654 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



Although neither in structure nor form megalithic, I may here refer to a 

 type of stone monument some 80 feet long and about 5 feet high occurring in 

 some number in the neighbourhood of Erkowit, in the Red Sea Province. The 

 whole is constructed of stones without any cement or mortar ; the face consists 

 of a limiting wall of more or less flat slabs of local rock, while the spaces between 

 the containing walls are filled in with smaller fragments. Each of these monu- 

 ments may be considered as consisting of three main elements — viz. (i) an oblong 

 rectangular portion, (ii) two oval masses to each of which is attached an expan- 

 sion shaped somewhat like a fish's tail, and (iii) the curved walls uniting the 

 other elements. Their orientation is definite within certain limits, while each 

 oval element is interrupted at a constant point in its circumference by the inter- 

 position of from two to four upright slabs. There is no chamber or space behind 

 these stones, but from their constancy and the uniformity of their position it is 

 obvious that they must have had a perfectly definite significance to the builders, 

 and on accoimt of their similarity to the false doors of Egyptian monuments I 

 venture to call them ' false entrances.' The whole structure is quite unlike any 

 others of which I have been able to hear, nor did the excavation of one much 

 damaged example throw any light on the problem, but the false entrance 

 suggests a funerary purpose and an Egyptian origin. In date they are probably 

 medieval, and may certainly be taken to antedate the spread of Mohammedan 

 influence which was becoming dominant towards the middle of the fifteenth 

 century (20). 



The only rock pictures as yet found in the Sudan are in northern Kordofan. For 

 the most part they are outlined in red or blackish pigment, but a few examples 

 occur chipped on lumps of granite, on the hillside at Jebel Kurkayla in the Jebel 

 Haraza tnassif. These figures are very rough, and the examples reproduced by 

 H. A. MacMichael all represent camels (11). Drawings with pigmented outlines 

 are found on Jebel Haraza and Jebel Afarit, and from the ai-tistic standpoint 

 seem to form two groups. To the first belong rough but spirited sketches of 

 men on horseback, camels, and giraffes. The workmanship of the second group 

 is rougher and much less vigorous ; it includes representations of camels, men on 

 horseback, and men marching or dancing carrying the small round Hamitic 

 shield. This, together with their general resemblance to the ' Libyo-Berber ' 

 rock pictures of the southern Sahara, indicates a comparatively recent date for 

 these drawings. Moreover, MacMichael notes that the work is faint and indeter- 

 minate, and that there is no trace of graving ; in other words, the neolithic 

 tradition has not persisted. Probably they are more recent than the stone discs 

 and hollow conical and spherical stones found on Jebel Haraza to which I have 

 already referred. 



One of the most difficult questions arising in connection -with the Sudan is 

 that of Ancient Egyptian influence. Its existence may be readily granted, but 

 what of its extent and diuration ? For while it is a platitude to say that a great 

 and powerful state with a uniform tradition lasting for thousands of years cannot 

 but have influenced the countries on every side, it must be confessed that where 

 history fails the evidence is often extremely difl!icult to interpret. Every custom 

 which at first sight seems to betoken Egyptian influence must be closely 

 examined, and the evidence carefully sifted, to determine whether it may not 

 have had its origin in the older and more generalised Hamitic culture of northern 

 and eastern Africa. In discussing the value of the data upon which ideas and 

 customs are to be traced back to an Egyptian origin, it is important to remember 

 that general resemblances, either in widely distributed forms of social organisa- 

 tion and belief {e.g., matrilineal descent, cult of the dead, &c.), or in widely 

 diffused technical devices {e.g., bow and arrow), cannot be admitted as good 

 evidence. Whatever the future may bring, I do not think that in the present 

 state of anthropological science even extreme and unusual beliefs and devices 

 (which at first sight seem so strikingly convincing) should be considered as proof 

 of common influence ; otherwise it would be necessary to admit, immediately and 

 without consideration, a cultural relationship between Papua and Central Brazil 

 on the evidence of the phleme-bow, and between England and the Malay States 

 on that of the fire-piston.^ It is only when there is a considerable consensus of 



" The distribution of the fire-piston in the East and its diecovery as a 

 ' scientific toy' in Europe has been discussed by Mr. Henry Balfour in Anthro- 

 pological Es.iay.t -presented to Edward Burneff Tni/lor. 



