A 6,000-year-old copper fishing hook is the oldest in the world

A unique copper fish hook has been discovered during excavations in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon. It was designed for fish between 1.5 and 2 metres in size. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, it is the oldest known metal fish hook in the world.

The 6.5 x 4 cm hook is made of copper and was probably used to catch sharks, tuna or other larger fish in the Mediterranean Sea during the Chalcolithic (Eneolithic) period. According to Yael Abadi-Reiss and Daniel Varga of the Israel Antiquities Authority, nothing even remotely similar has been found until now. They found the hook in a prehistoric inhabited area, which helped in dating it - all the finds from this layer were from the Copper Age.

"It was so big and beautiful that at first we thought it might be from another period. But it wasn't," Yael Abadi-Reiss smiled. And she added that there were probably more copper fish hooks in ancient times, but over time, they fell apart and corroded. "This hook has also turned green, but it is so big that even though its outer coating was damaged, a lot of the material remained," she said, adding that the find was also a stroke of luck.

The hook's virtually miraculous preservation owes much to the microenvironment where it fell. The village at the end of the Stone Age stood next to a seasonal lake that flooded every winter or during major rains. Although people built their houses in places where the water no longer reached when the lake filled, the surrounding land was also seasonally waterlogged. Fortunately, the site where the hook was found has had suitable conditions all along to preserve it to this day.

The fishing hook is not the only copper object in the village. Researchers have found many other items here, including a copper processing workshop. The local people even used two methods of smelting - some items were smelted more or less from pure copper and others from alloyed copper. They made various copper tools, but also used stone tools. Metal was, after all, expensive and was a relatively luxury item.

"We learn about the diet of the people who lived here 6,000 years ago from the remains of animalof animal bones found in waste pits, of burnt wheat grains found in ovens, and from thetools for hunting, cooking and food processing, including flint sickles and various ceramic implementsused for storing, cooking and preserving food through fermentation and salting," Abadi-Reiss said.

Fishing was one of the most common ways of hunting. "Older fishing rods were made of bone and were much smaller than this hook. The use of copper began in the Chalcolithic period. It is fascinating that this technological innovation was used in the production of fishing hooks along the Mediterranean coast," the archaeologist concluded.

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Roman Nemec

Sources: haaretz.com, israel21c.org

A 6,000-year-old copper hook

Yael Abadi-Reiss

An Eneolithic village on the shores of Lake Ashkelon

The hook was used for catching tuna and sharks

The hook is made of copper

Excavations at the site