288 



posed of entire and broken specimens of these flints. That 

 the ancient Egyptians worked the flint nodules, and used flint 

 arrows and knives, is well known, and it is also believed 

 that flint flakes were used in the cutting of hieroglyphics on 

 the softer limestones. Careful examination with the lens of 

 sculptured surfaces of limestone convinces me that the 

 hieroglyphics were usually scratched with sharp points rather 

 than chiselled, and splinters of flint would be very suitable 

 for this purpose. Bauerman has described* flint picks of 

 triangular and trapeziform shape found in the mines worked 

 by the Egyptians at Wady Meghara, in the Sinai peninsula, 

 and states that the marks on the stone are such as these 

 tools would make. The manufacture has been continued to 

 the present time, flints for muskets, and also for strike- 

 lights, to be carried with steel and tinder of vegetable fibre in 

 the tobacco-pouch, being still commonly made and sold. This 

 manufacture is carried on at Assiout, and also at the village 

 of Kadasseh, near the Gizeh pyi'amids. 



It follows from this that the occurrence of flint chips or 

 flakes on the surface, and especially near " ateliers," village 

 sites, or tombs, &c., carries with it no evidence of age, except 

 such as may be afforded by the condition or forms of the 

 flints ; and the former is somewhat invalidated by the con- 

 siderations that some flints weather more rapidly than others, 

 and that under certain conditions of exposure weathering 

 occurs very rapidly; while the latter is of little value, as the 

 rudest forms of flints have been used for strike-lights and 

 other purposes in the most modern times. Nor is it 

 remarkable that worked flints are more common on the desert 

 surfaces than on the alluvial plain, since it is on the former 

 that the material for their manufacture is to be found, and on 

 the latter they are likely to have been buried by recent deposits. 



The well-known locality near Helouan forms a good 

 example of the mode of occurrence of modern flint imple- 

 ments. At this place the worked flints, which are mostly of 

 the form of long, slender flakes and pointed spicules, occur 

 on the desert surface, or only under a little drifted sand, and 

 the locality where they are found is evidently an old village 

 site, as it has remains of foundations and tombs, worked 

 blocks of limestone, and numerous fragments of burned 

 brick, which occur along with the flakes. The character of 

 the bricks would seem to indicate that the site was inhabited 

 in the Roman time, or later. The flakes may have been made 



* Journal of the Geological Society, vol. 



