Hollow-Base Projectile Point

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The long history of human occupation in the Nile valley and nearby deserts is often best documented by the tools left behind when sites were abandoned. In recent years, scholars have become increasingly interested in the early periods of Egyptian settlement, and consequently much more is now known about them. The tools of the early Paleolithic period were often hand axes, but in later periods the tool kits became highly varied, with small stone blades becoming very common items. The variety within and between tool kits was due to differences in the environmental zones people occupied and the types of resources they exploited. During the Epipaleolithic period (ca. 10,000–7000 B.C.), tools that we call arrowheads appear for the first time. The hollow-base arrowhead illustrated here was a common type in the Neolithic period (ca. 7000–4500 B.C.), when the habitation of the Nile valley itself was underway. These projectile points were most often made from chert, often called flint, which was found in the form of cobbles lying on the high desert's surface. Whether the arrowheads were attached to wooden shafts or used in spears is difficult to confirm, but representations of men drawing bows can be seen on jars from the early Predynastic Period (ca. 3600 B.C.).

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art