History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
The Palæolithic flint workshops on the Theban hills have been visited of
late years by Mr. Seton-Karr, by Prof. Schweinfurth, Mr. Allen Sturge,
and Dr. Blanckenhorn, by Mr. Portch, Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Hall. The
weapons illustrated here were found by Messrs. Hall and Ayrton, and are
now preserved in the British Museum. Among these flints shown we notice
two fine specimens of the pear-shaped type of St. Acheul, with curious
adze-shaped implements of primitive type to left and right. Below, to
the right, is a very primitive instrument of Chellean type, being merely
a sharpened pebble. Above, to left and right, are two specimens of the
curious half-moon-shaped instruments which are characteristic of
the Theban flint field and are hardly known elsewhere. All have the
beautiful brown patina, which only ages of sunburn can give. The
“poignard” type to the left, at the bottom of the plate, is broken off
short.
[Illustration: 008.jpg Palaeolithic Implements of the Quaternary Period.
From the desert plateau and slopes west of Thebes.]
In the smaller illustration we see some remarkable types: two scrapers
or knives with strongly marked “bulb of percussion” (the spot where the
flint-knapper struck and from which the flakes flew off), a very regular
_coup-de-poing_ which looks almost like a large arrowhead, and on the
right a much weathered and patinated scraper which must be of immemorial
age.
[Illustration: 009.jpg (right): PALAEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS. From Man,
March, 1905.]
This came from the top plateau, not from the slopes (or subsidiary
plateaus at the head of the _wadis_), as did the great St. Acheulian
weapons. The circular object is very remarkable: it is the half of the
ring of a “morpholith “(a round flinty accretion often found in the
Theban limestone) which has been split, and the split (flat) side
carefully bevelled. Several of these interesting objects have been
found in conjunction with Palæolithic implements at Thebes. No doubt the
flints lie on the actual surface where they were made. No later water
action has swept them away and covered them with gravel, no later human
habitation has hidden them with successive deposits of soil, no gradual
deposit of dust and rubbish has buried them deep. They lie as they were
left in the far-away Palæolithic Age, and they have lain there till
taken away by the modern explorer.
But this is not the case with all the Palæolithic flints of Thebes. In
the year 1882 Maj.-Gen. Pitt-Rivers discovered Palæolithic flints in the
deposit of diluvial detritus which lies between the cultivation and the
mountains on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. Many of these are
of the same type as those found on the surface of the mountain plateau
which lies at the head of the great _wadi_ of the Tombs of the Kings,
while the diluvial deposit is at its mouth. The stuff of which the
detritus is composed evidently came originally from the high plateau,
and was washed down, with the flints, in ancient times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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