Ancient Egyptian raw materials: Animal products
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Animal productsAnimals were used in many ways. Their meat served as food both for men and gods, their milk was drunk and processed, their strength exploited for plowing and transportation, their fat formed the base for medicines and poisons.Like so much else, animal products were administered by an official such as Sehetepibre who served under Senusret III and Amenemhet III and prided himself to have been The Prince, Count, Royal Seal-bearer, beloved Sole Companion, Great one of the King of Upper Egypt, Grandee of the King of Lower Egypt; Magistrate at the head of the people, Overseer of horn, hoof, feather, scale, and pleasure ponds Bone
Prehistoric bone harpoons
Predynastic bone statuette with inlaid lapis-lazuli eyes. [3] Glue was also made from bones, sinews and cartilage, which was applied warm to wooden surfaces. Since the second millennium, plywood the layers of which had been held together with little square pegs, was being glued together. Gesso, a mixture of glue and plaster of Paris was used as a sort of glue putty for smoothing wooden surfaces before painting or repairing flaws in stone sculptures. Feathers
Feathers were often used for personal adornment and for the royal ceremonial dress.
Then came those kings and princes of the Northland, all the chiefs who wore the feather, every vizier, all chiefs, and every king's-confidant, from the west, from the east, and from the islands in the midst, to see the beauty of his majesty.Small feathers of ducks or geese were used as stuffing for pillows and cushions.
Fans with long handles used during a royal procession. 
At times whole birds' wings, presumably after letting them completely dry out, were used as fans.
Servant fanning a royal woman with a bird wing. |
Fur
Fur was occasionally used for upholstery. Originally lion furs, later leopard furs were sometimes worn by Sem priests draped over a shoulder when they performed the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth. [The sem-priests of your house] in leopard skin: they pour (libations) on the groundSome Old Kingdom sarcophagi were adorned with reliefs of leopard furs. Several leopard skin outfits have been found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, which a pharaoh might wear in his role as a priest. These furs came from the African regions south of Egypt: Nubia, Punt etc I bring it to thee from the land of the Negro ......... red cattle, thy firstlings ........ thy gazelles, thy panther-skins. Gut and sinewThe elasticity of twisted animal gut and sinews was made good use of in the making of stringed instruments and bows. Sinew was also used to tie things together and as an ingredient in glue making. |
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HairHuman hair [13] was employed in the making of good quality wigs but found few other uses.Your head, my lord, is anointed, you have travelled north in the tresses of an Asiatic woman.
Unlike plant fibres which are often mentioned in ancient texts, wool is not encountered in literature. It may have served above all the poorer parts of the people and marginal populations like the nomadic tribes of the deserts. Fly-whisks, a bunch of long hairs fixed to a short handle - still used in Africa for chasing away flies but having also ceremonial purposes - were fashioned from horse hair, more rarely from giraffe hair. Occasionally bags and sacks were woven or knitted from goat hair, giraffe-tail hair or the like. Bracelets were fashioned from coarser kinds of hair, such as hair from the tail of oxen. |
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HornUndoubtedly used frequently, little is left of this material as there are insects that destroy horn in very short periods of time.Horns were used as vases, cups or other receptacles. Bracelets [9], little containers [10], handles for knives, and combs were carved from it and in the Late Period strigils, used by Greeks and Romans to scrape dirt and sweat off the skin. It was employed in the production of composite bows. Lay down your bow of horn and put aside your arrows! |
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Ivory
Throughout ancient Egyptian history ivory was processed. The local ivory came from the Nile hippos, elephant tusks were imported from Syria, the Sudan and Libya, which used to be less arid.
Harpoon tips were made since 4500 BCE, from the fourth millennium onwards ivory was used for carving combs, bracelets, furniture legs, statuettes [1], knife handles, spoons [2], gaming pieces [4], writing tablets and much more, such as inlaid work where the ivory was set in ebony wood. It was used naturally coloured or tinted green or red. |
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Shells
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Skins and leatherLeather was not of major importance in a hot climate like Egypt's, where its main use was in the production of furniture, rarely worn footwear [12] and smaller items like dog collars, bracelets, dagger sheaths, leather bags [11] and the like.Since the middle of the fourth millennium BCE two main kinds of tanning were known: chamois leather was treated with fat, while an extract from acacia pods was used for tanning ordinary leather. Tawing with alum resulted in a stiff leather product. A red dye was made from dried and powdered scarlet-grain, a scale insect, a yellow dye from the skins of pomegranates. Most of the leather used came from cattle, sheep and goats. Leather rolls were at times used instead of papyrus as writing material Now all that his majesty did to this city, to that wretched foe and his wretched army, was recorded each day by its (the day's) name under the title of : ........ recorded upon a roll of leather in the temple of Amon to this day. When transporting liquids on donkeys, skins - generally goat skins - were preferred to the much heavier earthen jars Providing himself with asses he filled some skins with wine and laid them upon the asses...As water containers they enabled the Egyptians to cross the Sinai and send mining and quarrying expeditions into the desert. Rawhide was used in the construction of chariots and sometimes of shields. Parchment, animal skin from which the hair had been removed and which had been rubbed smooth, was stretched over the voice boxes of musical instruments such as mandolins and tambourines. TailsGiraffe's tails were probably not a very common commodity, even if they are mentioned in the Tale of a Shipwrecked Sailor. In East Africa animal tails are occasionally used as fly-whisks by dignitaries.Then he (i.e. the lord of the island on which the sailor had been shipwrecked) gave me a load of myrrh, Hknw-oil, laudanum, Xsyt-spice, tiSpss-spice, perfume, eye-paint, giraffe's tails, great lumps of incense, elephant's tusks, greyhounds, long-tailed monkeys, baboons, and all kinds of precious things. Tortoise shell
Tortoise shell armlet, seemingly pre-dynastic |
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Source of pictures: Bone harpoons: W.M.Flinders Petrie Prehistoric Egypt, Plate XXVIII Fans: Samivel The Glory of Egypt Woollen embroidery on linen: Petrie Museum Shell scoop: Petrie Museum Footnotes: [17] Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: the Light of the World Adamant Media Corporation , vol.1, p.222 |
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 | [1] Figure of a woman, carved in hippopotamus ivory. Early Predynastic, Badarian 5th millennium BC. (Jon Bodsworth) | |
| [2] Long handled spoon of elephant ivory. Early predynastic (Jon Bodsworth) | |
| [3] Predynastic bone figure with lapis-lazuli inlaid eyes. Naqada 1 (Jon Bodsworth) | |
| [4] Ivory gaming piece in the form of a lion. First Dynasty. (Jon Bodsworth) | |
| [5] Bone pin, 12th dynasty | |
| [6] String of beads, Petrie Museum | |
| [7] Bone awl for leatherwork, 12th dynasty, Petrie Museum | |
| [8] Wooden head of a fan, Petrie Museum | |
| [9] Bracelet made of horn, Coptic Period, Petrie Museum | |
| [10] Horn kohl pot, 18th dynasty, Petrie Museum | |
| [11] Leather bag, Middle Kingdom, Petrie Museum | |
| [12] Sandal, 12th dynasty, Petrie Museum | |
| [13] Human hair, Middle Kingdom, Petrie Museum | |
| [14] Woollen embroidery woven on linen, Petrie Museum | |
| [16] String of shell 'beads', Petrie Museum | |
| Ostrich shell (Petrie Museum collection) | |
| Decorated ostrich shell (Brian Yare) | |
| Turtles in Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt by Francesco Raffaele | |
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