Pounding stone
Medium:Dolerite (diabase)
Geography: Luxor, Egypt
Date: c. 4000-3000 BC
Period: Predynastic Period
Object number: 909.80.682
Gallery Location:Galleries of Africa: Egypt
Description
The Ancient Egyptians seem to have
preferred to use a stone pounder to a hammer with a handle for quarrying and dressing hard rocks such
as granite. Harrell et al. determined
that the rounded form usually seen in Museums was the last stage in the use
these rocks as active tools; they would have been more useful while still angular,
compact and roughly rectangular. The rounded form was a product of the process
of pounding, and, as the stones became more rounded, they became less useful
and would have been discarded when they reached the elegant ‘museum’ shape of this artifact. Harrell et al. also suggest, in answer to
Petrie’s question of how human wrists could withstand the action of pounding
with such a tool, that the stones were released just before impact on a
downward throw, and caught on the rebound.
