Africa The adze is depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the
Old Kingdom onward. Originally the adze blades were made of stone, but already in the
Predynastic Period copper adzes had all but replaced those made of flint. 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. A
depiction of an adze was also used as a
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, was used in the
Opening of the Mouth ceremony, intended to convey power over their senses to statues and mummies. It was apparently the
foreleg of a freshly sacrificed bull or cow with which the mouth was touched. As
Iron Age technology moved south into
Africa with migrating ancient Egyptians, 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
crops.
South Pacific Prehistoric
Māori adzes from
New Zealand were for
wood carving, typically made from
pounamu sourced from the South Island. During the
Māori Archaic period found on the North Island were commonly made from
greywacke from
Motutapu Island or
basalt from Opito Bay in the
Coromandel, similar to adzes constructed on other Pacific Islands. At the same time on
Henderson Island, a small coral island in eastern
Polynesia lacking any rock other than
limestone, native populations may have fashioned giant clamshells into adzes.
Northwest Coastal America American Northwest coast native peoples traditionally used adzes for both functional construction (from bowls to canoes) and art (from masks to totem poles). Northwest coast adzes take two forms: hafted and D-handle. The hafted form is similar in form to a European adze with the haft constructed from a natural crooked branch which approximately forms a 60% angle. The thin end is used as the handle and the thick end is flattened and notched such that an adze iron can be lashed to it. Modern hafts are sometimes constructed from a sawed blank with a dowel added for strength at the crook. The second form is the D-handle adze which is basically an adze iron with a directly attached handle. The D-handle, therefore, provides no mechanical leverage. Northwest coast adzes are often classified by size and iron shape vs. role. As with European adzes, iron shapes include straight, gutter and lipped. Where larger Northwest adzes are similar in size to their European counterparts, the smaller sizes are typically much lighter such that they can be used for the detailed smoothing, shaping and surface texturing required for figure carving. Final surfacing is sometimes performed with a
crooked knife.
New Guinea and Melanesia Ground stone adzes used to be produced by a variety of people in
Western New Guinea (Indonesia),
Papua New Guinea and some of the smaller Islands of
Melanesia and
Micronesia. The hardstone would have been ground on a riverine rock with the help of water until the desired shape was obtained. It was then fixed to a natural grown angled wood with resin and plant fibers. A variety of minerals were used. Imported steel axes or
machetes have now entirely replaced these tools for decades in even the remotest parts of New Guinea. Indeed, even before the first foreign missionaries or colonial officials arrived in the New Guinea Highlands, inhabitants had already obtained steel tools through trade with their neighbors. File:19th century knowledge woodworking adze and axe.jpg|19th century catalogue showing various adze and axe heads File:Making paddle with adze, Tobi, Western Caroline Islands, Micronesia.jpg|Micronesian of
Tobi,
Palau, making a paddle for his
wa with an adze File:WLA brooklynmuseum Boat Building Scene 2.jpg|Egyptian boatbuilding relief, featuring a workman using an adze File:Adzes, Marshall and Yap Islands - Pacific collection - Peabody Museum, Harvard University - DSC05732.JPG|Adzes, Marshall and Yap Islands – Pacific collection –
Peabody Museum, Harvard University File:19th century knowledge carpentry and woodworking japanese adze.jpg|Japanese adze File:Rye Shipyard- the Construction of Motor Fishing Vessels, Rye, Sussex, England, UK, 1944 D22783.jpg|Rye Shipyard – the construction of motor fishing vessels, Rye, Sussex, England, UK, 1944 File:SainteMarieAmongTheHuronsAdze.jpg|A craftsman uses an adze to square beams, and to recreate 17th-century colonial life File:PolynesianAdze.jpg|Polynesian adze (replica), bought 2019 in
Yap == Modern adzes ==