February 14, 2026
Bow down to the bow drill
5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools
Engineers yell 'told ya!' as tiny museum find shows Egypt used spinning drills way earlier
TLDR: A tiny copper tool from a century-old museum find is now claimed to be Egypt’s earliest spinning drill, pushing rotary tech back to pre-pharaoh times. Commenters cheer “engineers were right,” share maker videos, and bicker over how much this one artifact really rewrites history—and why it matters.
A museum trinket just threw gasoline on the engineers vs archaeologists rivalry—and the comments are on fire. Researchers re-examined a 63 mm copper doodad from a 1920s Egyptian grave and say it’s the earliest rotary drill ever found in Egypt, from before the pharaohs. Cue the “told you so” parade: one top comment cheers that surface marks on ancient objects always hinted at more advanced tools, and snarks that the clue was “sitting in a drawer for a century.” Archaeology Twitter, assemble!
The science: under magnification, the tip shows wear from spinning, plus six fragile leather coils—likely the bowstring of a bow drill (think manual hand drill, but faster). X-ray tests found a distinctive copper mix with arsenic, nickel, lead, and silver, hinting at clever metallurgy and long-distance know-how. Fans are dropping Clickspring links, pointing to his Antikythera build where he uses a similar tool; others joke about “Pharaoh’s Home Depot” and ancient IKEA manuals in hieroglyphs. Skeptics pump the brakes: one artifact isn’t a time machine, they warn—no, this doesn’t mean electric power tools in pyramids, folks.
Still, the vibe is clear: a dusty label just got promoted to headline star, and the internet loves a museum drawer plot twist. Paper link: doi.org/10.1553/AEundL35s289
Key Points
- •A small copper-alloy artefact from Badari, Upper Egypt, has been reidentified as the earliest rotary metal drill from ancient Egypt, dating to the late 4th millennium BCE.
- •Microwear analysis shows features consistent with rotary drilling, and six coils of leather likely represent a bowstring from a bow drill.
- •The finding indicates Egyptians mastered reliable rotary drilling over two millennia earlier than well-preserved New Kingdom drill sets.
- •pXRF analysis revealed an unusual alloy with arsenic, nickel, lead, and silver, implying deliberate alloying and potential wider material networks.
- •The study, published in Egypt and the Levant and linked to the UKRI-funded EgypToolWear project, highlights the discovery potential of museum collections.