1880.] "^ [Phillips. 



Some recent discoveries of stone implements in Africa and Asia. By Henry 

 Phillips, Jr., A. M. 



{Bead before the Aiiierican Philosophical Society, May 21, 1880.) 



Within the last few years the science of Archaeology has received many 

 additions through discoveries of stone implements and weapons in the cra- 

 dle lands of the human race. A lithic age (whether exclusively so or not) 

 seems to have existed in the dominions of the Pharaohs, and in the home 

 of the Vedas, as well as in the rest of the habitable world. To exhibit a 

 short resume of what has been lately found in Asia and Africa is my ob- 

 ject this evening. 



In the Bulletin of the Egyptian Institute for 1869, '70, '71, there is much 

 interesting and important matter relating to discoveries in Egypt. At the 

 meeting of the Institute held in December, 1869, M. Lepsius stated that, 

 acting upon information received from M. Lenormant, he had visited the 

 pl;ice of an alleged find of stone implements in the neighborhood of 

 Thebes. That he had found them in that place by the thousands ; that in 

 fact they were scattered in profusion throughout the entire desert. M. 

 Arcelin, a German dwelling in Upper Egypt, reported that he had found 

 similarly formed implements in deposits later than the tertiary period. 



At the seance of April, 1870, Dr. Gaillardot referred to the discoveries re- 

 ported by M. Arcelin at Cairo, of flint implements, of Whose origin, use and 

 authenticity, there could not be the faintest suspicion of doubt. These were 

 found by Mariette Bey in the tombs at Saqqarah, together with ornaments 

 formed of cockle shells. It seems, however, that these relics are not of the 

 oldest stone age, but may be as recent as the historical period of Egypt. 



In the tombs at Gourmah, which come down so late as the eleventh 

 dynasty, vast quantities of barbs are found, whose points are sometimes of 

 wood hardened by the action of fire, and sometimes are made of silex or 

 fish bones. It is a very remarl^able fact, that in all the remains of Phara- 

 onic antiquity even down to the tombs of the Grecian epoch, no metal 

 arrow-heads have ever been discovered ; it is the Grecian sepulchres that are 

 the first to aflibrd bronze points. The Egyptian implements are said to lack the 

 patina which age generally bestows upon genuine implements. This has 

 been urged against them as an argument to prove they were not of the era 

 to which they were supposed to belong. But it is said, that the very oldest 

 of all the primitive silex implements that have ever been found in Europe 

 are likewise entirely devoid of patiuation, so tliat no inference can be 

 drawn from this fact. 



Zittel found in the Libyan desert vast numbers of flints which bore the 

 appearance of having been operated upon by the hand of man at a period 

 of great remoteness in antiquity. Many of them were found in the 

 desert about twenty miles west of the Oasis of Achel. Stone implements 

 weie used by the ancient Egyptians in the process of embalming, and even 

 to this day are still used as I'azors. 



The existence of those at Helwan, on the Nile, nearly opposite the ruins of 



