Reviews — Dr. H. 0. Forbes — Sto)ie Iinpleinents of Egypt. 329 



in process of making, pass thvougli rongli-cliipped to more finished, 

 smoother, and polished shapes, it liappens that sometimes all sorts 

 occur together; and, indeed, prejudice and fashion, as well as con- 

 venience, kept old forms in use until, as at the present day, the 

 more finished and best adapted stone implements only are used, 

 after having been made from such natural material as is most fit 

 and ready to hand. 



The relative age or chronology of old worked stones can be 

 decided only when the natural deposit, or artificial heap of debris, 

 in which they are found can be definitely referred to some unit in 

 a geological or historical standard. The shape by itself is a guide 

 of limited value, except for neoliths ; the colour and the patination are 

 other guides that cannot be taken alone. The varieties of patination 

 and tint, due to exposure on the desert, are carefully dealt with at 

 pages lOG, 107, 110, and 111, and are not found serviceable in 

 fixing the age of this crowd of Egyptian specimens. 



Forms similar to many of them have been found (as the author 

 insists) in tlie ruins of Kahum (explored by Professor Petrie), 

 which was built in the Twelfth Dynasty, at least 2660 B.C. 

 (pages 108-110) ; and, just as neoliths are fonad there with 

 palaeolithic forms, so in the Wady el Sheikh and Wady Sojoor the 

 fine workmanship of bangle-rings (pi. i) and very neat dagger-knives 

 (figs. 24, 26, and 28) is associated with the many rude and very rude 

 examples among the other figures. The latter may be more or 

 less exactly matched with specimens of neolithic and early historic 

 periods from localities at home and abroad. The few that approxi- 

 mate to the so-called ' spear-head' and ' leaf-shape' forms (figs. 11, 

 13, H, 16, 18, and 19) found in real PalEeolithic gravels are not 

 proofs that Palteolithic Man worked these stone-pits ; they are 

 variants in the old Egyptian workshops, and may be matched with 

 neolithic and historic finiis in museums and archfBological books. 



It may be noticed that the Egyptian paintings of the flint-knife 

 manufacture, in the tombs of Beni Hasan (reproduced at pages 108, 

 109), present outlines comparable with some of Dr. Forbes's figures, 

 and are said to be of the same age as the Kahum ruins. 



Other occurrences of stone tools, flakes, and flint nodules, have 

 been noted by Petrie, Quibell, and Seton-Karr, on the Egyjjtian 

 plateaux bordering the Nile. They lie in groups scattered around 

 working places; and the author doubts if tlie great pluvial denu- 

 dation since the time of the European Palaeolithic age would not 

 have carried away the loose debris, whilst cutting the Wadys down 

 from the plateaux into the great Nile Valley. 



Dr. Forbes has done good service in giving us this example of the 

 value of the indestructible direct evidence of the past, better than 

 the best papyrus and parchment of versatile history. He shows 

 that these veritable evidences of Early Man in Egypt, though not 

 much less than 5,000 years old, are not, like those from the old 

 gravel found by the late Pitt-Rivers, of real PalEeolithic age. 



T. R. J. 



