Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

FIRST HOOKS BARBLESS 313In Egypt no records of the progenitor of this copper Hooksurvive. No family tree helps us, as elsewhere, to surmisewhether the thorn, the flint, or the shell constituted the materialof the first hook, for no non-metallic prototype has come tolight. The numerous bone and ivory points, all more or lesslike the slender rod or pin of ivory shown in El Anirah andAbydos} may, perhaps, indicate the gorges used by fishermenin pre-dynastic times. The absence, however, in the aboveexample of any indentation in the middle, round which theline was frequently attached, tends (in my view) rather tonegative the suggestion.The earliest hooks were of simple shape. The point wasThe head, which in all cases lay in the plane of thebarbless.hook, was formed by doubling over the end of the shankagainst the outside of the latter, so as to form a stop or aneye, which might, or might not, have been an open one. 2Theirlength (varying from 2 to 6 cms.), if contrasted with the bronzehooks of the Swiss Lakes, is short in proportion to theirwidth from the outside of the point to the outside of theshank. 3The Xllth Dynasty displays a few barbed hooks alongsidebarbless ones. One of the latter, belonging to Petrie, excitesour interest, for the string of its attachment (some nine inchesin length) is composed of double stout twist, while anotherproves itself the ancestor—in fact itself is—the Limerick hookwith a single barb.By the XVIIIth Dynasty barbed hooks, usually of bronze,largely predominate.Instead of being headed up in the olderfashion they show the end of the shank expanded, so as toform a small flange in a plane at right angles to that of thehook. A line bent on the shank below this flange (even ifslight), and drawn hard up against it had the advantage ofchafing less than when made fast to a hook of the earlier type.The New Kingdom hooks, which continue scarcely altered in' Mac Iver and Mace (London, 1902), PI. VII. i.* T. E. Peet, The Cemeteries of Abydos (London, 1914), Pt. 2, PI. XXXIX. 3.^ For twenty-five figures of hooks, see Bates, PI. XI. For others curiouslyshaped, probably Vth Dynasty, see Lepsius, Denkmdler, etc. (Berhn, 1849), II.p. 96.