Flint bangles such as this one are mainly found in burials. The deceased often wore multiple bangles together, on one or both forearms. These items were in use for a relatively short time, only during the Early Dynastic period, and most examples date specifically to the First Dynasty. They were made through a combination of flaking and grinding. Flint bangles were extremely difficult to produce and demonstrate the exceptionally high degree of expertise achieved by Egypt’s flint knappers. They also show that Ancient Egyptians used flint for personal adornment and display, not just to make implements needed for utilitarian and subsistence purposes.
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Title:Bracelet (Bangle) Fragment
Period:Early Dynastic Period
Dynasty:Dynasty 1
Date:ca. 3100–2649 B.C.
Geography:From Egypt, Northern Upper Egypt, Abydos, Umm el-Qaab, Tomb of Djer, Egypt Exploration Fund excavations
Medium:Flint
Dimensions:Diam. 6.9 × L. 6.5 × W. 0.6 × H. 0.7 cm, Wt. 5.7g (2 11/16 × 2 9/16 × 3/16 × 5/16 in., 0.201oz.)
Credit Line:Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1900
Accession Number:01.4.119
Discussion of the group:
This flint bangle fragment is one of five in The Met’s collection (01.4.116 – 01.4.120) which come from the Tomb of Djer in Abydos (Petrie 1901b: 37, Pl. 35). The individual pieces do not fit together, and slight differences in size indicate they derive from at least four separate bangles. The Pitt Rivers Museum houses some additional fragments from the same tomb.
There were at least two production sites for flint bangles, Wadi el-Sheikh (Köhler et al. 2017) and Wadi Sannur (Briois and Midant-Reynes 2014, 2015), both of which are places where flint mining took place. Unfinished pieces, including disk-shaped preforms, and flaked but unpolished bangle fragments have been found at these sites, and provide indications of the production process. Thin flat nodules or large flakes were selected as the blanks, then flaked into even flat disks through soft or hard hammer direct percussion. Next, a hole was started in the center of the piece probably by small pecking or chipping, as can be seen on some remaining fragments. Drilling or a punch could have been used in combination with the chipping, but so far, there is no direct evidence for either. This stage of hollowing was clearly the most skillful and riskiest part of the process as many all of the disk fragments broke at this point, sheering through the center. Once the hole was made, it was widened by flaking perpendicular to the face of the disk. Afterwards the flaked bangles must have been transported to the Nile valley and Delta, where most of the finished products are found. The time-consuming polishing stage must have taken place in the settlements rather than at the flint mining sites, because some flaked bangle fragments and very few polished fragments have been found in Nile valley settlement sites (Kabacinski 2003; Katthagen 1985; Schmidt 1987, 1989, 1992; Pawlik 2006; Quibell & Petrie 1900). The majority of bangles were polished and come from cemetery contexts (Klasens 1958; Köhler 2004; Petrie 1901a,b, 1902, 1907, 1913; Petrie & Brunton 1924; Reisner 1908; Saad 1947).
The degree of polishing varies from barely polished, where practically all flake scars are still visible, to completely polished, where all flake scars were obliterated. This variability indicates that there was not one prevailing "look" desired for these items. However, polished flint bangles are much more numerous than simply flaked ones, so it is likely that most were intended to be polished to some degree. Polished bangles are found almost entirely in cemetery contexts, which suggests that these items may have been produced especially for the afterlife since polished fragments would be more frequent in settlements if these fragile items were worn during life. Often the deceased wore multiple bangles together. In Tarkhan tomb 149, the tomb occupant wore four on each arm (Petrie 1913: 11, 22, Pl. 3). The owner of Hiw Tomb U 354 wore six on one arm (Petrie 1901b: 36, Pl. 7). And the deceased in Abydos tomb M14 rather strikingly wore seven on one arm and one on the other (Petrie 1902: 16). Like the variability in polishing, there was some flexibility in how flint bangles could be used to adorn the body.
These bangles show that flinknapping skill and creativity was alive and well in the Early Dynastic period, with a production process that stretched across the country, applied to making beautiful, delicate and technologically intricate jewelry that could transform the body of the deceased in the afterlife.
Discussion of the individual piece:
This bangle fragment was made through a combination of flaking and grinding. Only three very small flake scar remnants are visible, one on the interior, and two on the exterior edge. It is not possible to determine if the interior flaking was applied from one direction or two because the piece was so thoroughly ground. The cross section is D-shaped, but the interior is slightly convex due to grinding from both faces. The raw material is an opaque dark grayish brown (10YR 4/2). Approximately 40% of the bangle’s circumference is present. The interior diameter is estimated at 5.9cm. Although this piece and fragment 01.4.120 do not fit together, they may be pieces of the same bangle because both have matching dimensions and raw material.
Elizabeth Hart, J. Clawson Mills Research Fellow, 2018
References
Briois, François, and Beatrix Midant-Reynes 2014. "Sur Les Traces de Georg August Schweinfurth. Les Sites d’exploitation Du Silex d’époque Pharaonique Dans Le Massif Du Galâlâ Nord (Désert Oriental)." In Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’archéologie Orientale 114, pp. 73–98.
——— 2015. "Wadi Sannur. In: Rapport d’activité 2014-2015." In Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’archéologie Orientale 115 (Supplement), pp. 49–55.
Kabacinski, Jacek 2003. "Lithic industry at Tell el-Farkha (Eastern Delta)." In Cultural Markers in the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa and Recent Research, edited by L. Krzyżaniak, K. Kroeper, and M. Kobusiewicz. Studies in African Archaeology 8. Poznań: Poznań Archaeological Museum, pp. 201-212.
Katthagen, Beate 1985. Die Silexartefacte Aus Elephantine. Ein Beitrag Zur Steinindustrie Des Alten Reiches in Ägypten. M.A. Thesis. Tübingen: University of Tübingen.
Klasens, Adolf 1958. "The Excavations of the Leiden Museum of Antiquities at Abu-Roash: Report of the Second Season 1958. Part I." In Oudheidkundige Mededelingen Uit Het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden 39, pp. 32–55.
Köhler, E. Christiana 2004. The Cairo Museum Collection of Artefacts from Zaki Saad’s Excavations at Helwan. Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture 8. Armidale: Museum of Antiquities (University of New England).
Köhler, E. Christiana, Elizabeth Hart, and Michael Klaunzer 2017. "Wadi El-Sheikh: A New Archaeological Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Chert Mines." In PLoS ONE 12 (2), pp. 1-38.
Pawlik, Alfred 2006 "The Lithic Industry of the Pharaonic Site Kom Al-Ahmar in Middle Egypt and Its Relationship to the Flint Mines of the Wadi Al-Sheikh." In Stone Age Mining-Age, edited by G. Körlin, and G. Weisgerber. Veröffentlichungen Aus Dem Deutschen Bergbau-Museum 148. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum, pp. 193–209.
Petrie, William M. Flinders. 1901a. Diospolis Parva: The Cemeteries of Abadigeh and Hu. 1898-1899. Egypt Exploration Fund 20. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
——— 1901b. The Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties. Part II. Egypt Exploration Fund 21. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
——— 1902. Abydos. I. Egypt Exploration Fund 22. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
——— 1907. Gizeh and Rifeh. Publications of the Egyptian Research Account and British School of Archaeology in Egypt 13. London: B. Quaritch.
——— 1913. Tarkhan I and Memphis V. Publications of the Egyptian Research Account and British School of Archaeology in Egypt 23. London: B. Quaritch.
Petrie, William M. Flinders, and Guy Brunton 1924. Sedment. I. Publications of the Egyptian Research Account and British School of Archaeology in Egypt 34. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt.
Pitt Rivers, Augustus Henry Lane-Fox 1882. "On the Discovery of Chert Implements in Stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley Near Thebes." In The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 11, pp. 382–400.
Quibell, James Edward, and William M. Flinders Petrie 1900. Hierakonpolis I. Egyptian Research Account 4. London: B. Quaritch.
Reisner, George Andrew 1908. The Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-Ed-Dêr. Part I. University of California Publications. Egyptian Archaeology. 2. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Saad, Zaki Yusef. 1947. Royal Excavations at Saqqara and Helwan (1941-1945). Annales Du Service Des Antiquités de l’Égypte, Suppl. Cahier 3. Le Caire: Service des antiquités.
Schmidt, Klaus. 1987. "Die Lithischen Kleinfunde." In Tell El-Fara’in - Buto, 2. Bericht., edited by T. von der Way. In Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 43, pp. 250–55.
——— 1989. "Die Lithischen Kleinfunde." In Tell El-Fara’in - Buto, 4. Bericht., edited by T. von der Way. In Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 45, pp. 300–307.
——— 1992a. "Tell el-Fara'in/Buto and el-Tell el-Iswid (South): The Lithic Industries from the Chalcolithic to the Early Old Kingdom." In The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium B.C. : Proceedings of the Seminar Held in Cairo, 21.-24. October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies, edited by E. C. M. van den Brink. Tel Aviv, Israel: E.C.M. van den Brink, pp. 31–41.
——— 1992b. "Tell Ibrahim Awad: Preliminary Report on the Lithic Industries." In The Nile Delta in Transition: 4th.-3rd. Millennium B.C. : Proceedings of the Seminar Held in Cairo, 21.-24. October 1990, at the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies, edited by E. C. M. van den Brink. Tel Aviv, Israel: E.C.M. van den Brink, pp. 79–96.
Egypt Exploration Fund excavations. Acquired by the EEF in the division of finds. Acquired by the Museum through subscription to the EEF, 1901.
Petrie, William Matthew Flinders, Sir 1901. Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties. Part II., Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 21. London: Egypt Exploration Society, p. 37; pl. 35.
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