ON USEFUL AND ORNAMENTAL STONES OP ANCIENT EGYPT. 279 



graves, and some of them may be of great antiquity, while 

 others are probably comparatively modern. 



7. Flint Flakes, Knives, Saws, &c. 



It may be well to add here a few words as to the use of 

 flint among the ancient Egyptians. There has been much 

 unprofitable discussion as to whether the numerous flakes 

 which may be picked up on the surface, especially near 

 ancient sites, are natural or artificial, and if the latter, whether 

 they are "prehistoric," or belong to the historical era. A 

 few general statements of fact may serve to dispose of these 

 questions. 



(1.) The Eocene limestones of Egypt are rich in flint con- 

 cretions. Some beds are especially stored with these ; and 

 even in the fine-grained white limestones used for the more 

 important architectural purposes, the artist was often troubled 

 by kernels of siliceous matter. Where the limestones have 

 been denuded, great numbers of these concretions remain on 

 the surface, just as in the chalk districts of England, and the 

 gravel beds belonging to the older deposits of the Nile Valley, 

 as near Thebes, at Helouan, &c, are largely composed of 

 flints. Hence at all periods flint has presented itself to the 

 Egyptian as an available material for tools and other pur- 

 poses, and at many localities, as at Helonan, at Jebel Assart, 

 Thebes, and in the desert, east of the Nile, ateliers with cores 

 as well as flakes, and arrow-heads, saws, &c, may be found. 



(2.) Besides the flints worked by man, innumerable chips 

 exist that have been produced by nature. Some flints split 

 or scale off under changes of temperature, and small rounded 

 flakes produced in this way, and flints with conchoidal de- 

 pressions are not uncommon. Torrential action, in all 

 countries of flint gravel, has struck off numerous irregular 

 flakes, and split the more friable flints into pieces, so that in 

 some of the gravels a large proportion of the flints have been 

 broken. On the one hand, there is little doubt that such 

 naturally broken flints have been used as implements. On 

 the other hand, any one who supposes all flint chips to be of 

 human workmanship, even when they show a " bulb of per- 

 cussion," is unduly credulous. 



(3.) As to date, there is abundant proof that in historic 

 times flints were used for surgical purposes, for incisions in 

 corpses, for circumcision, for sacrificial purposes, and prob- 

 ably for common arrow-points. Careful study of the finer 

 hieroglyphics of the calcareous tombs has also convinced me 



