LARGER IMAGE
The Great Navy of Egypt
Under the twelfth dynasty the personality is weaker and the style that of a formal school, highly trained but dependent upon training. In the eighteenth dynasty the vivacity of expression is directed to a purely personal appeal, more of emotion than of character. After that there is nothing but copying, good or bad. The growth of shipping at the early date of Sneferu, the end of the third dynasty, is surprising; and the record that we happen to have shows how much probably went on at other times, there being built, in one year sixty ships of 100 ft. long, in the next year two of 170 ft. long.
METALS. The use of copper is as remote as the beginning of the continuous civilisation in the prehistoric age, about 8000 B.C. It increased in quantity down to the eighteenth dynasty, and it was hardened by using arsenical copper ores, and leaving oxide in it; this, with hammering made it equal to soft steel for working purposes. Rare instances of tin, probably derived from natural mixture in the ore, are known from the third dynasty; but there was no regular use of it until we find pure tin, also known about 1500 B.C. Thence bronze was the main material until Roman times. Iron had been sporadically found in the fourth, sixth, twelfth, and other dynasties, and was known for about 4,000 years before it came into general use in Greek times. This agrees with its having been obtained from native masses rarely discovered, as has been the case in North and South America. Such native iron is the result of volcanic action on iron ore in contact with carboniferous strata. All these conditions exist in Sinai, and hence native iron might be found there. By about 800 B.C. iron was used for knives, but with a handle of bronze cast upon it to save the rarer metal. The iron tools in Egypt from the seventh to fifth century B.C. are all Assyrian or Greek, and it is not till Ptolemaic or Roman times that bronze tools disappear.
TOOLS OF ANCIENT EGYPTIANS
The plain strip of copper used for an adze in the early prehistoric age became in historic times widened at the edge, and had a slight contraction at the top; but the straight strip was kept up for 7,000 years without any attempt at a haft, simply lashed on to a bent handle. It is not till about 800 B.C. that any use of a haft occurs in Egypt, and then only for a hoe. The different dynasties are indicated in the examples here given.
Oldest Rock Drills
The forms of tools varied very little. The plain strip of copper, which was used for an adze in the early prehistoric age, became in historic times widened at the edge, and had a slight contraction at the top to assist in binding it on; but the straight strip was kept up for 7,000 years without any attempt at a haft, simply lashed on to a bent handle. It is not till about 800 B.C., or later, that any use of a haft occurs in Egypt, and then only for a hoe; while in Babylonia axes cast with a strong haft were used before 3000 B.C. Nor was a haft used for a hammer—a smooth stone in the hand was the only beating tool; while for striking tools a wooden mallet was used, cut out of a block. The axe began as a plain rectangle of copper, sharp on one edge; projections at the back were added, until they were half as long as the breadth of the axe, but no haft was attempted. The saw was used before the pyramid period; and also the saw and tube drill set with hard stones for cutting granite. Drills for boring vases were usually blocks of stone fed with sand and water, or probably emery for cutting the harder stones. Socketted chisels were an Italian invention in the later Bronze Age, about 900 B.C., and were copied by the Greeks, in iron, about 500 B.C.; but they were never used except under Greek influence in Egypt. Shears are also Western, and were unknown till Greek times in Egypt.
