Two Pivots of the 7th Century BCE from Thebes, Egypt, and the Beginning of Woodturning

A group of metal objects was unearthed by Flinders M.W. Petrie at the end of the 19th century in Thebes (Luxor, Egypt). Petrie dated these items to the Assyrian occupation of Egypt, in the first half of the 7th century BCE. The present paper suggests identifying two of these items as pivots of a lathe. This identification leans on both the study of the shape of the objects and analysis of use-wear traces on the active tips of the items. The results of this study, in conjunction with the dating of objects formed by turning on a lathe, allow us to date the beginning of woodturning to the late 8th–early 7th centuries BCE and to address the first stages of this practice.

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