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Fishing from the Earliest Times

Chapter 30: EGYPTIAN FISHING
By William Radcliffe
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About This Book

The author compiles literary, archaeological, and practical evidence to chart fishing techniques and tackle from antiquity through various civilizations. He analyzes classical sources such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch to discuss methods, species identification, and controversies like the origin of the artificial fly and the use of jointed rods. Separate sections survey Egyptian, Assyrian, Jewish, and Chinese practices, including sacred fish, vivaria, legal regulations, prices, and culinary uses. The work balances technical descriptions with cultural, mythological, and economic contexts and contrasts ancient pisciculture with later developments.

EGYPTIAN FISHING

MEN CARRYING A LARGE FISH.

From Petrie’s Medum, Pl. XII.
See n. 1, p. 301.

NOTE

Conflicting chronologies prevent the definite dating of the earlier Egyptian monarchs: verily a thousand years are but as yesterday in the sight of Manetho, Mariette et cie. Thus it is that the reign of Menes, the first historical king, has no permanent abiding place in the 3167 years between 5867 and 2700 b.c. Discrepancy in dates is not confined to the older or later computators, such as Champollion-Figeac, Wilkinson, Lepsius, and Petrie, but has infected quite recent writers, like Borchardt and Albright, who in 1917 and in 1919 respectively place Menes c. 4500, and c. 2900 b.c.

If the authorities disagree as to the dates of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms (the divisions used in my pages), they agree fairly well on what Dynasties are comprised in each of these. So whether a reader adhere to 5867 or to 2700 b.c. for Menes, the Old Kingdom still comprises Dynasties I. to XI.; the Middle Kingdom Dynasties XII. to XVI.; the New Kingdom Dynasty XVII. to Alexander the Great or 332 b.c., at which stage the Ptolemies came on the scene.