A new study reveals that Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated drilling tool far earlier than previously suggested. Researchers at Newcastle University, and the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, have re-examined a small copper-alloy object excavated a century ago from a cemetery at Badari in Upper Egypt, and concluded it is the earliest identified rotary metal drill from ancient Egypt, dating to the Predynastic period (late 4th millennium BCE), before the first pharaohs ruled. The study is published in Egypt and the Levant.