket, at the end of the
cavity, is a deposit of greyish white mineral matter
(A in section, fig. 3), apparently the remains of a
sand or earth
core round
which the ax was cast. The socket was pierced by
two opposed holes — one centered in each broad
side — through which passed a pin or rivet which
secured the ax to its helve. The latter must have
terminated in a right-angled bend, for the character
of the implement forbids our regarding it as anything but an ax. rlo an imaginary axis
running through the center of the socket to the center of the cutting edge the ax is
bisymmetrical in both plane and long section.
Editorial Notes
hartebeeste (?) horn. The encl which passes through the collar has been whittled to a
point; the other is 3.5 cm. wide, and its hammered aspect and the smooth polish of its
sides attest its use for digging. The implement must have been held in the right hand,
and swung from the left shoulder with an out-and-down stroke, as is shown by the
oblique wearing away of one side of the blade. From marks of the hard usage seen on
the heel of the crotch, and from the earth packed into several cracks in the wood, the
implement was evidently used as a dibble as well as a hoe. Except for the lack of a
strengthening cord binding the two arms together, to prevent splitting at the crotch, the
implement is practically identical with the mattock anciently used in Egypt from the Old
Kingdom until Graeco-Roman times.
4. A bronze celt from the Egyptian Delta. In 1913 the Peabody Museum ac-
Fig. 2.
quired the bronze celt shown in fig. 2 (P. M. no.
B. 135). The specimen was brought in Cairo,
and was said on very good authority to have been
found near Zakazik in the Delta. It measures
12.1 cm. from one extremity of the cutting edge
to the other, and 18.5 from the center of the edge
to the rim of the helving-socket. This socket
itself is rectangular with rounded corners, and
measures externally 5 X 3.7 cm. The material is
almost certainly bronze and not copper. The
whole outside surface of the specimen is thickly
coated with a compact, smooth, non-lustrous, light
green patina. Inside the socket, at the end of the
cavity, is a deposit of greyish white mineral matter
(A in section, fig. 3), apparently the remains of a
sand or earth
core round
which the ax was cast. The socket was pierced by
two opposed holes — one centered in each broad
side — through which passed a pin or rivet which
secured the ax to its helve. The latter must have
terminated in a right-angled bend, for the character
of the implement forbids our regarding it as anything but an ax. rlo an imaginary axis
running through the center of the socket to the center of the cutting edge the ax is
bisymmetrical in both plane and long section.