described._

FIGHTING 59 60 61 62 (1/12) 63 (1/12) 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72
HUNTING 73 74 75 76 77 78 (1/10) 79 80 81 82 83 84
AGRICULTURE all 1/20 85 86 87 88 89 90 (1/20) 91 92 (1/10) 93 94
95 (1/12) 96 (1/12)
BUILDING 97 98 99 100 101
THREAD WORK 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109
VASE GRINDING 110 111]

_Metal-Work._--Copper was wrought into pins, a couple of inches long,
with loop heads, as early as the oldest prehistoric graves, before the
use of weaving, and while pottery was scarcely developed. The use of
harpoons and small chisels of copper next arose, then broad flaying
knives, needles and adzes, lastly the axe when the metal was commoner.
On these prehistoric tools, when in fine condition, the original
highly-polished surface remains. It shows no trace of grinding lines or
attrition, nor yet of the blows of a hammer. Probably it was thus highly
finished by beating between polished stone hammers which were almost
flat on the face. Most likely the forms of the tools were cast to begin
with, and then finished and polished by fine hammering. A series of
moulds for casting in the XIIth Dynasty show that the forms were carved
out in thick pieces of pottery, and then lined with fine ashy clay. The
mould was single, so that one side of the tool was the open face of
metal. As early as the pyramid times solid casting by _cire perdue_ was
already used for figures: but the copper statues of Pepi and his son
seem, by their thinness and the piecing together of the parts, to have
been entirely hammered out. The portraiture in such hammer work is
amazingly life-like. By the time of the XIIth Dynasty, and perhaps
earlier, _cire perdue_ casting over an ash core became usual. This was
carried out most skilfully, the metal being often not 1/50th in. thick,
and the core truly centred in the mould. Casting bronze over iron rods
was also done, to gain more stiffness for thin parts.

In gold work the earliest jewelry, that of King Zer of the Ist Dynasty,
shows a perfect mastery of working hollow balls with minute threading
holes, and of soldering with no trace of excess nor difference of
colour. Thin wire was hammered out, but there is no ancient instance of
drawn wire. Castings were not trimmed by filing or grinding, but by
small chisels and hammering (P.R.T. ii. 17). In the XIIth Dynasty the
soldering of the thin cells for the _cloisonnee_ inlaid pectorals, on to
the base plate, is a marvellous