ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MORTAR.
In many of the ancient Egyptian papyri we find directions given to bruise certain herbs and roots, but no mention is made of the implement used for that purpose; carvings in stone, however, are extant which show the mortars used by the Egyptians were similar in form to those employed several centuries later.
It is interesting to note that the mortar has also been known to several Oriental and savage races from time immemorial; and in the mortar employed by the pharmacist to-day we have an implement that links us not only with prehistoric man, but also with the savage races of the world. In Africa, mortars and pestles of wood have been used from a period of unknown antiquity for the purpose of crushing grain. The one illustrated in Fig. [1] is composed of wood, and was brought from Central Africa. In India, stone mortars with wooden pestles have for centuries been used for shelling and pounding rice. Fig. [2] represents a Cingalese mortar of stone, from two to three feet in height, taken from a drawing of the seventeenth century.
FIG. 1.
