Editing Adze (section)

=== Africa ===
The adze is depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the [[Old Kingdom]] onward.<ref>{{cite book   |quote=A statue of the third dynasty boat builder Ankhwah is showing him holding an adze   |author =Rice M |title=Who's who in ancient Egypt |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=New York |year=1999 |pages=25 |isbn=0-415-15448-0 
}}</ref> Originally the adze blades were made of stone, but already in the [[Predynastic Egypt|Predynastic Period]] copper adzes had all but replaced those made of flint.<ref>{{cite book |vauthors =Shubert SB, Bard KA |title=Encyclopedia of the archaeology of ancient Egypt |url =https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaarch00bard |url-access =limited |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=1999 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaarch00bard/page/n510 458] |isbn=0-415-18589-0 }}</ref> Stone blades were fastened to the handle by tying and early bronze blades continued this simple construction. It was not until the later Bronze Age that the handle passes through an eye at the top of the blade. Examples of Egyptian adzes can be found in museums and on the Petrie Museum website.

{{Hiero|Adze-on-Block|<hiero>U21</hiero>|align=right|era=egypt}}
A [[adze-on-block (hieroglyph)|depiction of an adze]] was also used as a [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|hieroglyph]], representing the consonants ''stp'', "chosen", and used as: ''...Pharaoh XX, chosen of God/Goddess YY...''

The ''ahnetjer'' ([[Manuel de Codage]] transliteration: ''aH-nTr'') depicted as an adze-like instrument,<ref>{{cite book |title=Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache [Dictionary of the Egyptian language] |vauthors =Erman A, Grapow H |year=1926 |publisher=[[J.C. Hinrichs]] |location=Leipzig |volume=1 |pages=214.24 }}</ref> was used in the [[Opening of the mouth ceremony|Opening of the Mouth ceremony]], intended to convey power over their senses to statues and mummies. It was apparently the [[foreleg of ox|foreleg]] of a freshly sacrificed bull or cow with which the mouth was touched.<ref>{{cite book |vauthors =Schwabe CW, Gordon A |title=The quick and the dead: biomedical theory in ancient Egypt |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |location=Leiden |year=2004 |pages=76 |isbn=90-04-12391-1 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author =Eyre C |title=The cannibal hymn: a cultural and literary study |publisher=[[Liverpool University Press]] |location=Liverpool |year=2002 |pages=54 |isbn=0-85323-706-9 }}</ref>

As [[Iron Age]] technology moved south into [[Africa]] with migrating ancient Egyptians,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Oliver|first1=Roland Anthony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C5qYNSRjqacC|title=Africa in the Iron Age: C. 500 BC–1400 AD|last2=Oliver|first2=Roland|last3=Fagan|first3=Brian M|date=1975-10-29|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-0-521-09900-4|language=en}}</ref> they carried their technology with them, including adzes. To this day, iron adzes are used all over rural Africa for various purposes—from digging pit latrines, and chopping firewood, to tilling crop fields—whether they are of maize (corn), coffee, tea, pyrethrum, beans, millet, yams, or a plethora of other cash and subsistence [[crop]]s.