Close to a century ago, researchers unearthed a small, unusual metal object during excavations at a cemetery in Upper Egypt. Now, a reinvestigation into the curious find has identified it as the earliest known rotary drill ever found in association with ancient Egyptian archaeology.
The small artifact, which measures less than 64 millimeters across and weighs under two grams, is crafted from copper-alloy and dates to the late 4th millennium BCE, which coincides with Egypt’s Predynastic period, a remote era that predates the reign of the earliest pharaohs.
The remarkable discovery, which experts now characterize as “a mechanically sophisticated drilling tool,” was recently detailed in a study published in the journal Egypt and the Levant.
An Ancient Curiosity Comes into Focus
The small artifact, retrieved from the burial of an ancient predynastic Egyptian man identified as Grave 3932, was first documented in the 1920s. At that time, the object was described as “a little awl of copper, with some leather thong wound round it,” a description that offered researchers little to go on as to what its potential use might have been.
Now, according to a team of archaeologists at Newcastle University, working in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, re-examination of the object under magnification has revealed wear patterns that are consistent with drilling devices from later periods in Egyptian history.
Specifically, the team points to evidence of edges rounded from wear, as well as striations and other features that are clear indicators of rotary motion.
“The ancient Egyptians are famous for stone temples, painted tombs, and dazzling jewelry, but behind those achievements lay practical, everyday technologies that rarely survive in the archaeological record,” said Dr. Martin Odler, a Visiting Fellow in Newcastle University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology, in a statement.
According to Odler, the lead author of the recent study that reassessed the artifact, one of the most important technologies behind such famous achievements afforded us by the ancient Egyptians was the drill, which had uses in everything from woodwork to shaping stone for construction and the creation of decorative pieces.
Evidence of a Bowstring Emerges
Intriguingly, the early 20th-century references to “some leather thong” have proven correct, as the Newcastle team and their Italian collaborators say that six coils of a very fragile piece of leather cordage appear to represent clear evidence of a bowstring which would have been used to power the drill.
Such ancient bow drills served as an early form of rotary tool, which one could liken to an ancient counterpart to modern hand drills. To function, these bow drills featured a small length of leather wrapped around a shaft, which spins the drill very quickly as the string is moved back and forth.
Of additional intrigue, the study’s authors report that X-ray fluorescence analysis of the drill also produced evidence of “a highly unusual” ternary alloy composition consisting of Copper, Arsenic, and Nickel, with additional signs of silver and lead deposits. This is significant, as the presence of such non-native materials could point to what the authors suggest may have been “long-distance exchange networks” or possibly evidence for “underexplored Eastern Desert ore sources.”
“The drill contains arsenic and nickel, with notable amounts of lead and silver,” Odler said. “Such a recipe would have produced a harder, and visually distinctive, metal compared with standard copper.”
According to Odler and his colleagues, this seems to point at evidence for deliberate choices in the creation of alloys, which the researcher says could point to “wider networks of materials or know-how linking Egypt to the broader ancient Eastern Mediterranean in the fourth millennium BCE.”
Rotary Drilling in Predynastic Egypt
“The technological continuity observed across nearly two millennia stresses the enduring utility of the bow drill and accentuates its significance in both woodworking and bead production,” Odler and his study’s co-authors write in their recent paper. “This re-evaluation not only enriches our understanding of early Egyptian tool use but also raises intriguing questions about early metallurgical knowledge and interregional interactions in the ancient Near East.”
“This re-analysis has provided strong evidence that this object was used as a bow drill – which would have produced a faster, more controlled drilling action than simply pushing or twisting an awl-like tool by hand,” Dr. Odler said in a statement.
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Although bow drills are well documented in association with later eras, the confirmation of such a device dating to Egypt’s Predynastic period marks a first for Egyptologists.
“This suggests that Egyptian craftspeople mastered reliable rotary drilling more than two millennia before some of the best-preserved drill sets,” Odler added.
The team’s study, “The Earliest Metal Drill of Naqada IID Dating,” appeared in Egypt and the Levant.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.