ANCIENT EGYPTIAN POTTERY.[ToList]
For ornamental purposes, and sometimes even for coffins, doors and boxes, foreign woods were employed; deal and cedar were imported from Syria; and part of the contributions, exacted from the conquered tribes of Ethiopia, and Asia, consisted in ebony and other rare woods, which were annually brought by the chiefs, deputed to present their country's tribute to the Egyptian Pharaohs.
Boxes, chairs, tables, sofas, and other pieces of furniture were frequently made of ebony, inlaid with ivory, sycamore and acacia, were veneered with thin layers, or ornamented with carved devices of rare wood, applied or let into them; and a fondness for this display suggested to the Egyptians the art of painting common boards, to imitate foreign varieties, so generally adopted in other countries at the present day.
The colors were usually applied on a thin coating of stucco, laid smoothly upon the previously prepared wood, and the various knots and grains painted upon this ground indicated the quality of the wood they intended to counterfeit.
The usual tools of the carpenter were the ax, adze, handsaw, chisels of various kinds (which were struck with a wooden mallet), the drill, and two sorts of planes (one resembling a chisel, the other apparently of stone, acting as a rasp on the surface of the wood, which was afterwards polished by a smooth body, probably also of stone); and these, with the ruler, plummet, and right angle, a leather bag containing nails, the hone, and the horn of oil, constituted the principal, and perhaps the only, implements he used.
Many adzes, saws and chisels, have been found at Thebes. The blades are all of bronze, the handles of the acacia or the tamarisk; and the general mode of fastening the blade to the handle appears to have been by thongs of hide. It is probable that some of those discovered in the tombs are only models, or unfinished specimens, and it may have been thought sufficient to show their external appearance, without the necessity of nailing them, beneath the thongs, for those they worked with were bound in the same manner, though we believe them to have been also secured with nails. Some, however, evidently belonged to the individuals in whose tombs they were buried, and appear to have been used; and the chisels often bear signs of having been beaten with the mallet.
The drill is frequently represented in the sculptures. Like all the other tools, it was of the earliest date, and precisely similar to that of modern Egypt, even to the nut of the dom in which it turned, and the form of its bow with a leathern thong.
The chisel was employed for the same purposes, and in the same manner, as at the present day, and was struck with a wooden mallet, sometimes flat at the two ends, sometimes of circular or oval form; several of which last have been found at Thebes, and are in European museums. The handles of the chisel were of acacia, tamarisk, or other compact wood, the blades of bronze, and the form of the points varied in breadth, according to the work for which they were intended.
The hatchet was principally used by boat-builders, and those who made large pieces of frame-work; and trees were felled with the same instrument.
With the carpenters may be mentioned the wheelwrights, the makers of coffins, and the coopers, and this sub-division of one class of artisans shows that they had systematically adopted the partition of labor.