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Gebel el-Arak Knife
Pre-historic Egypt, Naqada II
(3500-3100 B.C.)
Petrie, W.M. Flinders. The Making of Egypt, London. New York, Sheldon Press; Macmillan, pp. 65-66, 1939. Petrie
famously known as "The Father of Pre-history".
Chapter VII. The Dynastic Conquest
Source of the Conquerors
Adding to the history, there is on the other side of the knife handle
a figure of a hero or divinity subduing two lions. Such a group is widely
spread, anciently, with lions in Elam, Mesoptamia and Greece; tigers
in the Harappa of India; winged bulls or horses in Assyria; ibex in
Arabia and deer in Italy; wolves at Athens; swans in Greece. For various
animals we see that the idea is not the restraint of violence, but the
assumption of power over all Nature, however untamable. Such then is
the purpose of this group, and the source of it is a cold country, for
the hero has a thick coat and cap, and the lions have thick hair under
the whole body as a protection in snow. It must be from mountainous
Elam and not from the plains of Mesopotamia that the figures come. The
two beautiful figures of dogs belong to the Babylonian myth of Etana
on the flying eagle, with two dogs looking up after it (Hayes Ward,
391-5). Below these are exquisitely spirited figures of animals, the
connection of which we cannot realize in the broken connection.
Here is an historic monument of the highest value, but badly wreaked
by the Government policy of seizing discoveries. In a free system of
rewards, the tomb where this lay would have comes under official care,
all collateral objects would have been preserved, and every fragment
of such an ivory could be recovered by sifting. But this object was
never known officially till in the hands of the dealer.
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Conflict
For a demonstration of the invasion by the dynastic race, one of
the greatest events in the history of Egypt, we turn to a single sculpture
in ivory, the knife handle from Gebel el-Arak, probably presented to
some great chief. The flint blade of the knife was a fine example of
parallel flaking. The ivory handle is carved in relief on both sides.
On the top of the first side is shown a combat between short-haired
men with bullet heads and long-haired men. The bullet heads, like the
followers of Narmer, are in all cases getting the better. Both parties
are unclothed, but wear a waist cord to hold up a dagger sheath ( or
penial sheath). The invaders only are armed, using a truncheon. In the
lower scene are two lines of ships, and drowned men lying in the sea
between them. The upper line is of vessels
Egyptologist W.M. Flinders Petrie, famously known as "The Father
of Pre-history". Petrie, excavations at Nagada and Ballas in Upper Egypt
nearly 100 years ago unearth nearly 2200 ancient graves.
He wrote over a thousand books, articles and reviews reporting on his
excavations and his finds. Source
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