CHAPTER XXIV 



TACKLE 



" / tell you that the fisherman suffers more than any other. 

 Consider, is he not toiling on the River ? He is mixed up with the 

 crocodiles : should the clumps of papyrus give way, then he shouts 

 for help." 1 



Now let us see by what implements and devices this " plenty 

 of fish " was made to pay toll. 



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. 2 



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 estabHshes 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 

 earUest mention occurs, c. 900 B.C. 3 



The Spear and the Harpoon, with their cousin the Bident, 



^ The Scribe on the Praise of Learning. Cf. Maspero, Le Genre epistolaire 

 chez les Egyptiens (1872), p. 48. 



^ Bates, p. 199 * See Chinese Chapter. 



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