1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I.
of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has
been completed.
Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs, lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers of flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed or rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,—inoffensive enough to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm, crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**] The plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at a distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the javelin, and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have no proof however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with the skill of the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to bring it back to its point of departure.[v]
* In several museums, notably at Leyden, we find Egyptian
axes of stone, particularly of serpentine, both rough and
polished.
** In primitive times the bone of an animal served as a
club. This is proved by the shape of the object held in
the hand in the sign and the hieroglyph which is the
determinative in writing for all ideas of violence or
brute force, comes down to us from a time when the principal
weapon was the club, or a bone serving as a club.
*** For the two principal shapes of the bow, see Lepsius,
Der Bogen in der Hieroglypliik (Zeitschrift, 1872, pp. 79-
88). From the earliest times the sign m£ portrays the
soldier equipped with the bow and bundle of arrows; the
quiver was of Asiatic origin, and was not adopted until much
later. In the contemporary texts of the first dynasties, the
idea of weapons is conveyed by the bow, arrow, and club or
axe.
**** The boomerang is still used by certain tribes of the
Nile valley. It is portrayed in the most ancient tombs,
and every museum possesses examples, varying in shape.
Besides the ordinary boomerang, the Egyptians used one which
ended in a knob, and another of semicircular shape: this
latter, reproduced in miniature in cornelian or in red
jasper, served as an amulet, and was placed on the mummy to
furnish the deceased in the other world with a fighting or
hunting weapon.
v The Australian boomerang is much larger than the Egyptian
one; it is about a yard in length, two inches in width, and
three sixteenths of an inch in thickness. For the manner of
handling it, and what can be done with it, see Lubbock,
Prehistoric Man, pp. 402, 403.
2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in the tomb of
Khnumhotpû at Beni-Hasan.
3 The blade is of bronze, and is attached to the wooden
handle by interlacing thongs of leather (Gizeh Museum).
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey.