Ancient Egyptian Bellows.
237
Chap. 1.]
down the other. (See a figure in Davis’ history of that island, and alsoin the Register of Arts, vol. i, 300.) The domestic bellows of Egypt ismade in the same way, and probably has always been so : to it, Job mostlikely alluded, (chap. xx, 26.) “ The ordinary hand bellows now used
for small fires in Egypt , (says Mr. Wilkinson) are a sort of bag made ofthe skin of a kid, with an opening at one end like the mouth of a commoncarpet bag, where the skin is sewed upon two pieces of wood; and thesebeing pulled apart by the hands and closed again, the bag is presseddown and the air thus forced through the pipe at the other end.”
The next improvement seems to have been that by which the slit wassuperseded by a flap or clack, so as to be self-acting, as in the ordinaryEuropean or American bellows—in other words a valve, that opened bythe pressure of the atmosphere when the bag was raised, and which wasclosed by its own weight or by the elasticity of the confined air. Amongthe interesting discoveries which recent examinations of Egyptian monu-ments have brought to light, figures of such bellows have been foundsculptured in a tomb at Thebes , which bears the name of Thothmes III,one of the Pharaohs who was Contemporary with Moses. No. 103 repre-sents four employed at one fire, each pair being worked by the hands andfeet of a laborer, and in a manner singularly ingenious and effective; prov-ing that the Egyptians of those times well knew how to combine muscu-lar energy with the weight of the body to produce a maximum effect.
The bags were secured to frames or to the ground, and appear to havehad rings of cane within them to keep the leather extended in a horizontaldirection. A separate pipe proceeded from each to the fire. The valvesor clacks are not shown because being placed underneath they were outof sight. In working them a laborer stood upon two, one under eachfoot, and taking two cords in his hands, the lower ends of which weresecured to the top of the bags; he alternately rested his weightupon each to expel the air, and inflated them when exhausted by pullingthe cords; thus the whole weight of his body was uninterruptedly em-ployed in closing one bellows, while the muscular force of his arms wasincessantly engaged in opening another. We question if a more simpleand efficient application of human effort can be produced.
Such bellows were used in Egyptian kitchens, and were indeed neces-sary when the massive cauldrons and huge joints of meat boiled in them,are considered. a The same practice continued through the middle ages,in Europe , when‘bellows blowers’formed part of the establishment of
"Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. vol. ii, 384. Vol. iii, 339.