PRESIDENTIAL APBRESS. 653 



tion of ground stone axes in the Nile valley. While there is probably no museum 

 with any pretence to an Egyptian collection which has not a number of these, 

 and though they can be bought in almost every curio shop in Cairo, I have been 

 unable to find any record of their discovery in a tomb group or undisturbed 

 burial in Egypt ; so that considering the number of prehistoric burials that have 

 been examined, it can be said that they were scarcely if at all known in pre- 

 dynastic Egypt. On the other hand, they are common in Nubia, where a 

 number have been found in predynastic and early dynastic tombs {2 PI. 63). 

 Many examples have come from Meroe, and I believe that specimens occur on 

 every site of neolithic date in the Sudan. They have certainly been found at 

 Jebel Sabaat, at Jebel Geili 90 miles east of Khartum, at Jebel Gule and at 

 Faragab. Moreover, the rock faces on which they were ground have been found 

 both at Jebel Gule and Jebel Geili. We may therefore attribute a southern 

 source to the ground stone axes of the Nile valley, and in the light of our 

 present knowledge regard them as of Negro origin. This view is supported by 

 the results of recent work on the prehistory of the Sahara. Gautier, who has 

 devoted much time to the ethnography of the French Sudan, points out that 

 while at the end of the neolithic period the northern Sahara had a stone industry 

 characterised by unpolished implements of Egyptian affinities, in the central and 

 southern Sahara the typical implement was the polished axe, and that this was 

 of Sudanese Negro origin (7, 326). That the boundary of the two provinces 

 seems to have coincided roughly with the present southern boundary of Algeria, 

 i.e.. that the Berber-Negro frontier was then some 1,000 kilometres further north 

 than it is at present, is in no way opposed to this view. Perforated discs or rings 

 and hollow conical and spherical stones, all ground in the usual neolithic style, 

 have been found, notably at Meroe, on Jebel Haraza (W. Kordofan) and at Jebel 

 Geili, where I believe stone discs and axe heads can be definitely associated 

 together. Besides the types already alluded to Jebel Gule yielded a large 

 number of pygmy implements of quartz, carnelian, and hornstone. These are 

 similar to those found in South Africa and attributed to Bushmen, and there is 

 reason to believe that this industry also existed at Faragab, where the in- 

 numerable disc beads of ostrich egg shell were probably bored with more or 

 less worked up slivers of quartz. 



The distribution of stone arrow heads in the Nile valley is also of much 

 interest, but the data are as yet insufficient for discussion. It may, however, 

 be w'orth while to point out that the transverse arrow head with its chisel-like 

 edge cannot be of Negro origin, although the wooden figures of Negro bowmen 

 from the tomb of Emseht, a general of the XI. dynasty, are armed with arrows 

 with heads of this form, and the same type of arrow head is in use to this day 

 among the tribes of the Kwilu and Kasai districts of the Belgian Congo. 



Some mention must be made of the existence of stone monuments of mega- 

 Hthic type in the Sudan, although their number is small and their origin obscure. 

 There is a monolith about two metres high on the plateau overlooking the Khor 

 el Arab, near the Sinkat-Erkowit road, to which tradition says Mohammed tied 

 his horse. Another monolith of much the same dimensions has been described 

 and figured by Crowfoot from Isa Derheib inland from Akik (4 PI.). At present 

 there seems no reason to attribute any great antiquity to these stones ; presum- 

 ably they are connected with the upright stones and ' stelai ' of Axum. 

 Viobably other rude stone monuments will be found in the Red Sea Province; 

 indeed, I have heard of such, though the information was never very precise. 

 It is, however, worth noting that typical dolmens do occur in the Madi country 

 in the southern Sudan (26, 123).^ 



' When the time comes to estimate the significance of the Sudanese monu- 

 ments of megalithic types, it will be necessary to remember that, although 

 uncommon, they do occur in Egypt. Indeed, Dechelette has suggested that 

 their rarity in Egypt is only due to their having been nearly all destroyed. 

 Meanwhile it may be noted that de IMorgan has published the drawing of a 

 stone circle at Jebel Genamieh in the desert to the east of Edfu; that N. de G. 

 Davies found 'perfect miniature dolmens or cists at Tel el Amarna : that some- 

 what similar structures containing human remains have been described by 

 Sehweinf urth near El Kab ; and that I have found them on the high desert 

 plateau a few miles north of Abydos. 



