Actual specimens of Net twine prepared from flaxen and other vegetable fibres were discovered at Kahun in balls of two-strand and of three-strand string of the XIIth Dynasty. Fragments of Nets “having ½ to ¾ inch (1·2 to 1·9 cm.) mesh, the smallest being ⅛ inch (say 0·3 cm.) square,” came to hand at the same locality.[799]
Kahun yielded also some fragments of later, probably XVIIIth Dynasty, Nets, with meshes from 0·5 to 1·5 cm. and made of coarser twine than the earlier examples,[800] whose fineness of mesh tallies with the small size of some of the ancient needles.
Weels or wicker fisher traps (especially in the Old Kingdom) come down to us either small (about 1 m. 50 long), simply constructed, and capable of manipulation by two men, or very large, of more complex fashioning internally, and requiring several men to handle.[801]
Whether the Egyptians employed poisons, like most of the Mediterranean nations, I have not discovered. As examples, they are impossible of survival; for depictment of their actual use not even the boldest Nilotic Cubist would have been adequate, unless he imitated the Athenian artist by hieroglyphing “These be poisons”!
A FISHING SCENE.
From N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrawi, Pt. 2, Pl. 5.