SPEARS— HARPOONS 309 



To the latter the eadiest Harpoons in Egypt appear to 

 be the three-toothed bone Harpoons of the first prehistoric 

 age. The representation of launching the Harpoon at fish is 

 one of the commonest in tombs from the Vth to the XVnith 

 Dynasties. The truth seems to be that the Harpoon as a 

 means of livelihood ceased in the second prehistoric age, but 

 as an instrument of sport lasted much later, though in the 

 latest paintings it may be only a rehgious archaism. 1 



Seventy years have failed to displace substantially Wilkin- 

 son's statements : fish-spearing from bank or papyrus punt 

 was the sportsman's method : the spear or bident,2 about 

 nine to twelve feet long, was thrust at passing fish : to it a 

 long line (held in the left hand) was usually fastened for the 

 purpose of recovering the weapon and the fish, if struck. 

 Sometimes the weapon was feathered like an arrow (the 

 author was possibly misled by or is alluding to the hieroglyph 



), or was just like a common spear. 



If the statement be correct that " the bilaterally barbed 

 Harpoon is almost unknown before the Middle Kingdom 

 times," 3 we are faced by the remarkable fact of a weapon 

 found again and again in the Magdalenian epoch of Palaeolithic 

 Man — each reader can supply his own conjecture how many 

 millenniums before — being absent in a culture famihar with 

 Copper Age hooks and harpoons. 



But hold what view we may as to the original priority of 

 implement, examples of Spear-Harpoons are found in Egypt, at 

 any rate, much earher than those of either the Net or the Hook. 



An illustration or two will serve to confirm the sporting 

 use of the Harpoon, as advanced by Wilkinson and Petrie, 



The first, a fine representation, depicts, in fig. 3, probably 

 Khenemhetep standing in a papyrus boat in the act of spearing 



^ Tools and Weapons (London, 191 7), p. 37. 



2 Bates holds (244) that the bident was only used by the nobles, and never 

 by the professional fistierman, who employed nets, lines, traps, etc., but never 

 the bident. He sees an analogy in the throwing sticks used by the nobles 

 in the Old Kingdom fowling scenes, " whereas the peasants appear to have 

 taken birds only by traps or clap nets." 



* Bates, p. 239. 



