FLINT IMPLEMENTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. 99 
that they were implements in extensive demand. The former (Fig. 36), a 
very symmetrically formed tool, is 6} inches in length and 2? at its widest 
part. It is knobbed at the handle, from which it widens gradually to a 
beautifully rounded effective end. The surface presented in the figure is 
bevelled from a central ridge, while the lower is worked to a smooth 
cycloidal curve. It was evidently lashed, when in use, to some sort of 
handle, and may have been employed as a hoe. One specimen is made 
of a flint containing a large quantity of lime. Fig. 37 was found in large 
numbers in the majority of the mines in the Wady el Sheikh. It is a roughly 
triangular pointed block of flint (8} inches long by 2} wide), with a long 
deep notch in front of a prominent knob to serve either as a grip for the 
hand, or to receive numcrous plies of strong thong or cord to attach it 
to a wooden handle for use perhaps in some agricultural operation, such as 
clod-breaking. Mr. Seton-Karr has suggested that these “ truncheons,” as 
he names them, were tools used at the mines by the artificers (hung 
when not in use to their waist by a thong), in the fabrication of other 
stone implements, or to dig the flint nodules out of the limestone in 
which they occur. It seems difficult to reconcile this opinion with 
the fact that not one of the many examples brought to England in 
this collection presents a sign of having been used for any purpose, as 
they must have shown: had they been quarry or workshop tools. Many of 
them, indeed, are unfinished, having neither handle nor knob. They must be 
implements either half made, or, though very rough, finished sufficiently for 
the purpose for which they were intended. Fig. 38, found in the Wady 
Sojoor, is, so far as I know, unique in collections from Egypt or from any- 
where else. It is a flattish, quadrilateral, Maltese-cross-shaped piece of 
flint, with one of its angles elongated into a point. Its length is 8}# inches, 
and its greatest breadth 7,°;. If it is not a rough-hewn implement only, 
unrecognisable in its present form, it was used in one of two ways : either the 
elongated point was a handle and the tool was a pick, in which case the 
lower angle (in the figure) would be the operative end, where there are 
indeed marks of wear, if they be not rather pittings due to the heat of the 
sun ; or the flint was fixed to a handle by a figure of eight lashing, when the 
operative end would be the longer pointed (right-hand) angle ; but, if so, I 
can suggest no use to which the implement could be put. There is a 
suggestion in it of the curious instrument “like three celts . conjoined 
. . . to forma sort of tribrach,” figured by Sir John Evans in his. Ancient 
Stone Implements from the Isle of Wight (p. 77, fig. 254). 
(f) Fabricators.—The two cylindrical fabricators or hammer-stones 
seen in Figs. 39 (formed of siliceous sandstone) and 40 (of limestone) are 
both nearly of the same size, about 3 inches in diameter and 2} between the 
flattened ends, which show signs of wear. Their provenance is the Wady-el 
Sheikh, near Camp XV., 1897 (see map), where they were not numerous ; 
but they might equally well have come from a Yorkshire barrow from 
any difference in form they present. M. de Morgan has figured specimens* 
very similar to these from the kitchen-middens of Toukh in the Nile Delta. 
(7) Scrapers.—Fig. 47 represents a scraper (54 inches long by 24 wide) 
of typical “ paleeolithic” form, found at one of the workshops near Mr. Seton- 
Karr’s Camp X. in 1897, in the Wady el Sheikh. Its exposed face is tinted by 
age a black colour almost, and its surface is soft and velvety. The flint of 
which it is formed is the same quality, and presents the same general facies 
as all the other implements from the same district. It is hardly less ancient 

*Op. cit. p. 91, fig. 57. 
