Chisel

Chisel or stake, from a group of wooden tools used in digging graves through hard gravel. In the excavator’s report Flinders Petrie (1897 p. 32) describes two graves excavated at Deshasheh that had been abandoned before completion. Within one of the unfinished graves (no. 86) at 3.65 metres deep were found several wooden mallets and wooden chisels that had been used to excavate the gravel surface, described by Petrie as “hard and marly, so that it holds firm in upright sides without crumbling”. He describes the chisels as being between 21 – 53 cm long “and show very little breaking at the points, though the heads are sometimes much knocked”. The mallets varied between 28 – 33 cm “and are very little worn; being quite different from the masons’ mallets, which become deeply cut away by working on metal chisels”. With the mallets and chisels were two baskets, one with cords attached to it so that gravel could be lifted up to the surface. The chisel is marked with the number 86 which is a grave Petrie dated to the Fifth Dynasty. CONDITION NOTE (1998): Splitting, white residue, surface dirt. From the Egypt Exploration Fund 1897 excavations at Deshasheh (grave 86).