Tools

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Chase Kengott 6/2 1/17/12 Egyptian Tools

Egyptian tools were very useful and were used for a variety of jobs. People used tools to build huge things like pyramids or a simple object like a wooden table. The designs of each tool have hardly changed through the years. Tools will always be made into better materials but will mostly keep their true shape.

Wood, ivory, stone, bone, bronze, copper, and iron have been used for making tools. Wood was the fist material to be used for making tools. Wood was usually used for a handle of a tool but some tools are entirely made of wood. Wood was very important and is still used and loved to this day. Stone eventually replaced wood for making tools. Stone was basically used for three things: pounding, grinding, and cutting. The stone has more impact power than a regular sized piece of timber would have. **Copper soon replaced stone.** **//Copper was the first metal to be worked with in Egypt.//** The best craftsmen preferred metal. A wider variety of tools were available such as ornaments, vessels, weapons, needles, saws, scissors, axes, adzes, harpoons, arrow tips, and knives. **//Bronze was a great improvement on copper.//** It was easier to cast and could be hardened by repeated heating and hammering. The oldest bronze found in Egypt consisted of 90% copper and 10% additional metals, which is one of the best combinations. By 200 BC, **//they changed from bronze tools to iron tools.//** While iron replaced bronze tools completely, bronze was still being used for statues, cases, boxes, vases and other vessels.

Farmers used a hoe for heavy digging. A light wooden plow would turn the soil easily because of the small floods in Egypt. A shaduf is a machine that moves water from a lower place to a higher place. A shaduf was a watering device made from a bucket and a counter weight. It picks up water from a lower area and raises it to where they need it to be. Scribes' tools consist of a palette of colored paints and brushes that were made from reed. Artists’ tools include palettes and wooden paint brushes with split ends for painting.

Ancient Egyptian scientists thought of how to build useful things like levers, ramps, and rollers that moved heavy blocks. Axes were used as weapons of war but were also used for chopping wood or to show the owners power. A mason is a person that builds and works with stone. For thousands of years, masons have hit their chisels with mallets (wooden hammers.) Chisels are made of copper and bronze and were used to create fine details. The tips of chisels could be heated to make them cut better.

All of these tools were very useful and are still being used today. Tools would help anybody, from a farmer to an artist. Ancient Egyptian tools were used for every job. Tools make everything you use daily. Without tools, we would not be at where we are today.

Hart, George and James Putnam. //Ancient Egypt//: DK publishing, 1996 Dr. Hart, George. //Ancient Egypt.// San Frinsisco: Sheena Coupe, 1995 Hart, George. //Ancient Egypt.// New York: DK publishing, 1990 "Composition and Develope of Ancient Egyptian tools." //reshafim//. 2001. [|www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/trades/tools.htm] "Technology of Ancient Egypt." //thinkquest.// [|http://library.thinkquest.org]
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