Furniture Part

Large cast copper alloy ferrule with expanding capital that may have been used to terminate a pole used in a screen or canopy. It is well formed showing that the metalworker fully understood the technique of inserting core blanks when casting. The ends of long wooden poles where often encased with a ferrule – a sort of ring used to either reinforce a shaft or bind together strands of a material. This was to avoid the wood splitting and to prevent damage to the ends of the pole when it may have been moved. Curator Charles Gatty records on the 'Gatty Slip' in 1884 what the excavator Flinders Petrie wrote on the accompanying label, "Bronze Capital. XXX Dynasty: E.N.E temple area SAN-EL-HAGAR, 1884. House 20". The catalogue card made c 1910 (by Newberry/Peet) notes the provenance as "house 20 G". CONDITION NOTE (1998): Heavily corroded, treated with benzotriazol in November 1985. From the Egypt Exploration Fund 1884 excavations at Tanis (San el-Hagar), directed by William Flinders Petrie; assigned to the Egypt Exploration Fund in the division of finds by the government of Egypt.