UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Ancient Civilizations of Africa
resources of the country and gradually refined the techniques required in
making stone and copper tools such as axes, chisels, mallets and adzes
designed with great skill for use in building as well as in industry for such
purposes as drilling holes or fixing blocks. They also fashioned bows,
arrows, daggers, shields and throwing-clubs.
For a long period, and even during historical times, the tools and arms
inherited from the Neolithic period continued to be made of stone. The
chalk cliffs bordering the Nile are rich in flints of large size and excellent
quality which the Egyptians continued to use long after the discovery of
the use of copper and bronze. Furthermore, religious rites often required the
use of stone instruments, a fact that contributed largely to the perpetuation
of stone-cutting techniques and especially of flint knapping.
Very little use was made of iron for metal vases until the very end of the
Pharaonic period, so Egyptian metal-working techniques were confined to
the use of gold, silver, copper, and copper alloys such as bronze and
brass. Traces of the mining and processing of copper ore by Egyptians
have been found in Sinai as well as in Nubia and Buhen where the
Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom possessed copper-smelting plants.
In Sinai and in Nubia, the Egyptians worked with the local populations,
and the techniques used in the processing of metal could, therefore, pass
easily from one culture to the other. This was perhaps the time when
Pharaonic script, through the intermediary of proto-Sinaitic script, which it
influences, played an important part in the invention of the alphabet. It
was perhaps the occasion when copper working became widespread, first
in the Nile basin and then beyond.
As long ago as the early dynastic period (c. —3000), the Egyptians knew,
and employed in making their copper tools, all the basic techniques of
metal working such as forging, hammering, casting, stamping, soldering,
and riveting techniques which they mastered very rapidly. As well as tools,
large Egyptian copper statues have been found which date from —2300.
Texts of an earlier time, dating back to —2900, note the existence of
statues of the same type, and scenes from mastabas of the very earliest
period depict workshops where gold and electrum, which is a blend of gold
and silver, are being fashioned into jewellery. Although gold and copper
working did not originate in Egypt, there is no doubt that Egypt
contributed a great deal to its improvement and extension.
As we stressed at the beginning of this chapter, it is often difficult to
determine whether a particular technique originated in an Asian or African
culture. But, thanks to the representations found in tombs, Egypt at least
provides us with a wealth of information on the techniques used by
craftsmen. In the workshops depicted in paintings or bas-reliefs on the
tomb walls, both above and below ground, one sees, for example, carpenters
and cabinet-makers at work making furniture, weapons and boats, and
the tools they used, such as pliers, hammers, saws, drills, adzes, chisels
and mallets, all faithfully represented and with infinite detail, as well as the
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