
FLINT IMPLEMENTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. 105 
(Figs. 23 and 24). Proceeding further along the Wady, the next Camp is 
VI. of 1896, whence mines were visited on both banks. On the right bank 
the excavations occur on the level ground of the lower and middle plateaux, 
and also along the face of the cliff rising to the highest tableland. Along 
this cliffface, but not elsewhere here, knobbed clod-breakers occurred, along 
with broken armlets and the flat disks out of which they were made (Figs. 
1 to 8). On the left bank were workings which Mr. Seton-Karr believes 
to be of greater age than those on the right bank, but they contained no 
implements. A short distance further along, near the Camps XII. of 1897 
and V. of 1896, extensive workings had been made on the right 
bank, as excavations on the “treads” and in the “risers” of the lower 
and middle plateaux, as well as numerous circular shafts now partly 
filled up with sand. These sites yielded broken armlets and thin disks 
(Figs. 1 to 8), thin double-pointed leaf-shaped knives (Figs. 23 and 24), and 
knobbed clod-breakers or “truncheons” (Fig. 37). Proceeding about five 
miles further down the gully, past a high cliff where the three eastern 
plateaux meet in one face, Camp XI. of 1897 is reached, where the right 
bank is again seen cut into wide, well-marked, step-like terraces, on whose 
lower and middle tiers have been made numerous excavations, round which 
were obtained many rude flakes, knobbed “truncheons,” and armlet disks. 
Some five or six miles still further down, following the bed of the stream, 
another collecting station (Mr. Seton-Karr’s Camps XIV. and X. of 
1897) yielded from the mines, on the left. bank, leaf-shaped flints 
(Figs. 18 and 19), large axe-like or spear-headed implements (Figs. 
9 to 15), unknobbed “truncheons,” and scrapers of “ palzeolithic” forms 
(Fig. 47). A mile or two still nearer the Nile there commences a long chain 
of workings in the lower plateau of the right bank, both on the flat and on 
the face of the cliff rising to the middle terrace. The four collecting stations 
(IV. of 1896, LX. of 1897, VII. and VIII. of 1896), which were established in 
the eight miles or so along which the workings here extend, yielded unknobbed 
“truncheons ” or clod-breakers ; broad-bladed axe-like implements (Figs. 
9-15), and a few knives. Near his Camp XV. of 1897, situated on the mud- 
plain of the Nile, close to the entrance to the Wady el Sheikh, Mr. Seton-Karr 
discovered (in workings which he believed to be more ancient than those a 
few miles higher up just described), the scarce round hammer-stones of which 
two examples are represented on page 93 (Figs. 39 and 40). 
The questions now arise—What is the age of these implements from the 
Wady el Sheikh and Wady Sojoor, and how long probably were the 
mines worked ? 
Large numbers of stone implements—exclusive of those from tombs, 
temples, and sites of habitation—have been discovered in various parts of the 
Nile Valley and the adjacent deserts, the majority of them rude, ovoid, lance- 
or tongue-shaped implements, flints of undefinable use, and flakes. They have 
been picked up (with hardly an exception) on the surface of the ground, and 
have been much discussed and been variously assigned by some to the 
paleolithic age, by others to the neolithic or the historic periods. So it is 
still a question requiring investigation and demanding settlement which of 
the stone ages these implements belong to. No find of implements so ex- 
tensive as the one which is the subject of this paper has ever been made in 
Egypt, nor had any previously been found in relation to the mines 
which supplied the material, or to the workshops in which they were 
fabricated. A study of this collection, therefore, may perhaps contribute 
some new facts towards the settlement of this interesting question. 
The vast chronology of prehistoric man—it may be useful to recall—is 
reckoned by the ages during which, as he advanced in civilisation, he 
employed the different materials stone, bronze, and iron to make his more 
