HISTORY IN TOOLS 



By W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, F.R.S., D.C.L., F.B.A., LL.D., Litt.D. 



Professor of Egyptology, London University 



In modern teaching, political history has overshadowed all 

 other aspects of man, and the general history of civilisation 

 has not yet received recognition. It matters nothing whether 

 Aristotle, Euclid, Newton or Pasteur, lived under a republic or 

 a despotism ; but it is of the first importance in history to 

 know the influence of such thinkers and discoverers. The 

 movement of man's mind in ideas, knowledge, and abilities 

 should be one of the principal and most stimulating subjects 

 in education. This would not be a materialistic limitation, and 

 one side of it has been admirably written already in Lecky's 

 History of Morals. 



Among the activities of man, the development of his means 

 of work must certainly be considered. But while there are 

 many books on offence and defence, arms and armour, there is 

 none that traces the history of the mechanical aids. Thousands 

 of writers have described the sculptures of the Parthenon, 

 not one has described the means used in performing that work. 

 It is a mystery to us how fluted columns with an entasis could 

 be produced, true to a hundredth of an inch, in the diameters 

 between the deep groovings. 



In taking up the neglected history of tools, 1 the nature of 

 the materials used is the first view to consider. After the stone 

 ages, the order of metals, — bronze and then iron, — is tolerably 

 well known. Of late years an earlier age of copper has been 

 noticed in several countries ; and this again may be divided 

 into an age of native copper and an age of smelted copper. 

 The use of copper in the American hemisphere was entirely 

 limited to native copper, never smelted ; in fact it was the 

 stone age, including a malleable stone. Native copper is also 

 found in various places in Europe and Asia, and it seems only 



1 A first step in historical treatment I have attempted, in a catalogue comparing 

 the tools of Egypt with those of other lands,' Tools and Weapons, with 3,000 figures. 



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