HUNTING. The main occupation represented in the prehistoric paintings is hunting. The bow and arrow was used. The bow was a single piece of wood, painted red and covered with zigzag white lines; the arrow was of reed, with a point several inches long of hard wood. The forked lance of flint was also a favourite weapon [p. 238]; it was inserted at the end of a wooden shaft, which was controlled by a long thong of leather ending in alabaster knobs which kept it from entirely flying from the fingers. Thus the lance could be thrown by a man in ambush to cut the legs of a gazelle, while, if it missed, it was jerked back by the elastic thong, and so saved from breaking the delicate edge of flint. These forked lances are found throughout nearly all the prehistoric time; and they continued in use in North Africa till the Roman Age, when Commodus borrowed thence their use for hunting the ostrich. This lance retained by a thong was the parallel to the favourite harpoon used in fishing. Another mode of hunting was the trap. This is represented as being formed of pointed splints or stakes, lashed together like spokes of a wheel, with the points around a central hollow. Such traps to catch the legs of animals are used now in Africa, and an example was found at the Ramesseum, dating perhaps from the twentieth dynasty. Sticks or clubs were used in hunting and in fighting.
STANDARDS OF EGYPTIAN SHIPS
There has been much speculation as to the significance of the standards carried by the most ancient of the Egyptian vessels, as recorded on pottery and elsewhere. Some examples of these standards are here given. The most reasonable supposition is that these devices indicated the port from which the vessel sailed.
FIGHTING. The earliest representation of fighting is on a vase of the white slip on red, at the beginning of the prehistoric age. On that a man with long, wavy hair appears to be spearing another man in the side. Later, there are the fighters on the Hierakonpolis tomb, at about S.D. 63. On this hooked sticks are used, and the fighters are clad with a spotted animal’s hide on the back. One man has been killed, and another is hard pressed, fallen on one knee. To save himself from blows he has taken off the hide and is holding it up, thus anticipating the use of the shield. It seems likely that the Egyptian shields of hide stretched on a frame of sticks were directly copied from this use of the hide that was otherwise worn on the body. In another group a black man is holding three red captives bound with a black cord, while two red men approach him to deliver their kindred.
Fighting with Maces
The weapons mostly found are the stone maces [[page 238]]. These were sharp-edged discs in the earlier age, a form which is very effective in a mixed fight, as it cannot be turned aside like a battleaxe, but must cut in whatever direction it falls. These maces were usually made of porphyry and other quartzose rocks. The mace used in the later age was of a pear shape, and this form was continued into the historic times, and perpetuated in the conventional scene of the king striking an enemy, even in the latest times. The handle holes in these maces are very small, and this shows that probably the handles were dried thongs of hide. Nothing else would be sufficiently tough and elastic. The flint dagger was probably also used, and certainly the copper dagger. A very fine example of this, dated to S.D. 55 or 60, is wrought with a quadrangular blade, giving the utmost strength and lightness, a better design than that of any daggers of the historic times.
