SPEARS—HARPOONS 309 
To the latter the earliest 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 XVITIth 
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 religious archaism.! 
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,? 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 
fp. 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 Paleolithic 
Man—each reader can supply his own conjecture how many 
millenniums before—being absent in a culture familiar 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 earlier 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 
1 Tools and Weapons (London, 1917), p. 37. 
2 Bates holds (244) that the bident was only used by the nobles, and never 
by the professional fisherman, 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.” 
3 Bates, p, 239. 
