17* GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



of man in Egypt at a time when 'the Arabian 

 deserts were covered with verdure and intersected 

 by numerous streams/ that is, geologically speaking, 

 in the early pleistocene or pliocene period, or even 

 in the miocene ! 



Singularly enough, therefore, Egypt is to the 

 prehistoric annalist not an old country less old 

 indeed than France and England, in both of which 

 we find evidence of the residence of the palaeolithic 

 cave men of the mammoth age. Thus, when we go 

 beyond local history into the prehistoric past, our 

 judgment as to the relative age of countries may be 

 strangely reversed. 



It is true that in Egypt, as in most other coun- 

 tries, flint flakes, or other worked flints, are common 

 on the surface and in the superficial soil ; but there is 

 no good evidence that they did not belong to historic 

 times. A vivid light has been thrown on this point 

 by Petrie's discovery, in debris attributed to the age 

 of the twelfth dynasty, or approximately that of the 

 Hebrew patriarchs, of a wooden sickle of the ordi- 

 nary shape, but armed with flint flakes serrated at 

 their edges, 1 though the handle is beautifully curved 

 in such a manner as to give a better and more con- 

 venient hold than with those now in use. This 

 primitive implement presents to us the Egyptian 

 farmer of that age reaping his fields of wheat and 

 barley with implements similar to those of the palaeo- 

 cosmic men. No doubt, at the same time, he used a 



1 Kahun and Garob, Egyptian Exploration Fund publications. 



