FIRST HOOKS BARBLESS 313 
In Egypt no records of the progenitor of this copper Hook 
survive. No family tree helps us, as elsewhere, to surmise 
whether the thorn, the flint, or the shell constituted the material 
of the first hook, for no non-metallic prototype has come to 
light. The numerous bone and ivory points, all more or less 
like the slender rod or pin of ivory shown in El Amrah and 
Abydos,! may, perhaps, indicate the gorges used by fishermen 
in pre-dynastic times. The absence, however, in the above 
example of any indentation in the middle, round which the 
line was frequently attached, tends (in my view) rather to 
negative the suggestion. 
The earliest hooks were of simple shape. The point was 
barbless. The head, which in all cases lay in the plane of the 
hook, was formed by doubling over the end of the shank 
against the outside of the latter, so as to form a stop or an 
eye, which might, or might not, have been an open one.?_ Their 
length (varying from 2 to 6 cms.), if contrasted with the bronze 
hooks of the Swiss Lakes, is short in proportion to their 
width from the outside of the point to the outside of the 
shank.? 
The XIIth Dynasty displays a few barbed hooks alongside 
barbless ones. One of the latter, belonging to Petrie, excites 
our interest, for the string of its attachment (some nine inches 
in length) is composed of double stout twist, while another 
proves itself the ancestor—in fact itself is—the Limerick hook 
with a single barb. 
By the XVIIIth Dynasty barbed hooks, usually of bronze, 
largely predominate. Instead of being headed up in the older 
fashion they show the end of the shank expanded, so as to 
form a small flange in a plane at right angles to that of the 
hook. A line bent on the shank below this flange (even if 
slight), and drawn hard up against it had the advantage of 
chafing less than when made fast to a hook of the earlier type. 
The New Kingdom hooks, which continue scarcely altered in 
1 Mac Iver and Mace (London, 1902), Pl. VII. 1. 
2 T.E. Peet, The Cemeteries of Abydos (London, 1914), Pt. 2, Pl. XX XIX. 3. 
3 For twenty-five figures of hooks, see Bates, Pl. XI. For others curiously 
shaped, probably Vth Dynasty, see Lepsius, Denkmaler, etc. (Berlin, 1849), II. 
p. 96. 
