Ancient Egyptian metal model tools as the evidence of the patron-craftsman dependence and dependent craft specialization
Abstract
I would like to examine ancient Egyptian patronage in this paper from the point of view of metal tools and model tools, as the symbols of the dependent craft specialization, not only in the past lives of ancient Egyptians, but also in their Afterlife. Often uninscribed, with corrosion also inconspicuous at present, the metal tools were symbols of the connections between patrons and craftsmen, not only in Egypt.
In Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, various ancient Near Eastern cultures deposited copper alloy artisan tool blades in the elite and also less wealthy burials, from Nubia to Caucasus. In Egypt, this deposition begins in burials of Naqada culture and continued into the Early Dynastic period.
Full-size tools were later changed predominantly into models, starting with Dynasty 2. Metal tools and their models occurred in Egypt mostly in burial equipment and from the Middle Kingdom on also in foundation deposits, approach to their use and production changed almost in each period and dynasty.
On the basis of available sources, we can attempt correct reading and interpretation of the tool and model tool assemblages in ancient Egyptian contexts.. If we examine the artefact definitions, those metal tools were most frequently chisels, adzes, axes and saws, thus the tool kits of carpenters, shipwrights and stonemasons.
As these periods followed a set of rules for the organization of burials, it is possible to single out the tombs of patrons ordering the craftwork on the one hand, and the graves of the metalworkers and craftsmen themselves on the other hand. The sources speak not only about metalworking specialists but also about the nature of cross-craftsmanship in the studied periods.