Image Details

The British Museum

Probably used for grinding cosmetics, the 25-inch-long Hunter’s Palette dates to about 3100 B.C. It contains a depiction of a holy shrine and a bull with two heads. But its principal scenes show an organized expedition to slaughter and capture wild animals (compare with detail). Lions are pierced by arrows, while deer and goats are herded by dogs. Transverse arrowheads were common in Egypt, Sinai and southern Israel during the fourth millennium B.C., but not afterwards—suggesting that the examples found in the nawamis also date to the late fourth millennium.