56 H. J. L. Beadnell — Flint Implements from Fayum, Egypt. 



and that the water obtained access to the depression through the 

 low gap in the divide at Lahun. At what date the Nile water first 

 entered the Fayijm is the crucial question, as the area must have 

 been quite uninhabitable anterior to that event. It is, however, well 

 known that prior to the Middle Empire a great lake existed, and 

 was then brought under artificial control by Amenemhat I and 

 his successors in the prosperous period of the Twelfth Dynasty 

 (2200 B.C.). This Lake Moeris was used as a regulator of high 

 and low Nile floods, and a certain amount of land was reclaimed 

 from the central and highest portion of its bed ; its level was 

 between 23 and 24 metres above present sea-level, a height that 

 agrees closely with that of the outer limit of the lacustrine deposits 

 in the flint implement area. 



The level of the lake was apparently kept at about the same level 

 until after the time of Herodotus, about 1800 years later. If we 

 could show that the old natural lake never reached the level of 

 Lake Moeris in the Twelfth Dynasty, we should prove the flints to 

 be of the same or later age. But it is probable that the old lake 

 reached the same level soon after the first entrance of the Nile waters 

 into the depression, which may have been, for anything I know to the 

 contrary, thousands of years before. It must also be remembered 

 that no flints resembling the present collection appear to have been 

 discovered in the ancient towns and tombs of the Fayum, so that 

 our specimens are probably of earlier date than the most ancient 

 monuments in the district. 



The chief points on which evidence is wanted for dating these 

 flints is as to when the Nile first gained access to the Fayum 

 depression, and as to the subsequent levels of the lake between that 

 date and the Twelfth Dynasty. We must, however, regard them as 

 Neolithic, both on account of their high perfection of workmanship 

 and their connection with a lake which certainly existed far into 

 the historic period of Egypt. 



The evidence for Palaeolithic man in Egypt appears to rest on 

 very indefinite evidence. Throughout the country rudely worked 

 flints may be picked up on the surface of the desert fringes, and those 

 from the high plateaux have usually been designated ' palseoliths.' 

 Whether any of these are in reality comparable with the ' palgeoliths ' 

 of Europe is, I think, at present, an unanswerable question, but 

 certainly in some cases their shape, workmanship, discolouration, and 

 amoxmt of weathering do not prove the contrary. Forbes,^ who has 

 recently described a large number of flints collected by Seton Karr in 

 the Wadi el Sheikh of the Eastern desert, appears to be very much 

 opposed to the Palseolithic view. He dates the Wadi el Sheikh 

 implements as probably Twelfth Dynasty and later, and possibly 

 going back to the Fourth ; the evidence on which he relies appears 

 to be the resemblance of some forms to flints discovered by Petrie 

 in the old town of Kahun in the Fayum. In the Wadi el Sheikh 



1 H. 0. Forbes, LL.D. : Bull. Liverpool Museums, vol. ii, Nos. 3 and 4 (January, 

 1900), pp. 77-115. 



