1940 



MACHINERY 



MACHINERY 



is likely to be. One should look up the new ideas in 

 tools each year as one does in markets or crops. The 

 advertising pages of rural journals are suggestive in 

 this direction. 



Hoeing the ground. 



Plow drawn by oxen. 

 2242. Tools in the sculptures on a Theban tomb. 



The very early tool for opening or tilling the ground 

 appears to have been a forked or crotched stick, one 

 prong of which was used as a handle and the other as a 

 cleaving instrument. From this the hoe and the plow 

 appear to have developed. (Fig. 2242.) 

 This set of illustrations shows sculptures 

 from a Theban tomb "of the eighteenth 

 or the beginning of the nineteenth 

 dynasty;" it is reproduced from Dau- 

 beny's "Lectures on Roman Husbandry," 

 in which it is said that "The plough 

 itself is nothing more than a modification 

 of the hoe, which was first dragged along 

 the ground by manual labor, before" the 

 force of oxen was substituted." 



In "The Museum Journal," published 

 by The University Museum of Phila- 

 delphia, June, 1910, Babylonian Section, 

 is an interesting account by A. T. C., of 

 "an ancient plow," together with an 

 illustration (Fig. 2243). "An exceed- 

 ingly interesting seal impression depicting 

 a plow, drawn by two oxen, is found on a 

 clay tablet with a cuneiform inscription 

 in the University Museum. This tablet belongs to the 

 Cassite period of Babylonian history, and is dated in 

 the fourth year of the reign of Nazi-Maruttash, who 

 lived in the fourteenth century before Christ. The seal 

 used to make the impression must have been an unu- 

 sually large one, for it measured about 2^ inches in 

 length. After the surface of the soft clay tablet had 

 been covered with writing this seal, which was of the 

 usual cylindrical form, was run like a roller over the 

 inscription on both sides and the four edges of the 

 tablet, which measure about 2% by 4J^ inches. That 

 is, the entire document was covered with the impressions 

 of different parts of this large seal. Unfortunately, 

 there is no complete impression of the seal on the tablet. 



Some of the parts were repeated a number of times, 

 but other parts seem to be entirely wanting. Moreover, 

 the surface of a portion of the tablet has suffered con- 

 siderably, due probably to the moisture in the earth, or 

 exposure to the atmosphere after the tablet had been 

 excavated. The accompanying drawing of the seal 

 impression (Fig. 2243) was made after a careful study 

 of the different traces found on the various parts of the 

 tablet by Herman Faber, Miss Baker and the writer. 



"The plow gang consists of three men. The one 

 depicted larger in size than the others is doubtless the 

 chief. He appears to be driving the animals, as is 

 indicated by his raised arm, perhaps holding a whip. 

 Another, having a bag over his shoulder, is in the act of 

 feeding the tube or grain-drill, through which the seed 

 was dropped into the furrow made by the plow, which 

 is being guided by the third man. The animals draw- 

 ing the plow, known as alpu, 'ox,' in the inscription, 

 are in use in Babylonia at the present time. It is the 

 Zebu or humped bull (Bos indicus). 



"The individual for whom the seal was cut regarded 

 himself as a devotee of Nin-Sar, the god of vegetation, 

 as the first line of the inscription shows (Arad-NIN- 

 SAR). Unfortunately the name of the owner in the 

 second line is so imperfectly preserved that it cannot be 

 read. 



"For some time other representations of the plow in 

 antiquity have been known, but in no instance is it so 

 accurately represented as in this seal impression. A 

 boundary stone of Meli-Shipak, of the Cassite period, 

 recently found at Susa, contains the picture of a plow, 

 which has hitherto been regarded as the earliest. It 

 does not seem to have a tube. There is another picture 

 of a plow found on an undated fragment belonging to 

 the same period. Later representations of plows with 

 tubes are found on monuments of Sennacherib and 

 Esarhaddon. Plows similar to the one found in this 

 seal impression are in use in Syria at the present time. 

 The plow on the Museum tablet, here discussed, is the 

 earliest known, being about a century earlier than the 

 one on the boundary stone belonging to the reign of 

 Meli-Shipak. 







2243. Men plowing and sowing. From a Babylonian seal 

 impression, 14th century B. C. 



