Hi Ted, See in the Shaar Hagolan book (GS)

Best

Danny

Ted,

If you look in my Teleilat Ghassul Area E publication 2008 you might find what you are looking for. Depends on how 'elongated' you mean.  I'm not where I can check up at the moment but let me know if you don't have a copy. Regards Peta Seaton

you might like to look up references to children's toys or tip cats, I have seen a number of bi conical objects from sites at all periods in Egyptian history and following I think it was Petrie's classification they are generally classified as tip cats, hope this helps.

I just realised another possibility if you are doing a data search, what about looking under sling shots, I am currently reading

N, Vutriropulos (1991) Fernwaffen in Sudosteurop

This work illustrates a number of bi conical objects that again suggest that what you are looking for may be classified as these in a Near Eastern context, they would not have been so classified in Egypt since Egyptologists do not believe that Egyptians used the sling and hence will look for other explanations.  The possibility of perforated sling shot is intriguing to a weapon specialist such as myself due to the possibility that these could be used for noise making when in flight, similar idea is documented for arrows.

if you do come across anything under either of these categories it would be very interesting to hear about them.

Thanks Timothy (and others) for the suggestions. It's interesting that you mention sound as I'm actually investigating the possibility that ones perforated at one end and tapered at the other might be bull roarers, a type of musical instrument swung on a cord. I'm planning to do xperiments with replicas based on the archaeological examples I can find.

I would be very interested to know if this works, since I would have thought that you needed at least two holes to make a bull roarer work.  Unless of course you are going to use some form of plaited organic material to hold the stone, as is known for slings.  If you do get this to work it would have wider implications since it could help to rehabilitate the idea that Egyptian mace heads of a similar time period were cradled slung shot, many of them lack the piercing necessary to have been hafted.  Once you are whirling the stones around it would only be a short step to test my sling shot idea if you do get a noise since in many ways a bull roarer is a sling you do not release.

Actually, all the bull roarers I've seen, whether Australian aboriginal, Navajo, or whatever, have just one hole, usually at a tapered end, unless they're double wand bullroarers. Usually they're of wood, but stone or bone should also work as long as the weight's about right.