The documentary evidence on Egyptian fishing is so slight and fragmentary that were it not for extant implements and representations of fishing scenes its technical history could not be reconstructed even partially. The implements carry us back to about the beginning of the pre-dynastic age, and constitute our principal source of information regarding Nilotic fishing.
But from the beginning of the Old Kingdom until the Roman period the material remains dwindle, while the tomb scenes increase in importance. Later—perhaps in part owing to the changes in the interests of the Egyptian artist—the implements themselves again become of prime significance.[762]
It is impossible in Egypt, or elsewhere, to allot definite priority to Spear (or Harpoon), Net, Hook and Line, or Rod. The fact that all four methods were c. 2000 b.c. in synchronous use establishes merely a date a quo, a date which indicates (if a first appearance really prove anything) that Egypt in Angling by over a thousand years precedes China, where the earliest mention occurs, c. 900 b.c.[763]
EARLY HARPOON.
[See note 1].
[See note 2].
The Spear and the Harpoon, with their cousin the Bident, concern us first. Of the Trident there seems to be neither example or representation. Priority of use may possibly be conceded to the Spear in Palæolithic times. The fact that in Egypt we are dealing with an age, the Copper, separated from the Palæolithic by the New Stone era, prevents even a guess as to priority on the Nile. Egypt, it is true, bequeaths us the oldest historical as apart from archæological data, but these are merely great-great-grandchildren of the débris data of France, and comparatively modern.
Then again, in Europe the Harpoon was rarely combined with objects of the Copper Age, in Egypt frequently.
The Harpoon has been divided by Bates, but, I think, somewhat needlessly, into two types.
(1) A spear barbed unilaterally or bilaterally.