Researchers at Newcastle University, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, have re-examined a small copper-alloy object excavated a century ago from a cemetery at Badari in Upper Egypt, and concluded it is the earliest identified rotary metal drill from ancient Egypt, dating to the Predynastic period (late 4th millennium BCE), before the first pharaohs ruled.

The artefact (catalogued as 1924.948 A in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge) was found in Grave 3932, the burial of an adult man. When first published in the 1920s, the artefact - which is only 63 millimetres long and weighs about 1.5 grams - was described as “a little awl of copper, with some leather thong wound round it.” That brief note proved easy to overlook, and the object attracted little attention for decades.

However, under magnification, the researchers found that the tool shows distinctive wear consistent with drilling: fine striations, rounded edges, and a slight curvature at the working end, all features that point to rotary motion, not simple puncturing.

The research, which is published in the journal Egypt and the Levant, also described six coils of an extremely fragile leather thong, which the researchers argue is a remnant of the bowstring used to power a bow drill, an ancient equivalent of a hand drill, where a string wrapped around a shaft is moved back and forth by a bow to spin the drill rapidly.

Dr Martin Odler, Visiting Fellow in Newcastle University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology and lead author, explains: “The ancient Egyptians are famous for stone temples, painted tombs, and dazzling jewellery, but behind those achievements lay practical, everyday technologies that rarely survive in the archaeological record. One of the most important was the drill: a tool used to pierce wood, stone, and beads, enabling everything from furniture-making to ornament production.

“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. This suggests that Egyptian craftspeople mastered reliable rotary drilling more than two millennia before some of the best-preserved drill sets.”

Bow drills are well known from later periods of Egyptian history, including surviving New Kingdom examples from the middle to late second millennium BCE, with tomb scenes showing craftsmen drilling beads and woodwork, the tombs located in the modern-day West Bank of Luxor area.

Chemical analysis by the team, using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF), found the drill was made from an unusual copper alloy. Co-author Jiří Kmošek explains: “The drill contains arsenic and nickel, with notable amounts of lead and silver. Such a recipe would have produced a harder, and visually distinctive, metal compared with standard copper. The presence of silver and lead may hint at deliberate alloying choices and, potentially, wider networks of materials or know-how linking Egypt to the broader ancient Eastern Mediterranean in the fourth millennium BCE.”

The study, which is linked to the UKRI-funded EgypToolWear project (Horizon Europe Guarantee), also highlights how museum collections can still provide major discoveries. A small object, excavated long ago and described in a single line, turns out to preserve not only early metalworking but also a rare trace of organic material, evidence for how the tool was actually used.

Reference: “The Earliest Metal Drill of Naqada IID Dating”, Martin Odler and Jiří Kmošek Ägypten und Levante / Egypt and the Levant (Vol. 35, 2025) DOI:  10.1553/AEundL35s289