Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/391

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AN EGYPTIAN ARROW.
369

all the ordinary forms, inasmuch as it is chisel-shaped rather than pointed, and in form much resembles a small gun-flint. The tip of one of these, secured to the shaft by bitumen, is shown in Fig. 272. The original is in the British Museum. In my own collection are some specimens of such arrows. Their total length is about 35 inches and the shafts for about two-thirds of their length are made of reed, the remainder towards the point being of wood. Near the notch for the string are distinct traces of there having been a feather on either side, in the same plane as the notch. It is probable that arrow-heads of similar character may have been in use in Britain, though they have hitherto almost escaped observation, owing to the extreme simplicity of their form. To these I shall subsequently recur.

Fig. 272.—Egypt. 1/1

Some of the Egyptian arrows[1] have supplemental flakes at the sides, so as practically to make the edge of the arrow-head wider.

In October, 1894, the Ghizeh Museum acquired from a Sixth Dynasty tomb at Assiut, two squadrons of soldiers, each of forty figures carved in wood. The figures of one set, presumed to be Egyptians, have a brown complexion and are armed with bronze-tipped spears and with shields. The figures are about 13 inches high. The other group is shorter, and the soldiers are black-skinned and armed with bow and arrows only; each has a bow in his left hand, and in his right four arrows with chisel-shaped heads of flint.[2]

The better-known forms of arrow-heads which occur in Britain may be classed as the leaf-shaped, the lozenge-shaped, the tanged or stemmed, and the triangular, each presenting several varieties. The arrow-heads of the third class are in this country usually barbed; those of the fourth but rarely.

Whether the forms were successively developed in this order is a question difficult of solution; but in an ingenious paper by Mr. W. C. Little, of Liberton, published early in this century, being "An Inquiry into the Expedients used by the Scotts before the Discovery of Metals,"[3] the lozenge-shaped are regarded as the earliest; next, those
  1. See De Morgan, op. cit. p. 121.
  2. Academy, Oct. 27, 1894.
  3. Archæologia Scotica, vol. i. p. 389.