Axe

Axe blade with concave sides, convex cutting edge, lug for hafting onto a long straight wooden handle, which has a small hole in it near the base. There was originally a copper band on the handle beneath the haft. The stringing is not original. There is a pencil mark '97' written on the handle, corresponding with the grave number. W. M. F. Petrie considered the narrow-waisted axes he found at Rifeh to be of the early 18th Dynasty. Compare with one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no.39.3.56 (published in 'The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt', p. 40);