CHAPTER XXIV 
TACKLE 
“T 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.” 3 
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.? 
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 establishes merely a date @ 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 
earliest mention occurs, c. 900 B.C.3 
The Spear and the Harpoon, with their cousin the Bident, 
1 The Scribe on the Praise of Learning. Cf. Maspero, Le Genve epistolaive 
chez les Egyptiens (1872), p. 48. 
2 Bates, p. 199. 3 See Chinese Chapter. 
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