Catalogue of Palaeolithic Artefacts from Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum 9781841715346, 9781407325712

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Part I
1. Introduction
2. Charles Gabriel Seligman
3. A History of Palaeolithic Research in Egypt
4. The Chronological Development of the Egyptian Palaeolithic
5. The Geographical Distribution of Palaeolithic Sites in Egypt
6. Technological and Typological Glossary
Part II
7. Catalogue of the Seligman Collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic Artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum
8. Catalogue of the Other Collections of Egyptian Palaeolithic Artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum
Appendix. Catalogue of the Seligman Collections of Palaeolithic Artefacts in Other Museums
Bibliography
Index of People
Index of Sites

Citation preview

BAR S1166 2003 MILLIKEN CATALOGUE OF PALAEOLITHIC ARTEFACTS FROM EGYPT IN THE PITT RIVERS MUSEUM

B A R

Catalogue of Palaeolithic Artefacts from Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum Sarah Milliken

BAR International Series 1166 2003

ISBN 9781841715346 paperback ISBN 9781407325712 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781841715346 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Contents Illustrations Acknowledgements

iii vii

Part I 1.

Introduction

1

2.

Charles Gabriel Seligman

5

3.

A history of Palaeolithic research in Egypt

17

4.

The chronological development of the Egyptian Palaeolithic

57

5.

The geographical distribution of Palaeolithic sites in Egypt

65

6.

Technological and typological glossary

89

Part II 7.

Catalogue of the Seligman Collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum

95

8.

Catalogue of the other collections of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum

151

Appendix: Catalogue of the Seligman collections of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts in other museums

197

Bibliography Index of people Index of sites

201 215 217

i

Illustrations 2.1

Charles Gabriel Seligman

6

2.2

Seligman's journey 1913-1914

8

2.3

Schweinfurth's map of Thebes from the 1914 edition of Baedeker's Egypt and the Sudan: Handbook for Travellers

12

3.1

Late nineteenth and early twentieth century (pre-1921) findspots of Palaeolithic artefacts in the Nile Valley

18

3.2

Page from an auction catalogue annotated with Seligman's handwriting

20

3.3

Hamy (1869) and Arcelin (1871)

23

3.4

Plate from Lubbock (1875) Notes on the discovery of stone implements in Egypt

25

3.5

Plate from Lubbock (1875) Notes on the discovery of stone implements in Egypt

26

3.6

Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

28

3.7

Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

29

3.8

Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

30

3.9

Illustration from Petrie (1892) Ten Years' Digging in Egypt 1881-1891

32

3.10

Letter from Robert de Rustafjaell of the Luxor Trading Company

36

3.11

Illustration from Petrie (1915) The Stone Age in Egypt showing the correlation between glacial and interglacial sea levels in Europe and Egypt

39

3.12

Map of Thebes from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

41

3.13

Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

43

3.14

Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

44

3.15

Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt showing 'tortoise points' from Abydos and Thebes

45

iii

3.16

Illustration from Vignard (1957) Pointe de vue sur l'industrie de Champ de Bagasse de Hag Hamadi comparing raclettes from Nag' Hammadi with similar tools from the French Upper Palaeolithic

47

3.17

Illustration from Vignard (1955) Les stations et industries Sébiliennes du Burg el Makkazin showing Sebilian II artefacts

48

5.1

Physical geography of Egypt

66

5.2

Geographical division of the Nile Valley

67

5.3

Generalised cross-section through the Nile valley between Sohag and Asyut

68

5.4

Summary of Nile and wadi behaviour, lithostratigraphy, palaeoclimate and prehistoric sites in Upper Egypt during the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic

70

5.5

Summary of Nile and wadi behaviour, lithostratigraphy, palaeoclimate and prehistoric sites in Upper Egypt during the last 40,000 years

71

5.6

Palaeolithic sites on the left bank of the Nile Valley in the Abydos area

73

5.7

Wadi deposits in the Abydos area

75

6.1

Classic Levallois core

89

6.2

Nubian Levallois cores

90

7.1

Sites referred to in Chapter 7

96

7.2

Seligman Collection: cores from Abydos

98

7.3

Seligman Collection: handaxe from Abydos

105

7.4

Seligman Collection: retouched flakes from Thebes

110

7.5

Seligman Collection: crescents from Thebes

111

7.6

Seligman Collection: handaxe from Thebes

113

7.7

Seligman Collection: Upper Palaeolithic blades from Thebes

114

7.8

Seligman Collection: cores from Thebes

120

7.9

Seligman Collection: cores from Heita

130

7.10

Seligman Collection: handaxe from Wadi Abu Had

132

iv

7.11

Seligman Collection: handaxe from Wadi Dib

133

7.12

Seligman Collection: Levallois core from Wadi Dib

134

7.13

Seligman Collection: cores from Wadi Hammama

137

7.14

Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wadi Hammama

138

7.15

Seligman Collection: cores from Wadi Hammama

139

7.16

Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wadi Hammama

140

7.17

Seligman Collection: handaxe from Wadi Mellaha

142

7.18

Seligman Collection: cores from Wasif

143

7.19

Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wasif

144

7.20

Seligman Collection: bifacial foliate from Kharga Oasis

146

7.21

Seligman Collection: unlocated cores

149

8.1

Sites referred to in Chapter 8

152

8.2

Balfour Collection: cores from Giza and Thebes

154

8.3

Bell Collection: crescent from Thebes

155

8.4

Bishop Collection: cores from Thebes

157

8.5

Bishop Collection: crescent from Thebes

158

8.6

Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund: handaxe from Abydos

160

8.7

Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund: handaxe from Abydos

161

8.8

Currelly Collection: handaxes from Thebes

163

8.9

Currelly Collection: handaxes from Thebes

164

8.10

Currelly Collection: handaxes from Thebes

165

8.11

Currelly Collection: crescent from Thebes

166

8.12

Currelly Collection: crescent from Thebes

167

8.13

Davies Collection: handaxe from Deir el-Bahari, Thebes

169

8.14

Evans Collection: cores from Abydos and Thebes collected by Haynes

171

v

8.15

Evans Collection: miniature handaxe from Thebes

173

8.16

Evans-Pritchard Collection: points from Kharga Oasis

174

8.17

Evans-Pritchard Collection: cores from Kharga Oasis

175

8.18

Garstang Collection: handaxe and core from Beit Khallaf

178

8.19

Hall Collection: crescent from Thebes

180

8.20

Mace Collection: handaxes from Kharga Oasis

182

8.21

MacIver Collection: cores found between Dendara and Hiw

184

8.22

MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at Abydos

186

8.23

MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at Abydos

187

8.24

MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at el-'Amra

188

8.25

MacIver Collection: cores from the low desert at el-'Amra

189

8.26

MacIver Collection: cores from the low desert at el-'Amra

190

8.27

Quibell Collection: retouched flake from the high desert gravels

193

8.28

Ruffer Collection: crescents from Thebes

195

A.1

Sites referred to in the Appendix

198

vi

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the various people who have helped make this book possible: first and foremost, Jeremy Coote of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, who enthusiastically supported the project from the start, and who gave so much of his time to making the Pitt Rivers Museums's collections accessible to me; other members of staff at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Marina de Alarcon and Lynn Parker, who assisted in various ways; Sue Wales and Emily Stokes-Rees, who laboriously double-checked my catalogues; Sue Donnelly of the Archives Division of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, London, for access to the Seligman Archive Collection; Stephen Quirke of the Petrie Museum, London, for access to their Seligman Collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts; Jill Cook of the British Museum, London, and Alison Roberts of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, for checking whether there was any relevant material in their care; Jaromir Málek of the Griffith Institute Archives, Oxford University, for access to Petrie's notebooks; Diane Holmes, for discussions on Predynastic stone artefacts; Eavan O'Dochartaigh for the illustrations of stone artefacts and Lisa Rodgers for the maps, tables and sections; Noelle Guinane and the staff of the Archaeological Services Unit at University College Cork for generous access to their computers and printers; and Derek Roe, Oxford University, for access to the photo albums of Louis de Mortillet which include the pictures of Adrien Arcelin and Théodore Hamy, and for his support and encouragement. This research was funded by the Arts Faculty Research Fund and the Arts Faculty Publication Fund of University College Cork.

vii

Part I

1 Introduction This book provides a complete catalogue of the collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Egypt housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Though none of these collections derive from excavations, they nevertheless constitute a valuable research resource from both a historical and an archaeological point of view, and additional information is provided in order that this may become clear. The seventeen collections comprise 1009 objects. The founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum, which arrived in 1884, included only a handful of such objects, but the numbers dramatically increased during the forty-eight years that Henry Balfour served as Curator (18911939). The earliest donations made during this period came from two Oxford graduates, Quibell (1896) and MacIver (1899-1901). These were followed by the collections of Forbes (1900), Garstang (1901), Mace (1904), Hall (1905), the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund (1910), Ruffer (1919), Bell (1921), Currelly (1924), Balfour's own small collection (1926), Davies (1926), Evans (1928) and Evans-Pritchard (1934). Henry Balfour died in 1939 and was succeeded by Tom Penniman, and it was during Penniman's term of office that the Seligman Collection was donated in 1940. The last collection, the Bishop Collection, arrived into the care of the fifth Curator, Schuyler Jones, in 1988. The date of accession of a collection does not necessarily correspond with the date of its collection. In fact, the Pitt Rivers Museum's Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts were all collected in the period between 1872 and 1934. These collections therefore represent a significant historical document which covers the first sixty years of Palaeolithic archaeology in Egypt. A distinction is made between the collector and the field collector. The collector is the person who donated, bequeathed or sold the collection to the Pitt Rivers Museum, whereas the field collector is the person who collected the artefact, or artefacts, in Egypt. In most cases they are the same person, though in a few cases there is a lack of documentary or bibliographic information to be able to establish if this is so; in some cases it is clear that the collector and the field collector were different people. As an archaeologist, I find the field collector to be the more interesting of the two: when, where and why were they collecting Palaeolithic artefacts, and what was their role, if any, in the historical development of Palaeolithic research in Egypt? The field collectors can be divided into four groups. The boundaries between these groups are fluid, and some men fall into two categories. The largest group consists of men who figured prominently in the early history of Palaeolithic research in Egypt. When the first reports of discoveries of Palaeolithic artefacts were published by three French scholars in 1869, many Egyptologists questioned the age of the artefacts, while others questioned whether they were really of human origin. Prehistoric archaeology itself had just come of age a few years beforehand, with the publication of Lubbock's Pre-Historic Times in 1865, but the antiquity of man was by no means universally accepted. Significantly, it was Lubbock who was the first person to travel to Egypt in order to investigate the validity of the Frenchmen's claims in 1873, followed by an American Professor of Greek, Haynes, in 1877-78. Their discoveries were limited to surface finds, and the Egyptologists remained sceptical about their claims. The turning point came in 1881 when Pitt Rivers found flint artefacts stratified in wadi gravels near Thebes, and though the debate was not to be settled for some years to come, Thebes started to attract other people interested in forming their own opinion. Hall, an Egyptologist, excavated near Thebes between 1903 and 1907, during which time he made several collections of Palaeolithic artefacts in order to compare them with English 1

types. Petrie, another Egyptologist, was the first to develop ideas about the possible relationship between the type and chronology of the Palaeolithic artefacts and the altitude at which they were found. In this work he was assisted by his friend, Porch. Petrie was also interested in the relationship between the degree of patina on an artefact and its age, an idea picked up by one of his excavation team, Currelly. Research into the relevance of altitude and patina continued with the work of Seligman, an anthropologist (see below). The work of all these men resulted in publications which played a major role in the development of Palaeolithic research in Egypt. The second largest group of field collectors consists of Egyptologists who were working on excavations with Petrie: Davies, Garstang, Mace, MacIver, and Quibell. There is no documentary evidence to suggest that any of these collections were deliberate, though we cannot exclude the possibility. They were all made in northern Upper Egypt between Thebes and Asyut, which was the heart of ancient Egypt, the cradle and forge of her earliest dynasties, and an obvious magnet for Egyptologists. The historical geography of Egypt has therefore played an influential role in determining where these particular collections came from. A third group of field collectors consists of anthropologists: Seligman collected Palaeolithic artefacts in the Nile Valley in 1908-09 and 1913-14; Balfour collected artefacts from the Nile Valley and Delta in 1926; and Evans-Pritchard collected artefacts from the Western Desert between 1932 and 1934. At the time that these men made their collections, the Victorian evolutionary approach to anthropology combined studies of ethnography, technology and prehistory, and archaeology and anthropology were therefore closely linked. It was only after 1934 that the two disciplines diverged. The last group consists of amateur collectors: Seton-Karr, a member of the British Military Service, and Ruffer, a Professor at the Cairo Medical School. The collections therefore fall into two categories: the largest category consists of those artefacts which were collected with a scientific and/or anthropological interest in mind; a much smaller category consists of artefacts collected by 'collectors', be they professional (the Egyptologists) or amateur (Seton-Karr and Ruffer). In this sense the Pitt Rivers Museum collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Egypt differ from those made in most of Europe's other overseas colonies, where the late nineteenth and early twentieth century collections were largely derived by collectors. However, in common with most of Europe's overseas colonies, the overriding goal of these field collectors was to record the range of artefact types found, and to compare them with European types in order to establish a cultural framework for Egypt's Palaeolithic. As a result, these people only tended to collect tools, above all handaxes, and cores. As part of this process of comparison, many of the artefacts they collected were dispatched abroad, and eventually found their way, either directly or indirectly, to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Among these field collectors, however, one man stands out. Charles Seligman collected everything: tools, cores, waste flakes and even small fragments. The presence of a few refitting flakes is further testament to this. He was also careful to keep separate the artefacts which he found in different localities, to note their provenance, and to keep a diary of his fieldwork. His collection is therefore informative from an archaeological point of view, and not just a historical one. In 1908-09 and again in 1913-14, Seligman collected a large number of flint implements in the Nile Valley while holidaying with his wife. During these visits the Seligmans spent some of the time staying with Petrie at his camp. Through their friendship, Petrie had a marked influence on the way Seligman carried out his collecting activities, the latter noting the location of each group of artefacts in relation to the height of the river terraces. Extracts from Seligman's diary, as well as that of his wife, provide fascinating insight to their artefact-hunting expeditions. The result of subsequent study of part of the material was published by Seligman in 1921 in a paper on The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt, in which he made a pioneering endeavour to scientifically relate the artefacts to their then very nebulous geological surroundings. Perhaps the most important conclusion which he drew from 2

this study was that altitude and the age of an artefact in fact bore no correlation. This was a significant discovery which was overlooked by later researchers such as Sandford and Arkell who were unaware, or chose to ignore, his work, and who spent a decade trying to correlate terrace elevation with archaeological 'cultures'. Because of his significant role in the development of Palaeolithic archaeology, and because his collection is by far the largest among the Pitt Rivers Museum Egyptian Palaeolithic collections, Seligman therefore constitutes the focus of this study. This book is divided into two parts. The first part provides a historical, archaeological and geographical context for the Pitt Rivers Museum collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Egypt. Chapter 2 presents a brief biography of Charles Seligman, highlighting the salient points of his career as an anthropologist, followed by an account of the two trips which Seligman made to Egypt in 1908-1909 and 1913-1914, with relevant excerpts from his and his wife's diaries. Chapter 3 presents a history of Palaeolithic research in Egypt. This chapter is divided into three sections: the first section outlines the sociopolitical background to the development of Palaeolithic studies in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt, and shows how politics, archaeology and the travel industry were inextricably linked; the second section of this chapter charts the discoveries and consequent changes in the intellectual climate which took place between the publication of the first account of Palaeolithic stone artefacts in Egypt in 1869 and the publication of Seligman's The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt in 1921; and the third section charts the research that has taken place from 1921 to the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 4 presents a brief outline of the main cultural units which make up the Egyptian Palaeolithic, identifying the characteristic types and technology of the stone artefacts upon which they are defined. Chapter 5 provides a geographical and archaeological context for the Egyptian Palaeolithic collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Rather than give a geographically dislocated account of the archaeology of only those areas represented by the collections, I have opted to give a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the Palaeolithic of the whole country which will ultimately be more useful for researchers. Chapter 6 provides a glossary of the technological and typological terms used in the catalogues, and of the types of stone artefacts that are peculiar to the Egyptian Palaeolithic as identified in Chapter 4. The second part of the book consists of three catalogues. Chapter 7 presents an illustrated catalogue of the Seligman Palaeolithic collections housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum, divided into four groups: the Nile Valley, where Seligman collected artefacts in 1907-08 and 1914; the Western Desert, represented by artefacts which Seligman obtained at an auction; the Eastern Desert, where George William Murray collected artefacts in 1914 which were subsequently incorporated in the Seligman Collection; and a fourth group of artefacts for which the exact provenance is not known. Each artefact is described individually. Chapter 8 presents an illustrated catalogue of the other Egyptian Palaeolithic collections housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Relevant biographical details are provided for each of the collectors and field collectors, and each artefact is described individually. The Appendix consists of the catalogue of the Seligman Palaeolithic collections housed in other museums: the Petrie Museum of University College London, which houses fortytwo of the artefacts published and illustrated by Seligman in the Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt, and the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

3

2 Charles Gabriel Seligman Seligman was par excellence a field-worker. As such he stands unrivalled in the breadth of his interests, in his thoroughness, integrity and energy, and in his wide knowledge, both practical and theoretical, of the many branches of his subject (Myers 1941: 637).

Charles Gabriel Seligman (1873-1940) was an anthropologist with many interests: tropical pathology, physical anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology. Educated at St Paul's School in London, Seligman gained his first medical qualification from St Thomas's Hospital in 1896. It was while serving as a member of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Straits led by Alfred Cort Haddon in 1898, that his interests shifted from medicine to ethnology. In 1899 he returned to England, and in the same year he was awarded a research fellowship in pathology at his old hospital. This was followed by his appointment in 1901 as superintendent of the clinical laboratory there. In 1904 Seligman persuaded a wealthy American businessman, Major Cook-Daniels, to fund and entrust him with the scientific leadership of a small ethnological expedition to New Guinea, in order to distinguish the characteristic racial, cultural and social traits of the peoples of the region. He published the results of this fieldwork in 1910 in a monograph, The Melanesians of British New Guinea. Covering every important aspect of tribal life, it formed the basis for later work by the eminent anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. On his return from New Guinea in 1905, Seligman was appointed for three years as pathologist to the Zoological Society of London. In the same year he married Brenda Salaman and in 1906, through Haddon's influence, he received an invitation from the Government of Ceylon to carry out an ethnographic survey of the Veddas. His wife accompanied him on his visit in 1907-1908. Under his tuition she became an accomplished ethnologist, and she was able to observe rites and ceremonies among women which no male would have been permitted to witness. Their research in Ceylon resulted in a co-authored monograph published in 1911, The Veddas, which remains a standard work on the history, organisation, magic, religion, songs, dances, arts and crafts of these people. While he was in New Guinea Seligman had started to gain an interest in prehistoric tools, and in 1907 he published a joint paper (with T.A. Joyce) called On Prehistoric Objects in British New Guinea in a volume presented to the veteran anthropologist, Edward B. Tylor. In the winter of 1908-1909 Seligman and his wife spent a holiday visiting Egypt for the first time. Here he began a systematic study of the prehistoric stone tools which he picked up in the desert. During this time the Seligmans spent much time staying with Flinders Petrie at his camp at Thebes. The following winter the Seligmans visited the Sudan for the first time, having received an invitation from the Sudan Government to carry out an ethnographic survey of the country. They resumed their anthropological work in the Sudan in 1911-1912, and again in 1921-1922. An important outcome of these visits was a monograph published by Seligman in 1913 on Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and a joint monograph published in 1932 on The Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. In 1910 Charles Seligman was appointed to a Lectureship in Ethnology at the University of London, and in 1913 he became a part-time Professor of Ethnology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, insisting on its part-time nature so that he might be free to undertake further work in the field. In 1913-1914 the Seligmans took another holiday in Egypt. Seligman again visited various archaeological sites and collected a large number of flint artefacts 5

Figure 2.1 Charles Gabriel Seligman By Sir William Rothenstein (1924)

6

from the high desert. The result of subsequent study of this material, along with the artefacts collected previously in 1908-1909, was published by him in 1921 in a paper on The Older Palaeolithic Age of Egypt, in which conclusions of both typological and stratigraphical importance were drawn (see Chapter 3). He also published a number of other papers on African stone artefacts, including A Prehistoric Site in Northern Kordofan (1916), Quartz Artefacts from West Africa (1921) and Pygmy Implements from North Africa (1926). During the First World War Seligman received a commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps, but his health precluded service overseas. He was attached during the years 1918-1919 to the Maghull Hospital, which specialised in the treatment of the psycho-neuroses of warfare. This experience gave him a new outlook on anthropological problems, including the possibility of a psychological and psychoanalytic approach to the study of the folklore, myths, dreams and symbolism of primitive people. In 1929-1930 Seligman and his wife had the opportunity to visit Japan and China. Through her, shortly after their marriage, he had taken up the collection of Chinese porcelain. For some time he had been considering an archaeological and ethnological problem suggested by certain early Chinese glass and glazed beads, and he began serious work on this during his visit to China and after his return home. In 1938 he published, in collaboration with H.C. Beck, a monograph entitled Far Eastern Glass: Some Western Origins. Its authors concluded that, along with the cultural wave that introduced iron into China from the West, glass vessels and beads reached that country across the Steppes and Siberia in sufficient numbers to be admired and copied in Chinese material. In 1934 increasing ill-health caused Seligman to resign from his Professorship at the University of London, which thereupon bestowed on him the title of Professor Emeritus. On his sixtieth birthday in 1933 he was presented with a volume of thirty essays, written by some of his grateful pupils and admiring colleagues, as a token (to quote from the Preface to the book) of 'their profound indebtedness for the intellectual stimulus and personal kindness which he gave to all those who work with him'. He died seven years later from infective endocarditis in a nursing home in Oxford in 1940.

Egypt 1908-1909 In 1908-1909 the Seligmans visited Egypt for the first time, where they stayed at the camp of the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) at Qurna, near Thebes, on the left bank of the Nile. It was here that Charles Seligman began a study of the prehistoric stone artefacts which he collected from the slopes of Thoth Hill, noting the height at which each specimen was found. Thoth Hill is the highest hill in this part of the Qurna hill mass, with a peak standing at over 350 metres. Unfortunately there is no trace of Seligman's diary for this period, assuming that he kept one. Brenda Seligman's diary includes several entries mentioning stone tools, though they tend to be brief and generally uninformative. She mentions Charles Currelly, a Canadian who had joined Petrie's team in 1902, and who had also been collecting stone tools near Thebes (see Chapter 3). Wednesday 20th January 1909 We walked over early to the tombs of the kings. Petrie showed us a short cut across the hills, the view was magnificent. We picked up several worked flints noting the height. Charles is very wild with Currelly's stone work as he thinks he has destroyed valuable data by not taking the heights at which the stones are found. For he says the Nile has cut out the valley therefore the different heights denote different geological periods and by comparing the various types of stones at the different levels one can to some extent date paleolithic man. Egypt he says is the last home of paleolithic man but I do not understand his theory.

7

Figure 2.2 Seligman's journey 1913-1914

Wednesday 27th January 1909 Called at a shop kept by an extraordinary English man, he appeared to be a gentleman (by birth) and posed as quasi scientific. One supposed he must be a scoundrel - he has a huge collection of paleolithic flints divided into types. I can't think why he has collected them ... Petrie says he has a shocking reputation. Friday 29th January 1909 Sligs [Charles Seligman] and I went up to the top of the plateau 1600 foot. About half way we came upon some little round smooth places with a few big stones around in the midst of a 8

worked flint area. Sligs picked up a beautifully worked implement from one, these appear to be paleolithic living places. I suppose the valleys were full of vegetation but the high land could not have borne much or been much different to what they are now. Petrie pointed out by the larger stones standing up that about [an] inch only of surface has worked away since paleolithic times.

Egypt 1913-1914 On his return to Egypt with his wife in 1913-1914, Seligman made another deliberate attempt to obtain definite stratigraphic evidence as to the antiquity of the artefacts exhibiting a technique which in Europe would have been classed as Chellean, Acheulean or Mousterian at the time. Charles Seligman's diary for this period traces their journey up the Nile from Cairo to Aswan, and then back down to Aulad el Sheikh, the Faiyum, and finally to Cairo again (Figure 2.2). The following extracts from his diary describe his flint collecting activities. Wednesday 17th December 1913 Reached Port Said about 4 pm, got to Cairo about 11.30, met by Hornblower [of the Department of the Interior]. Weather wet, cold, with heavy swell for last 3 days. Tuesday 23rd December 1913 Saqqara - beyond Tomb of Ti towards nearest of pyramids stretching towards Giza found a piece of fossil ammonite and a rolled palaeolith.

After Christmas the Seligmans travelled upstream to Meir, a village some seven kilometres west of el-Qusiya on the west bank of the Bahr Yusuf Canal, where they camped with the Egyptologist Aylward Manley Blackman (1883-1956) who was excavating the 6th and 12th Dynasty rock-cut tombs. Saturday 27th December 1913 Reached Mallawi at 10 am. Met by horses sent by Blackman while gear came on by camel. Saw his tombs, then in half an hour's walk on terrace above camp (called alpha) found 3 or 4 undoubted flakes which are certainly not early Palaeolithic and worn remains of what are apparently fragmentary palaeoliths of early type. Blackman's camp is something over two hours quiet ride west of station. Sunday 28th December 1913 In morning walked along plateau south of camp. Found a few worked stones, saw very fine melon formation. Had seen no pottery on level alpha, found a piece of red pottery on level beta, i.e. the second terrace at 200 feet above camp and a large pink wheel made piece on slopes of beta. Tuesday 30th December 1913 Had ordered donkeys early but did not get away till after an early lunch, then rode south along edge of jebel, soon got off ground with old graves that there is below Blackman's tombs and came to low worn outliers of high desert. Searched these and some of intermediate flat ground carefully, only found two or three much patinated wind worn flakes of type which I think may be called Palaeolithic. Went further south and then up on to plateau working back to where more recent type of flint had been found in dusk on eve of 27th. This which is alpha and about 180 feet above plain is a floor ? Neolithic or later. We found numbers of flakes, a few good implements, and a perfect arrowhead. I don't know whether the latter might be called patinated or not, there is certainly no sign of wind action on any of these tools. The area in which all these were found was quite small but from isolated specimens picked up elsewhere it looks as if at this period people were walking over at least a limited area of high plateau. Could not see any flint of same character as flakes from floor. 9

Thursday 1st January 1914 Camped about opposite to village of Kudiel el Nasara about opposite to the Wady el Kherba ... We walked up onto high jebel behind our camp. I forgot to note height but I think I made it 200 feet and found one piece of Palaeolithic appearance and one unpatinated fragment which looked quite recent but as if it was an artefact. Tuesday 6th January 1914 Rode over to El Bersha. The wadis are more often, with fewer ledges and as far as about 3-4 hours spent in examination go, there are practically no flints either on slopes or on high desert to the north of main wady in the direction of the alabaster quarry marked on the map. It seems unlikely that we should find anything here.

On leaving Meir the Seligmans moved south to Abydos, where they were met by the Swiss Egyptologist and Biblical scholar, Henri Edouard Naville (1844-1926). Sunday 11th January 1914 Naville took us up to Um Gab [Umm el-Qa'ab], here Petrie found the graves of the early kings including the tomb of Zen ... Enormous heaps of votive offerings. Fragments of alabaster, slate vessels and a piece of coarse pot of red black lipped type near tomb of Zen which is more than half silted up. Just by these tombs picked up a good but coarse coup de poing, found nothing else till reached top of wady and bore to right. Here found a couple of coups de poing and a fair number of flakes - barometer gave about 650 above house level. A little further on found what seems to be a flaking place, rough Palaeolithic flakes but here are remains of a hut circle or wind screen, the blocks of which are burnt black on their exposed surfaces and it is difficult to disassociate the flakes and these stones. The same thing occurs further on. Other circles have pottery in or near them but the two first seen had not, and as the pots are of late (Roman or later type) they can have nothing to do with [the] flakes and it is unlikely that they have anything to do with [the] circles. One test of some value that can be applied to [the] circles will be to see whether patination of hidden surfaces are approximately the same as exposed. A fair number of long flakes retouched on one or both sides and two flakes of much greyer flint than the others. One of these perhaps broader and more delicate. The big Wady is Roset up which went the souls of the dead. Wednesday 14th January 1914 Passed day on jebel. Went to hut circle or wind screen seen on 11th. This circle or settlement (No. 1) consists of one complete circle about 5 feet across and a portion of a circle rather to the north of it but so close that the two circles almost touch at one point of their periphery. The circle of which only a portion remains would as far as can be judged have been of about the same size as the more complete one. There are two small clear areas near the circles of size and character suggesting the former existence of similar circles though no trace of any stone now exists i.e. on the surface. The whole group occupies the top of a small flat topped hillock from the summit of which the old black weathered blocks seem to have been removed in part for the convenience of the former inhabitants of the site. If the space round the two hut circles be divided into a northern and southern hemisphere worked flints are comparatively abundant on south side, comparatively scarce in northern hemisphere. Area of flints patinated white is roughly triangular with a base of 5-6 feet and height of 10 feet ... With two barometers, one compensated and one not the height is 650 to 700 above house level. Hut circle No. 2 very complete with opening for entrance about 1 foot wide almost due south ... Front half of hut small stones, 17 worked fragments in this and a number of good implements picked up outside circle besides many flakes seen ... Number of fragments collected from triangular area noted above 129; of this number 8 are perfect implements, lumps 9, flakes used or well shaped 22, rough 79, very rough often not bearing signs of human workmanship 11. The 17 fragments from circle No. 2 classify as follows: flakes well made or retouched 4, rough 13. Thursday 15th January 1914 Went up hill while Albert [Solomon] developed photos and took chapel for Miss M. Went up sand slope easily seen from house and worked south. The plateau which is about same height as 10

elsewhere is much cut up and soon had to descend and across a wide cutout area, in the midst of which was a piece of late pottery. The first thing noted was that rocks in situ were used to form chipping places and these present half sounded up 'floors' just as in hut circle No. 2 ... Some of smaller plateaus fairly covered with flakes - on one of these (SE-NW) hut circles (?) distinguished by darker colour due to absence of white limestone fragments found elsewhere on plateau, and sand in circles seems of rather a darker tint. Two of these circles were taken as nos. 4 and 5, latter 15 feet across, a good many were smaller. It could not be said that there were obviously more worked flints inside the circle than out. Circle no. 3 small, 4 x 3, broken, built after stone walls weathered to present condition, plenty of flakes around it. No pottery near any of the circles described so far, all are obviously very different to the more substantial Coptic remains associated with pottery. On returning from mouth of the big wady, probably Roset, up which the souls fled to the west, found a number of specimens of ordinary Palaeolithic shape and type but of grey ash colour and one very fine coup de poing of grey colour picked up only some five yards from house. Friday 16th January 1914 Rode as far north as el-Mahasna, then got up on high jebel, there is a camel road passing into Jebel ... Usual type of stones very abundant in places, but Albert picked up two very notable specimens. A flake with ordinary Palaeolithic colour and work, but very refined, perhaps best St Acheul, exquisitely worked on one side, scarcely touched on bulb side, about 7.5 x 5 cm. The other specimen is also worked on one side only. Brownish grey in colour, an obvious spear head to look at, with even the beginning of a tang, bulb side untouched, nearly 7 cm long and 3 broad. Saturday 17th January 1914 Got Naville to lend me four men and went up on jebel. Dug about two feet down into one of the depressions that are so common. At this depth jebel ... but from one to two feet and even less deep fragments of flint - unworked - of medium brown patinated colour and bits of white weathered limestone looking as if surface stuff had been turned in, or as if desert had slowly made up to present level (neg. No. 7). Then spent 3 hours looking for circle no. 2 and gave up. Note: to dig in primaeval desert and see whether some coloured flint turns up. Albert found developing boy had missed most of the Isis chapel negatives. Spent rest of day labelling flints. Sunday 18th January 1914 Went up a large wady which part way can be done on donkey ... Got a number of flints seemingly later than ordinary paleoliths and some Paleolithic flakes retouched later. Height of plateau usual at 750 above house. Monday 19th January 1914 Labelling and packing flints, wrote letters ...

The Seligmans moved south again, to Thebes. Charles Seligman's diary mentions Dr Hume, Director of the Geological Survey of Egypt, and Georg Schweinfurth, a German botanist and palaeontologist who had travelled through the Nile Valley and surrounding deserts in the early 1900s in search of material dating to the Stone Age (see Chapter 3). Seligman was using Schweinfurth's map published in 1909 (Figure 2.3). Saturday 24th January 1914 Long day on jebel. Our route was across Kwmel Marai [Qurnet Mura], then following Schweinfurth's track to slope of El Kown [el-Qurn] which we climbed keeping on high desert (many implements) rather to west of plateau which we crossed opposite to Loc. XII where implements are still to be found, then down the slope under 'Steinhaufen' for 600 feet to 500 foot terrace where found an undisturbed workshop just above wall marked by Schweinfurth then into great valley which was followed down to mouth and so home. Got much good material, obviously Palaeolithic people lived on all terraces as well as top. 11

12

Figure 2.3 Schweinfurth’s map of Thebes from the 1914 edition of Baedeker’s Egypt and the Sudan: Handbook for Trvellers

Sunday 25th January 1914 In morning tried to find Miss [Mary S.] Johnston's hut circles above Tomb of Queens. Walked and climbed but could not. Got a fine 'spear fashioner'. Monday 26th January 1914 Farshut Road - rode about 4 miles beyond place where we struck it, still flakes and implements and traces of Coptic pots and crevasses running in from edge of jebel. Must find some other site to test how far from edge of valley palaeoliths are found. Friday 30th January 1914 Qurna burial ground is lower end of a wady which has cut through a firmly cemented gravel higher on north side, in which old tombs were cut. This gravel, though less strongly cemented, can be traced to or picked up again near Carter's house and again west of the isolated hill called Elwa ed Dibban. Here it forms an edge running up to 10 feet or so in depth, to thicken further west into a great mass of bands of gravel (mostly gravel) and ? sandstone some 200 feet thick. The sandstone is more obvious on south side of valley. A white unpatinated scraper picked out of gravels north side of Qurna valley and two worked flakes, one slightly water rolled from midst of bank of gravel high about 5 and 10 feet respectively west of Elwa ed Dibban. White unpatinated flakes found at foot at edge of gravel and two white implements of same type as those found patinated on high levels of desert. Following up wady the gravel has been more worn on north than south side, as on latter aspect a considerable height is first obtained. Here the gravel and ? sandstone alternate. This is much less marked on north. Something can be deduced and more guessed as to age of Palaeolithic man and conditions of climate under which he lived and which may have become much drier, perhaps approximating to present conditions on desert before he disappeared.

The Seligmans moved on as far south as Aswan, and then returned to Thebes. Friday 6th February 1914 Went over to Thebes. In afternoon went up Wady above Elwa ed Dibban. It appears that gravel gives out at about 300 feet elevation and certainly the 500 foot terrace is formed of old country rock. At about 300 feet there is a fine cirque (cirque B) and another rather lower (cirque A). From each of these i.e. floors at foot of gravels got white flakes well worked and a couple or perhaps 3 pieces in situ in gravels which can probably be said to be worked. Lower down Wady than this at foot of high (100 foot plus) mass of very hard cemented gravel on south side of wady picked up many good white worked flints. This is the '100 foot cliff' of labels. Saturday 7th February 1914 Started early for Qamuleh, going briskly got behind group of villages in about two hours. This is just about or just beyond north-west limit of Schweinfurth's map. Going kept to low ground we watered donkeys at Sheikh Khalifa - and after this passed across a vast gravel surfaced flat with old stream beds with low gravel banks. These banks contain more sand than at Thebes and are far less firmly cemented, some in fact give the impression on the surface of stones bedded in sand. Got two worked specimens in situ in these and many specimens on surface (labelled Q'leh sf. gr.). Further up towards hills there are masses forming a dissected lowest plateau of gravels which in section can (here and there) be seen to contain no patinated flints, though some such flints can be seen on their slopes and their flat upper surface in places seems to consist almost entirely of these including many worked - all patinated. Therefore the patinated flints represent the old surface - patinated in situ - and on which Palaeolithic man sat and worked. Here is further proof that unpatinated pieces found lower down have washed out of these gravels. Worked up Wady Khalifa at lower part ... gravels exposed probably over the limestone, then further up gravels cease except a central gravel filling up floor of wady in which streams have cut smaller banked courses. Here a few unpatinated worked pieces were picked up. It seems that the big lateral gravels are older than central gravels and may have been there and sculptured to present form before later detrital gravels partially filled up originally deeper wady carrying down with them the palaeoliths which are now found unpatinated. In any case the main sculpturing including the 500 foot terrace seems to have been formed before any 13

evidence of man appearing. In Waddyen gravels perhaps extend to about 300 feet above river level. In Wady Khalifa I could find no evidence of their going higher than about 150-200 feet. Sunday 8th February 1914 Went south beyond tombs of Queens, struck into hills about position of dotted line in neighbourhood of Schweinfurth's 'Grauer Kegel', then struck westwards to big Wady Mermis which Schweinfurth calls Chani el Schellauit. Passed cliffs at 80 feet high at least of gravel. In big wady all sorts of stuff, palaeoliths rolled and unrolled but thoroughly patinated, some unpatinated, and a few (e.g. a sort of pseudo-solutrian laurel leaf too and a ? magdalenian like dos-rabattu knife) which cannot be classed with old Palaeolithic of Egypt. To west edge of big wady bank of gravel some 20 feet high. South of Tombs of Queens and just north of Wady Mermis found a gravel cliff of about 80 to 200 feet tall, the pebbles being cemented extraordinarily firmly and facing south so that weathering must have gone on at a minimum rate. Got pebbles and scarps out of this with exposed part patinated and cemented in fact not touched. This explains the black marks on some of the 'white' palaeoliths. Tuesday 10th February 1914 Hume arrived - went up Waddyen. The white gravels containing flakes are younger than the 200-300 feet of old gravels, that are nevertheless Pleistocene. Both these made up of fragments of old gravels and contain Lucina Thebaica, the typical lower Eocene fossil of these parts. Hume suggests that the alternating beds of marl and gravel in older gravel series is not due to different conditions of deposit but to different stuff being worn down at varying times.

On the last part of their journey the Seligmans travelled back down Nile to Nazlet Awlad el-Sheikh and visited the flint mines at Wadi el-Sheikh, before moving on to el-Lahun in the Faiyum, where Petrie was excavating the 12th Dynasty pyramid of Senwosret II, and Dimai, before finally returning to Cairo. Seligman’s diary mentions Max Blanckenhorn, a German geologist and palaeontologist who also collected stone artefacts (see Chapter 3). Saturday 14th February 1914 Went on about 6 kilos then after much hunting about found area on north side with many chipping places of implements, long delicate blades with little secondary working of the cores from which these were struck. These resemble in form the Indian and possibly some of Sturge's Magdalenian floor pieces. Photographed some of these in situ on pieces of paper. Pieces deeply patinated though not quite the paleolithic patina I think. Are these late paleolithic or neolithic? I don't remember any in collections. Sunday 15th February 1914 On south side of wady found chipping places with same type of specimens, some with almost a rough pseudo-Solutrian touch and then a large tanged knife, seemingly of protodynastic type, with one side of blade darkly patinated. Now does this date all the other pieces? About 50 feet above our camp in cul-de-sac on north side of wady is an area of loose limestone blocks with cleared chipping places, probably the remains of shafts for flint. Could not see tabular or any other flint in exposure (very bad) of cliff beneath them but on south side of wady photographed tabular flint in situ below a similar place on much smaller scale, say 6 feet below surface ... Taking camp as 0 the 'mines' are say 50, the first terrace 100 and the second terrace 250. Just here there is no second terrace for a considerable area, but there must have been one once and from it must have come the flints covering the first terrace. Monday 16th February 1914 Got up early and rode about 5 miles up north branch of wady, here at an easy ascent found flint 'mines' of the same type as those above camp, though there were not nearly so many of the thin delicate flakes or any other tools. Then went on to Nazlet Awlad el-Sheikh, a miserably poor village, and made camp to south of it, about opposite to a mound by the canal bank which seems to consist mostly of flint fragments and some worked specimens. This as suggested by Blankenhorn may have been a wharf but they probably worked here too. Up the hill there are 14

also many flakes lying about and behind this and slightly to the south slopes are covered with red ochre. The specimens picked up include many fragments of knives of pre- to protodynastic types. Wednesday 18th February 1914 Got off from Nazlet Awlad el-Sheikh about 9 a.m., sailed upstream to Deir el Hadid, an uneasy village from which a man had been taken for plague to Cairo. Big bunch of onions over door to keep off infection. Mohammed Effendi thought they might be useful. Found a few 'inclined plane' cores and flakes here. Crossed river and took train to el-Fashn reaching Medinet elFaiyum about 9 p.m. Thursday 19th February 1914 Went to see Petrie. Cores, knives and flakes he confirms as first dynasty of thereabouts. Friday 20th February 1914 Luggage not having yet turned up wrote letters most of day, went to Krocodilopolis and sampled flints in shops. Saturday 21st February 1914 Got off at 11.45 and reached Dimai shore that night too late to do anything but put up own beds. It blew half a gale all night. Sunday 22nd February 1914 Was woken up by rain. Got tent up and then walked across old lake north of Dimai. A few worked flakes about 1 mile beyond Dimai, continued for perhaps a couple of miles and then stopped more or less abruptly. Certainly there are none in the last mile (in this line) of shore leading to the old Eocene cliffs of the post-Pliocene lake. Clearly this has been denuded by collectors but we got several arrowheads or spear heads (small) of best technique. Here two or possibly three quite distinct forms of arrow head are picked up together within a few hundred yards of each other and presumably of same age. Where was the flint brought from? Tuesday 24th February 1914 Returned to Faiyum and Albert went on to Cairo Wednesday 25th February 1914 Went over to Tamir, found a fair amount of rough stuff and one well made, probably spear head. Wednesday 4th March 1914 Left Alexandria for Greece

Seligman gave the artefacts illustrated in The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt to the Petrie Museum at University College London (see Appendix). After his death, Brenda Seligman donated the rest of his large collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts to the Pitt Rivers Museum, while abundant archive material, in the form of journals, notebooks, letters, sketches and photographs, was donated to the archives division of the London School of Economics. Unfortunately the only archive materials pertinent to Seligman’s study of the Egyptian Palaeolithic are the two diaries quoted above. Seligman was an avid collector of all kinds of things, and the Seligman Collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum consists of more than 3500 archaeological and ethnographic objects collected from all over the world, of which the Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts make up just over one-fifth. The complete Seligman Collection can be found in the Pitt Rivers Museum On Line Database at http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases/ 15

3 A History of Palaeolithic Research in Egypt The dark prehistoric period, which later traditions fill up with dynasties of gods and demigods, is illuminated by a few scattered rays of light only (Baedeker 1914: xcviii).

When Charles Seligman started to collect flints near Thebes in 1908-1909, Egyptian Palaeolithic research was very much in its infancy. The historical development of archaeology in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt was concomitant of the colonial enterprise, and there is a striking absence of any early modern indigenous study of the past, either informal or institutional. In Europe, Egyptological and popular fascination with the Pharaonic era overshadowed interest in other periods. Logically, 'Egyptology' should include the study of any era of Egypt's past, but the term crystallised in the mid-nineteenth century to mean only the study of ancient Egypt, with the Greco-Roman and Coptic eras sometimes tacked on as a postscript (Reid 2002). Many of the nineteenth century collectors of Palaeolithic artefacts in Egypt were Egyptologists, or were tourists visiting the Pharaonic sites. As a result, the historical geography of Egypt has played an influential role in determining where these artefacts were collected: the findspots are restricted to the area of Lower Egypt around Memphis, which was the royal residence and capital of Egypt during the Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom, and northern Upper Egypt (Figure 3.1). Northern Upper Egypt, which extends between Thebes and Asyut, was the heart of ancient Egypt, the cradle and forge of her earliest dynasties. Naqada, Qift and Abydos dominated the scene in the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods, with Dendara gaining in importance during the Old Kingdom. Abydos became a religious centre for the whole country in the Middle Kingdom, and held its position while Thebes stifled its northerly neighbours in the New Kingdom by becoming capital of the country (Baines and Málek 1980). This chapter is divided into three parts: the first part outlines the sociopolitical background to the development of Palaeolithic studies in Egypt, and shows how politics, archaeology and the travel industry were inextricably linked; the second part charts the discoveries and consequent changes in the intellectual climate which took place between the publication of the first account of Palaeolithic stone artefacts in Egypt in 1869 and the publication of Seligman's The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt in 1921; and the third part charts the research that has taken place from 1921 to the end of the twentieth century.

Sociopolitical background The late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a colonial period, with British troops and a largely French-directed administration of education and culture. The Egyptian Museum and Antiquities Service was founded in 1857 by Auguste Mariette (1821-1881), a Frenchman who was originally sent to acquire Coptic Manuscripts for the Louvre in 1850. The aims of the Egyptian Museum and Antiquities Service were to preserve and record the monuments, to excavate, and to administer the museum. Until the Egyptian Revolution in 1952 its directors were all European, the most famous of them being Mariette's successor, Gaston Maspero (1846-1916), who became Director of the Antiquities Service in 1881. Under Maspero's directorship, the archaeological exploration of Egypt was set on an international setting. Maspero courted the British by ending Mariette's monopoly on excavation and by encouraging the Egypt Exploration Fund and others to dig. The Egypt Exploration Fund was founded in 1882, and the Fund's first excavation took place 17

Figure 3.1 Late nineteenth and early twentieth century (pre-1921) findspots of Palaeolithic artefacts in the Nile Valley

in 1883 in the Delta at the site of Tell el-Maskhuta. The early emphasis on work in the Delta was intended to attract sponsorship from those interested in finding evidence to support biblical stories concerned with ancient Egypt, and many of the Fund's early donors were members of the clergy (James 1982). The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had made Egypt strategically important and, following an Egyptian nationalist revolt in 1882, the British severed Egypt's vestigial Ottoman tie and declared a protectorate. The British occupation was primarily aimed at securing a link with India, and 18

checking the commercial expansion of the French in the Middle East (Hassan 1998). Implementing martial law, the British replaced Khedive Abbas II with his docile uncle, Husayn Kamil, and suspended the Legislative Assembly, political parties, and outspoken newspapers. Economic controls, inflation and conscription into labour battalions brought widespread hardship (Reid 2002). Sir Evelyn Baring (known after 1892 as Lord Cromer) governed as Viceroy from 1883 until 1907, and proceeded to set up British-style administration, education, police force and army. The French, however, continued to direct the Antiquities Service. The 1907 census recorded 20,653 British nationals resident in Egypt, inclusive of troops. The British almost monopolised the chief administrative posts, in the army, post and telegraph office, railways and customs house, while others were involved in the manufacture of machinery and the construction of railways and harbours. The 14,591 French nationals were mainly artisans and chief government officials, including several architects and engineers. The British and French, however, only made up a small part of the 147,220 European residents recorded in the 1907 census, alongside Greeks, Italians, Austrians, Russians and Germans (Baedeker 1914). During this period of British occupation, some members of the armed forces started to take an interest in the antiquities of the country. Field Marshal Francis Wallace Grenfell (1841-1925) served as assistant Adjutant General to Sir Garnet (later Viscount) Wolseley in the Egyptian expedition in the summer of 1882. After the close of that campaign he remained in Egypt as assistant Adjutant General to the permanent garrison, and accepted the appointment as second in command of the Egyptian forces which had been placed under British rule. He stayed in Egypt until 1892, during which time he was appointed Sirdar (Commander in Chief) of the Egyptian army, and after five years at home he returned in 1897 for a two-year stint as Commander of the British garrison of Egypt (D.N.B. 1922-1930: 362-364). While he was stationed at Aswan in the late 1880s he conducted some excavations among the tombs there, which are still known as the Grenfell Tombs. He was a friend of Wallis Budge, then Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, and corresponded with Amelia Edwards, the founder and prime benefactor of the Egypt Exploration Fund. He amassed a large collection of Egyptian antiquities, the majority of which are housed at the Museum of the Bournemouth Natural Science Society. Some of the Palaeolithic artefacts which Grenfell acquired from Kharga Oasis were subsequently bought at an auction by Seligman (Figure 3.2). In 1883 the country's first antiquities law, crafted by Maspero, was passed. Although it declared that all antiquities and museum objects were the property of the Egyptian state, Maspero arranged for foreign archaeologists to keep a generous share of their finds. He instructed the Egypt Exploration Fund to apply to excavate for strictly 'scientific' goals, without mentioning any desire to take objects home, and in turn he 'persuaded' the now captive Egyptian government to return a generous share of the excavators' finds to them as a gift (Reid 2002). The finds were then sent abroad to the institutions that were funding the fieldwork, and now form the core of museum collections in Europe and America. While Britons and Frenchmen almost monopolised Egyptian excavations in the 1880s and 1890s, the Germans, Americans and Italians then came in during the first decade of the twentieth century. The German House opened on the Theban west bank in 1904, and three years later the German Archaeological Institute (Kaiserlich Deutsche Institut Für Ägyptische Altertumskunde) was founded (Reid 2002). The First World War aborted this promising beginning. German property in Egypt was sequestered, and the Egyptians refused to allow German excavation or reopening of the German Archaeological Institute until 1929. Fieldwork by the British, French, and others slowed to a crawl. After the First World War, imperial and national politics set the parameters within which archaeology would operate. With the appointment in 1914 of a new Director of the Antiquities Service, Pierre Lacau (1873-1963), the days of the 'archaeological free-for-all' were finally drawing to a close. The equal division of finds policy was no longer tolerated by the authorities, and 19

Figure 3.2 Page from an auction catalogue annotated with Seligman's handwriting

archaeologists had to accept that they were now excavating for information, and not purely material gain. The 1919 revolution took the British by surprise, and forced them to concede greater autonomy to the Egyptians. In 1922 the British unilaterally declared Egypt independent, which ushered in a period of semicolonialism (or semi-independence). The coincidence of Tutankhamun's tomb coming to light in the same year linked archaeology and politics as never before. Limited as this 20

'independence' was, it enabled Egypt to keep the entire contents of Tutankhamun's tomb, pass far stricter controls on exporting antiquities, begin Egyptianising the museums and Antiquities Service, found a state university, and open programmes to train Egyptian Egyptologists. President Nasser negotiated an end to the British occupation in 1954, and consolidated it with his diplomatic triumph at the end of the 1956 Suez War. Egypt won full independence and control of its antiquities and museums almost simultaneously. Ninety-four years of French control of the Antiquities Service came to an end, and Mustafa Amer stepped in as the first Egyptian to direct it (Reid 2002). The foreign presence in Egypt in the later part of the nineteenth century was facilitated by the development of the travel industry. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 provided a gateway to the east, and in the same year Thomas Cook (1808-1892) started organising trips to Egypt. The best and most economical route was across Europe by train to Brindisi and thence by steamer to Port Said. Cook offered this trip for 150 guineas, and the public flocked to his offices. Thomas Cook & Son also organised luxury cruises down the Nile, and by 1873 they were operating a regular passenger service between Cairo and Aswan (Ahtola 1999). There was a steady traffic of military and civil service personnel to draw on; these were people who were en route or returning from India and the East, and who welcomed a break during which they could see the monuments of Egypt which were attracting so much attention through the work of British and French Egyptologists. Cook could also rely on numbers of British tourists who were prepared to make a journey specially to see the wonders of the new tourism country. On a twenty-day tourist steamer voyage up the Nile, a traveller could visit Memphis, Beni Hasan, Asyut, Abydos, Luxor, Esna, Kom Ombo and Aswan (Swinglehurst 1982). The archaeological sites started to suffer as a result. Wall paintings were often defaced and sometimes chunks were carved out of the walls as souvenirs. There was little control over the archaeological monuments that were constantly being discovered and, in fact, the museums themselves often sold pieces for which they had little use. There was a good trade in mummified cats, birds and other animals, as well as in amulets and pottery, though whether all the treasures hawked about were genuine is questionable. The seventh edition of Karl Baedeker's Egypt and the Sudan: Handbook for Travellers (1914) warned tourists of the risks involved: Luxor is noted for its spurious antiquities. Many of the articles offered for sale in the streets are so skilfully imitated that even experts are sometimes in doubt as to their genuineness; the ordinary traveller seldom or never secures an authentic specimen ... Travellers should never buy antiquities without the advice of a connoisseur. Purchases should not be made in presence of the dragomans, as these individuals, by tacit agreement, receive a percentage from the dealers, which is, of course, added to the price. Specimens may be obtained from Mohareb Todrus, the German consular agent, or from the dealers Mohammed Muhasseb, 'Abd el-Megîd, Mansûr Mahmûd, R. de Rustafjaell [Luxor Trading Company], etc. Prices vary greatly; 1l., or even more, must be paid for a good scarabaeus with fine colour (Baedeker 1914: 252).

A safer bet for collectors was the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which sold antiquities of which the genuineness was guaranteed by the museum authorities. Honoured and decent Egyptologists sometimes turned out to be smugglers. Lord Cromer wrote to another British official concerning some mysterious cases of Egyptian antiquities: Cook, the tourist agent, came to me a few days ago and said that Mr Budge, the agent of the British Museum [Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities from 1894 to 1924] ... had left with him, somewhere up the Nile, several heavy cases containing antiquities of sorts which he asks Cook to get out of the country for him without going through the regular for of asking permission (Lord Cromer in Ahtola 1999).

21

Baedeker's coverage of Egypt's museums in the 1914 edition of Egypt and the Sudan: Handbook for Travellers gives insight to the relative importance of different eras in the eyes of the travel industry. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo receives twenty-four densely printed pages and a fold-out floor plan, while the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria gets four pages, and the Arabian Museum in Cairo two and a half. In 1929 the next, and last, edition of the guide added one page on the Coptic Museum in Cairo, but otherwise the proportional coverage remained unchanged, and lopsidedly in favour of the Pharaonic era (Reid 2002). The Egyptian Museum, containing Egyptian and Greek Antiquities found in the valley of the Nile ... is by far the largest and most important collection of its kind. Its growth is steady and rapid, owing to the regular archaeological enterprises of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, to purchases, and to the proceeds of foreign excavations, half of which have to be surrendered to the Museum on request (Baedeker 1914: 80).

Baedeker uses the term 'Egyptian' to refer to antiquities of the Pharaonic period: statues, steles, stone coffins, mummies, wall paintings, jewellery, manuscripts and papyri. Though prehistoric artefacts were present in the Egyptian Museum, they were not deemed to be significant enough to display. There is a fine collection of stone implements from various parts of Egypt in the Prehistoric Room in the Cairo Museum, but for want of space the late Sir Gaston Maspero [Director of the Museum] used it as a store room, and it was closed to the public (Seton-Karr 1917: 29).

By the 1890s the Egypt business was booming; in 1895, for example, Thomas Cook & Son had taken 742 Nile steamer bookings until March, which was the end of the season, as most tourists went to Egypt in winter to escape the rigours of the cold at home. According to Cook's Excursionist and Home & Foreign Tourist Advertiser, some 11,000 travellers visited Cairo during the winter of 1889-90 (Excursionist, May 10, 1890: 5), and in the 1890s the number of tourists flocking to Egypt grew even bigger. In 1897 Thomas Cook & Son took yet another step towards mass tourism by presenting an inexpensive 'Popular Tour' which lasted four weeks and cost only thirty-three guineas, and which included a round trip from Britain to Egypt, accommodation in hotels and meals. These 'Popular Tours' were aimed at the new, ever-increasing middle class, while the wealthier ranks took part in 'Select Conducted Parties'. The success of Thomas Cook & Son in cornering the tourist market in Egypt was partly due to the help of efficient politicians and Empirebuilders, such as Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Lord Curzon, Lord Cromer and Lord Dufferin (Ahtola 1999). An observation made by a contemporary commentator gives insight to why these people took such an active interest in the development of the travel business: [Cook has] ... done more to extend the use of the English language throughout Egypt than could be effected by the award of hundreds of prizes to as many proficient pupils. They employ thousands of Egyptians who must know English; their Nile fleet carries several thousands of tourist every year who cannot have dealings with the natives unless English is spoken, and these influences ... must operate to render the English speech predominant among the foreign languages which are spoken throughout the Valley of the Nile (Rae 1892 in Ahtola 1999).

In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt, politics, archaeology and the travel industry were therefore inextricably linked. The British imperial politicians encouraged the travel business, which depended on the discoveries being made by the Egyptologists to attract tourists. The Egyptologists in turn depended on the French-directed Antiquities Service, who dictated the amount of antiquities that could be exported to the European and American institutions that funded the Egyptologists' work on a quid pro quo basis. The French actively excluded Egyptians from studying their own past, and in the half century before 1922 forced three indigenous Egyptological schools in succession to close by refusing to employ their graduates. During the period of semi22

independence following 1922, nationalists trumpeted pride in their Pharaonic forefathers, and writers, painters, architects and sculptors expressed this through the adoption of Pharaonic symbolism (Reid 2002). Pharaonic archaeology thus became a vehicle for nationalism, and strenuous efforts were made to ensure that Egyptians controlled the archaeological work being done in their country and that Egyptian scholars were involved in it. However, when Egypt gained full independence and control of its antiquities in the 1950s, indigenous interest in the pharaohs declined. The regime of Gamal Abdul Nasser promoted a pan-Arab rather than a specifically Egyptian sense of national identity, and indigenous study of the past started to focus on Islamic archaeology (Hassan 1998; Trigger 1989). Prehistoric archaeology in Egypt developed within this sociopolitical context, eclipsed by colonialist and nationalist interest in the archaeology of later periods.

Figure 3.3 Hamy (1869) and Arcelin (1871)

Palaeolithic research in Egypt before 1921 Although overshadowed by other events, including the opening of the Suez Canal and Mariette's spectacular discoveries at Abydos, 1869 was a notable year in the development of Egyptian prehistoric studies. Three Frenchmen, Adrien Arcelin (1838-1901), a prehistorian, Théodore Jules Ernest Hamy (1842-1908) (Figure 3.3), an anthropologist, and François Lenormant (1837-1883), an 23

orientalist, published the first account of Palaeolithic stone tools in Egypt in L'Industrie Primitive en Egypte: Age de Pierre, in which they noted the presence of numerous worked flints on the plateau of the Valley of the Kings (Biban el-Muluk, or Babel Molook) at Thebes. Prehistoric archaeology itself had just come of age a few years beforehand, with the publication of John Lubbock's Pre-Historic Times in 1865, and with the first ever displays of prehistoric artefacts, including Palaeolithic stone tools, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. In 1870 Lenormant published a list of the Stone Age surface remains which he and his colleagues had discovered in the Nile Valley between Elkab and Saqqara (Lenormant 1870). These early publications caused a stir amongst the Egyptologists, some of whom questioned the age of the stone artefacts, while others questioned whether the artefacts were really of human origin. In response to the debate which had started to rage in the literature, Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913), archaeologist and prehistorian, travelled to Egypt in 1873 in order to investigate the problem himself. I found worked flints at various spots along the valley; especially in the valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at Thebes, and at Abydos ... these flint implements really belong to the stone age, and are ante-Pharonic ... I do not think it is necessary to enter into the question, whether flintflakes, such as those in question, are of human origin, or mere natural fractures. The point has been discussed many times, and I am surprised that anyone should have a doubt on the subject ... The forms of the implements we found, as will be seen by the descriptions and figures, closely resemble those of Western Europe (Lubbock 1875: 217-219).

In 1875 Lubbock published Notes on the Discovery of Stone Implements in Egypt, illustrated with various plates of stone artefacts (Figures 3.4 and 3.5). Eminent Egyptologists like Carl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884), Heinrich Brugsch (1827-1894), François Joseph Chabas (1817-1882) and Auguste Mariette reacted with some scepticism to these findings, pointing out that the Egyptians of the Pharaonic period were known to work flint into tools. Henry Brugsch, in the last edition of his "History of Egypt under the Pharaohs", which has appeared during the present year [1881], asserts that "Egypt throws scorn upon the assumed periods of the three ages of stone, of bronze and of iron". So also the late Auguste Mariette, the successful explorer of the antiquities of Egypt, and Monsieur Chabas, one of the most eminent of their interpreters, while admitting that flints bearing evident traces of human workmanship have been found in that country, alike deny that such objects must necessarily be assigned to a very remote period, claiming that stone implements were used by its inhabitants during historic times. Lepsius, the most eminent living Egyptologist, even goes so far as to refuse to allow the human origin of the numerous broken flints found in that country, maintaining that they have been produced solely by natural causes. These eminent authorities have persisted in their incredulity, notwithstanding the fact that Monsieur Arcelin, so far back as February, 1869, had announced that he had discovered in the Nile Valley flint implements resembling those found in Western Europe; and later in the same year Dr Hamy and Monsieur Lenormant, and subsequently the Abbé Richard, had reported similar discoveries in the same region. Sir John Lubbock, also, who had made a journey to Egypt in 1873, for the purpose of forming an independent judgement upon the question after inspecting the localities, had been even more successful than his predecessors, and had published an account of his discoveries in that country, illustrated by several plates, one of which represents three implements that may fairly be regarded as of the palaeolithic type. There has been a good deal of discussion in several scientific bodies in regard to the legitimate conclusions to be drawn from these different discoveries, with the general result, that, owing to the comparatively limited number and extent of such finds, the existence in Egypt of the "stone age", and especially of the palaeolithic age, has either been absolutely denied, or the question has been considered as a still unsettled problem. This circumstance has been much dwelt upon by the opponents of the belief in "the antiquity of man", who ask for an explanation of how it happens that the "stone age" should fail to make its appearance in the oldest country, in regard to which we possess direct historic information (Haynes 1882: 357-358). 24

Figure 3.4 Plate from Lubbock (1875) Notes on the discovery of stone implements in Egypt

25

Figure 3.5 Plate from Lubbock (1875) Notes on the discovery of stone implements in Egypt

26

It was in order to explore this question that Henry Williamson Haynes (1831-1912), Professor of Greek at the University of Vermont, set out to Egypt in the winter of 1877-78. He discovered worked flints in the desert a few miles east of Cairo, including handaxes and scrapers, and at Helwan. He also spent six weeks at Thebes where he made a careful and extended search of the area on both sides of the Nile, and he published the artefacts which he found there in Discovery of Palaeolithic Flint Implements in Upper Egypt (1882). In the bottom of such ravines, and sometimes on the summits of the elevated plateaux of the hills, after long-continued and most laborious searching, I was rewarded by finding several specimens of palaeolithic axes of the true St Acheul type. I found, besides, innumerable examples of all the different objects that are commonly met with in other countries in which the existence of the "stone age" is regarded as established. Such were nuclei, disks, scrapers, piercers, lance-heads, arrow-points, knives, flakes etc., together with some forms that were quite novel. All these, without exception, have been fabricated by the process of chipping ... May not the discovery of this large quantity of flint implements, including several of the most ancient type known, of which some threescore select specimens are here delineated, be fairly claimed to have settled the vexed question of the existence of the 'stone age' in Egypt? (Haynes 1882: 359-360).

The answer to Haynes' rhetorical question was 'no'. In 1882 General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827-1900) published On the Discovery of Chert Implements in Stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes, which is arguably the most important of the late nineteenth century publications on the Egyptian Palaeolithic. Mariette, however, continued to voice his doubts, as did others. The doubt arose from the known fact that the Egyptians used stone tools in embalming and for ceremonial purposes, and consequently it was supposed by some that when the debris of stone tool making was found on the surface in the neighbourhood of the tombs, it indicated nothing more than the manufacture of tools for this purpose. The question of the Stone Age in Egypt has not yet been solved; the flints bear evident traces of the work of man, but one cannot conclude, as has often been done, that they belong to the very remote period which has been designated by the rather vague term Prehistoric. Almost all the flints have been collected on the surface of the soil, and there is therefore no evidence to prove the date of their manufacture. They may, indeed, even at the most flourishing epoch of Egyptian civilization, have used flints as tips for their arrows, or as knives for the incision of mummies, and it is not even impossible that some of them are as late as the Arabian era (Mariette quoted in Jukes-Browne 1878).

Pitt Rivers had visited Egypt in February and March 1881 on a Thomas Cook's Tour (Bowden 1991). He realised that similarity of form with Palaeolithic implements from Europe was not enough to convince the sceptics, and that as long as the finds of Palaeolithic tools were confined to the surface, then all conjectures regarding their date must remain hypothetical. Perhaps the present state of the question may be best summarised by quoting the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, one of the latest contributors to the archaeology of the stone age in Egypt. After carefully examining the various sites in which implements have been found on the surface in the Nile valley, and making a large collection of them, he came to the conclusion that their forms mostly resembled those of palaeolithic implements found in Europe, and that they were probably pre-Egyptian. This, however, being an argument based upon resemblance of form only, cannot be considered conclusive, and Captain Burton, who followed Sir John in an examination of the sites, though favouring the same view, still leaves the question open so far as date is concerned (Pitt Rivers 1882: 382-383).

In order to resolve this problem he therefore turned his attention to stratified deposits of gravel and alluvium, and on March 4th he began his investigations in a series of tombs cut into the side of a 27

Figure 3.6 Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

wadi at Qurna near Thebes. Almost immediately he found struck flakes of flint embedded in the gravel into which the tombs, themselves not later than Eighteenth Dynasty in date, were cut (Figures 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8). Knowing that this discovery was to be controversial, Pitt Rivers was careful to find flakes embedded in the gravel in such a way that they could not have been accidentally struck by the tomb diggers, and to bring a reliable witness to the scene (Bowden 1991). The witness was the geologist J.F. Campbell, who described the event: Yesterday will probably make a paper for the learned Societies, on flints, &c., so I may as well write my private paper to you for comparison, without consultation with General Pitt Rivers ... There is no sort of question about the antiquity of temples and tombs in which inscriptions tell the story: 1500 BC. The shape of the street of tombs was much the same as it is now. The delta of this waddy had been built and cemented, and a late direction had been given by it to running water, which caused the water to undercut the hard gravel and make cliffs, before the tomb [builders], however, drove their galleries into the gravel. 'If you, with your knowledge and authority, can find anything of human work in that hard gravel', said I to P. Rivers, 'you will find something beyond calculation older than these Egyptian tombs and temples'. He went back, and he found worked flints in the gravel. Yesterday we went together. We sought in the walls of hewn tombs for ends of flints. When our authority pronounced favourably of the appearance of an end, James (my servant) and I hammered and worked about it, till it was got out. Many were rejected, many were selected, one had been cut off in hewing the tomb. It came out a finished 'flake', with the bulb of percussion far inside in the hard gravel. I am witness to the find and its place. It is a work of human art according to a good judge. It belongs to the geological delta formation, and beyond question it is older beyond calculation than the tomb which was cut into the gravel, and cut through the end of this particular flake. We got more, and they are being marked for the famous collection at South Kensington. This is my story of 28

Figure 3.7 Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

29

Figure 3.8 Plate from Pitt Rivers (1882) On the discovery of chert implements in stratified gravel in the Nile Valley near Thebes

30

yesterday's work, which may yet live in history as a date from which to calculate the antiquity of man (Campbell in Pitt Rivers 1882: 396-397).

The importance of Pitt Rivers' discovery was immediately recognised by some people, such as Professor William Boyd Dawkins (1837-1929), a geologist. The importance of General Pitt Rivers' explorations consists in the fact that they prove that these palaeolithic implements are contemporaneous with the gravel in which some of the tombs are hollowed. It is not a little strange that the implements of the river-drift then should be of exactly the same types, wherever they have hitherto been discovered. It may be inferred from their identity that the palaeolithic man who hunted the arnee and the extinct hippopotami in the forests of India, who wandered over Palestine and the valley of the Nile, who hunted the wild boar and the stag, the mammoth, and possibly the pigmy hippopotamus in the Mediterranean region, was in the same rude stage of civilisation as the hunter of the reindeer, bison, woolly rhinoceros, and horse in the forests of France and Britain. Here we are face to face with a condition of primeval savagery formerly universal (Boyd Dawkins in Pitt Rivers 1882: 399400).

Some, however, still remained to be convinced. The Canadian geologist, Sir William Dawson (1820-1899), cast doubt over the artefactual nature of the flints. Pitt Rivers had partly anticipated this problem, and in his paper he had insisted on his experience both with the study of river gravel deposits and with flint working. For some years I had made a particular study of river gravels. I had discovered palaeolithic implements in situ in the drift gravels at Acton ... I had also examined every section in which palaeolithic implements had been found by others in England or on the Continent. Following the example of Dr John Evans, F.R.S. ... I had myself constructed flint implements many years ago, and had by that means acquired a thorough knowledge of the fracture of flint, a qualification of the first necessity to any one who proposes to examine a section of gravel for this purpose ... (Pitt Rivers 1882: 389).

The debate dragged on for more than a decade. In 1894 Joseph Lajard published an article in the Journal of the Institut Egyptien in which he gave several reasons why a Palaeolithic period could not have existed in Egypt. His chief argument was the extreme rarity of Pliocene and Quaternary alluvium, the depth of the Nile bed where such remains should be, if any existed, and the absence elsewhere of such strata. He also expressed doubt over whether Pitt Rivers had found the flints in a true Quaternary alluvium deposit, or merely in the detritus of the valley itself, combined with an accumulation of sand blown down from the desert plateau in the same manner as that which had covered and hid the entrances to some of the tombs of the Kings (Lajard 1894). Pitt Rivers was forced to reiterate his case in his Presidential Address to the Royal Archaeological Institute in 1897: The production of a single bulb on the flat side of the flint, two or more facets at the back with the hollows left by the bulbs of flakes previously struck off on them, and the small flat surface at the top, being the residuum of the flat surface of the core on which the blow was given to flake it off, all formed by blows delivered nearly at the same spot and in the same direction, could not possibly be produced otherwise than by the hand of man. This is an axiom so thoroughly established as to be familiar to the merest tyro in prehistoric investigations (Pitt Rivers 1897: 313).

William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), Egyptologist, first went to Egypt in 1880 to make measurements of the Great Pyramid at Giza. He later excavated at sites all over Egypt, publishing a volume almost every year on the results of the previous winter's research. Among his excavations were some spectacular discoveries, but his work was far more important in providing a framework 31

of information about the different areas and periods (Baines and Málek 1980). Petrie collected Palaeolithic stone tools whenever he came across them, for example while he was working at Giza in 1881-83, at Esna in 1887, at Ballas and Naqada in 1894-95, and at Dendara in 1897-98. At Esna he was accompanied by Francis Llewellyn Griffith (1862-1934), another Egyptologist. They walked eight or nine miles out from Esna to the nearest cliff, but found no tombs or buildings there; but for Petrie the trip was after all worth while, for he picked up a palaeolith, a hand-axe "which might have come from Abbeville or Cambridgeshire by its form". It was, he noted, river-worn but lay on a hilltop between two stream beds, so that it must have been of very great antiquity - in fact, he concluded, he must be holding in his hand the oldest man-made object so far found in Egypt (Drower 1985: 112; Figure 3.9).

Figure 3.9 Illustration from Petrie (1892) Ten Years' Digging in Egypt 1881-1891

Petrie's unpublished notebooks housed in the Griffith Institute Archives at the University of Oxford provide insight to the way his thoughts about the Egyptian Palaeolithic were developing, in particular the association of artefact types with different geological formations. The following excerpts were written while he was working at Naqada. 19 December 1894 I found another fine palaeolithic hue, only about 20 feet over Nile, in a water course. On examining flint beds I made an interesting find. All along in front of cliffs, for about 4 miles circle, are foothills, and a plateau of flint beds, about 20 feet above the Nile. This continuous plateau was evidently the old High Nile river bed, as the flints are large and mostly rounded; they are interstratified with marl beds that lie in contact with only a little marl between them, all entirely whitened on the surface. Now in these beds of the old high river gravel, laid down when the river was certainly 50 feet higher than now, probably more, are worked flints of the later palaeolithic style, not the great massive leaf-shapes but slighter chipping, though never flaked in long slips. These chippings are all comparatively fresh in practice. Thus we can equate the later palaeolithic age with the gravel bed of the high Nile when the present shore plateaus were laid down on the river bottom. This removes Pitt Rivers' find from Luxor from being a mere valley face deposit, and shows that those gravels are part of the True Nile bed gravel. All this takes back the age of the rolled and entirely whitened and battered leaf-shaped flints to a far earlier time, probably to when the Nile was at its full height 400 feet over the present. 32

26 December 1894 A cliff climb of 1400 feet to reach plateau which is deeply intersected in all directions with greater valleys. Up there I first found a fine leaf-shaped palaeolith 6x4 inches, quite fresh and unworn. Then I came to a place where every flint had been worked on, and dozens of small leaf-shaped flints lay about. At last I realised that I had reached the home of palaeolithic man, where he lived and where his work has lain untouched ever since. Just before descending I came on one of the grandest palaeoliths I ever saw, of the triangular type, 7 inches long and 4 wide. It is fresh as the day it was chipped, but black with age on the upper side. The rounded water worn specimens that we find in the valleys below are not worth looking at compared with these splendid fresh examples on the high plateau. 20-27 February 1895 Along the foot of hills found great quantities of worked flints, 50 times as numerous as on the slopes above. Most of them palaeolithic style. This is about 400 feet above Nile level ... we brought about half a cubic weight of flints.

Petrie is often regarded as the founder of modern archaeology, particularly in Egypt and the Near East, and his association with the Egypt Exploration Fund helped establish its reputation as a serious archaeological body. Petrie was Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at London University from 1893 to 1933, and in 1894 he established an Egyptian Research Account to fund excavation by himself and colleagues, later enlarged as the British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Over the years various members of Petrie's team collected Palaeolithic artefacts, many of which are now housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum (see Chapter 8). Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan (1857-1924) was a French civil engineer, geologist, archaeologist and prehistorian, who served as Director General of the Egyptian Antiquities Service from 1892 until 1897 (Dawson & Uphill 1972). De Morgan was not an Egyptologist, and as such he stands out from his predecessors and successors at the head of the Antiquities Service. In 1896 he published the first synthesis of Egyptian prehistory entitled Recherches sur les Origines de l'Egypte I: L'Age de la Pierre et des Metaux. In the same year Captain Heywood Walter Seton-Karr (1859-1938), who worked for the British Military Service in Egypt, collected several thousand stone artefacts from Wadi el-Sheikh, as well as from Esna, Abydos, Naqada, Nag' Hammadi and Thebes (SetonKarr 1897). In June 1896 Seton-Karr exhibited some of his artefacts from the Egyptian desert to the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. With regard to the Egyptian implements he found in the spring on the desert, he would suggest that they might be the Æthiopic stones of Herodotus, used for embalming purposes. Sir John Evans and others, however, were of the opinion they were much older ... He thought Africa might prove to be the cradle of a portion, at any rate, of the human race (Brabrook 1897: 110).

In 1897 the artefacts were purchased by the Mayer Museum in Liverpool, and those from Wadi elSheikh were published by the Museum's Director, Henry Ogg Forbes (1851-1932), in a paper entitled On a Collection of Stone Implements in the Mayer Museum, made by Mr H.W. Seton-Karr, in Mines of the Ancient Egyptians Discovered by him on the Plateaux of the Nile Valley (1900). Forbes was very doubtful that the supposed palaeoliths were actually Palaeolithic at all, and he dated all the Wadi el-Sheikh implements to the twelfth dynasty or later. As many of the plateau implements have been found in close association with nodules and flakes struck from them, it seems impossible to believe that these could remain (even in a single instance) undisturbed from the palaeolithic days of Europe to the present time, when the forest under which they were made, and the forest soil on which they reposed have been entirely carried away ... The conclusions it seems to me legitimate to draw from a study of the collection here described, are that rude and palaeolithic forms, amount and depth of patina, and surface conditions are characters which cannot be depended on to fix the date of stone 33

implements when there is no possibility of determining the geological age of the strata whence they have come, and in the absence of associated faunistic remains ... The evidence of the palaeolithic age of man in Egypt would appear, therefore, to rest for the moment on the flakes and very rude scraper-like flints, found in the Babel Molook gravels (Forbes 1900: 115).

The publication of Forbes' paper provoked a response from both supporters and critics. Charles Read (1857-1929), Keeper of Ethnology at the British Museum, was convinced by Forbes' argument. The types of implements range from something nearly approaching to that ascribed to Palaeolithic times down to the carefully chipped flints which are assigned to the XIIth Dynasty. But it is assumed by Mr Forbes, and his arguments seem sound, that the whole of the objects found by Mr Seton-Karr are of one period, and that naturally the latest. If this be so, and there seems no reason to doubt it, deep discolouration from exposure to the air can no longer be accepted as proof of high antiquity for flint implements in Egypt (Read in Forbes 1901: 49).

By now positions had become entrenched, and Petrie, who was convinced that the patination on the flints must indicate an earlier date, was determined to fight his corner. The association of flakes in groups, apparently as worked, is common on the high plateau. But that might co-exist with the denudation since the pluvial age, as these patches of flakes are all on level ground with no wash either way, and the removal of soil after a rainy age would be by wind or sun-crumbling. It is a very different condition to flints left on soluble and washable strata in England; in Egypt they are on a few inches of hard marl resting on solid limestone, and hence not liable to be washed over ... I by no means wish to attack your summing up. But, for my own part, the evidence of historic age for the darkened flints seems to me far weaker than the evidence of undarkened flints in every case in which I can connect them with any historic age (Petrie in Forbes 1901: 54-55).

Forbes and Read were right; the artefacts which Seton-Karr found at Wadi el-Sheikh are, indeed, Predynastic and Dynastic in age. Hugh John Llewellyn Beadnell (1874-1944) worked for the Geological Survey of Egypt between 1896 and 1906, mapping large areas of the Nile Valley and Libyan Desert. He joined the debate in 1903: 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 'palaeoliths'. Whether any of these are in reality comparable with the 'palaeoliths' of Europe is, I think, at present, an unanswerable question, but certainly in some cases their shape, workmanship, discolouration, and amount of weathering do not prove the contrary (Beadnell 1903: 56). I do not pronounce either for or against Palaeolithic man in Egypt, but I do say that so far both evidence for and against has been unsound. We must carefully collect and examine all available facts both archaeological and geological, as only by a combination of both can the question of the age of different groups of flints and the presence or absence of Palaeolithic man be determined (Beadnell 1903: 58-59).

Harry Reginald Holland Hall (1873-1930) was an Egyptologist and historian who entered the British Museum in 1896 as an assistant to Wallis Budge, Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities from 1894-1924 (Davies 1982). Between 1903 and 1907 Hall was seconded from the Museum to work with Edouard Naville at the excavation of the Temple of Mentuhotpe III at Deir el-Bahari, Thebes, and during this period Hall made several visits to the slope and upper surface of the plateau to the west of Thebes in search of surface Palaeolithic artefacts. In his publication Palaeolithic Implements from the Thebaïd (1905), Hall included a photograph in which he placed 34

four of his Egyptian artefacts, a scraper and three handaxes, next to four very similar English Palaeolithic artefacts from Mildenhall and Icklingham for comparative purposes. On the assumption (which is probably to be rejected) that the palaeolithic inhabitants lived on the high plateau, and gradually migrated downhill as the climatic conditions approximated to those of the present day, the level of the river fell, and the swamps dried up, one ought to find the most primitive and most weathered implements on the highest plateau, and the more modern ones progressively lower down on its slopes and the small subsidiary plateau between the branch-wadis. This does not appear to me to be the case (Hall 1905: 37).

While the debate continued in English circles, two Germans were working in the Thebes area who had no doubt about the Palaeolithic age of the artefacts they were finding. In 1902 Max Ludwig Paul Blanckenhorn (1861-1947), geologist and palaeontologist, published Die Geschichte des NilStroms in der Tertiär- und Quartärperiode, sowie des Paläolithischen Menschen in Agypten, in which he presented the results of his search for Palaeolithic tools in the Thebes area on the summit of the ridge between Deir el-Bahari and the Tombs of the Kings, and on the path from there to Deir el-Medina. German explorer and botanist Georg August Schweinfurth (1836-1925) reported finding stone tools from different locations in the Nile Valley (1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1909), including the 200 and 150 foot terraces which Sandford and Arkell later found to be sterile. Schweinfurth's pioneering studies of stone tools place him among the founders of Egyptian Palaeolithic archaeology, though Seligman was critical of his research: Schweinfurth's latest paper, probably still valuable from the geological side, is vitiated by his tendency to see eoliths everywhere, much more advanced implements being regarded as eolithic (Seligman 1921: 116).

Robert de Rustafjaell ( -1943) was an American collector and author who worked for the Luxor Trading Company and formed a collection of Egyptian antiquities, mainly from Predynastic sites. In 1907 he published a paper called Palaeolithic Vessels of Egypt, or the Earliest Handiwork of Man (1907). In it he describes his explorations on the left bank of the Nile and into the Western Desert in the neighbourhood of Gebelein, Thebes, el-Mo'alla and Naqada, and reports finding 'factory' sites of Palaeolithic flint implements throughout the district, usually on slightly elevated ground, on the slope of a hillside or on the tableland of the high plateaux. I had established the custom of presenting prizes of 5 and 3 piastres (1s. and 7d.) each at the end of the day for the best flint and the most peculiar type or rarest example brought to me. This stimulates both men and boys to do their utmost and helps them to take a real interest in the game (de Rustafjaell 1907: 12).

Some of the artefacts collected by de Rustafjaell at Thebes were sold in 1910 (Figure 3.10), and were later acquired by Professor Bishop of Queen Mary College, London University. After his death they were donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum (see Chapter 8). Charles Currelly (1876-1957), a Canadian, was one of Petrie's British School of Archaeology in Egypt students (see Chapter 8). In 1904 he joined Petrie in the survey of the Nile Delta, and he collected numerous handaxes and cores from the area to the west of Thebes. In his autobiography, I Brought the Ages Home (1956), Currelly gives an account of his search for Palaeolithic artefacts near Thebes in 1906: We climbed up and up, choosing the easiest grades, till we got on the plateau above the big bay that opens out above Sheikh Abde Gourneh. Towards noon, one of us picked up a beautifully made ovate, and in a few minutes more we came on quantities, literally hundreds, lying about in every direction. There they were, lying on the surface, just as they had been, unmoved for 35

Figure 3.10 Letter from Robert de Rustafjaell of the Luxor Trading Company 36

tens of thousands of years: ovates of nearly all the types, a few spearheads and the hollow scrapers with which handles and shafts for the weapons had been made. It was possible to see where a man had sat on a stone and had chipped away till his implements had been wrought into shape. When we returned the sack on the donkey was full, the villagers were loaded, and our pockets were full as they could hold. I picked out a man that I thought would make a good hunter, and tried to show him what I wanted. Day by day he searched the area and each night brought in numbers of them. At the end of the season about four thousand of the best were sent to England to Allen Sturge ... (Currelly 1956: 151). I spent a good deal of time that summer working over with Dr Allen Sturge the four thousand palaeoliths that I had sent him, half of which were to remain with him and go to the British Museum, and half to be re-shipped to Toronto. At Icklingham Hall, Dr Sturge had added two large rooms for his collections, installing very fine and expensive cases. The prehistoric room contained one of the best collections in the world. Sturge had come to the conclusion some years before that if it were possible to get flint implements from exactly the same flint that had been lying in the sun under the same circumstances, the degree of discolouration would be an index of the age of the flint. Of course two different flints would act quite differently, as would one that had been buried during the whole or part of the period; but those I had sent had all been lying on the surface of the upper plateau through millennium after millennium, and were remarkably well suited for such an examination. The first thing we did was to pick out fourteen definite colours, on which we both agreed, and put them on one side as our type colours. We then took the different types of implements and put them together. Very soon we saw that they fitted in without one break. A first type appeared in a certain colour, died out at a later colour, and never appeared again. The flint itself was a light grey, the regular flint of the nummulitic limestone of that region. With four thousand specimens we were able to see how the action of the sun and the slight amount of dampness and dryness had slowly brought the iron and the manganese to the surface. The flint slowly darkened until it became a somewhat glossy black, then the surface broke to a light ochreous yellow, which gradually passed into a deep reddish brown and again became almost black, during this period being somewhat less shiny and ochreous. When we were finished, we were both convinced that we had an accurate method of telling the relative ages of these implements, and I may say that subsequent examination of thousands of specimens has confirmed me in this belief (Currelly 1956: 160).

In the autumn of 1907 Currelly returned to Egypt, as he had agreed to compile a catalogue of flint implements for the Cairo Museum. In the meantime he continued to advance his studies of the patination of flints, though his ideas were by no means universally accepted: I read a paper at the British Association in Dublin [1908] on the patination of flints, and was severely hammered by all and sundry of the older pre-historians. I was glad that all their posers had already been thrashed out by Sturge and myself, but still Sir John Evans had given his fiat that patination meant nothing, because the Brandon flints had patinated in a single night. Sturge and I went to Brandon, and the flintknappers said it was not so, but that some of the dark flints turned white all through, a very different thing from patination. Sturge had now accumulated between thirty and forty thousand specimens of English worked flint, every one of which fell into its type properly. He then read a paper before the Royal Anthropological Institute, and was so violently attacked by Boyd Dawkins that he did not sleep for a week, as he was a nervous man, and not well. I had a long talk with Boyd Dawkins on the matter, and found that he had no grasp of it whatsoever (Currelly 1956: 178).

The catalogue of flint implements for the Cairo Museum was eventually published in 1913, and in it Currelly tried to put forward his ideas about patination. However, some of the proofs never reached him, so the book was published without corrections and without the all important explanatory preface, and Currelly concluded that it was a fiasco (Currelly 1956). Seligman was also critical of the publication, but for different reasons:

37

Mr Currelly's recent publication, the catalogue of the worked stones in the Cairo Museum, figures a number of specimens of the older palaeolithic age, but the absence of adequate letterpress, due largely to the fact that the exact provenance of most of the specimens in the Museum is unknown, greatly reduces its value (Seligman 1921: 116).

In the intervening period between his second trip to Egypt and the publication of The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt in 1921, two papers were published which had a variable degree of influence on Seligman's own work: Petrie's The Stone Age in Egypt in 1915, and The Palaeoliths of the Eastern Desert by Frederic Henderson Sterns in 1917. Sterns worked at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. The latter, with photographic reproductions of every stone in the collection as well as some in the Museum previously, is for the most part in the nature of a catalogue raisonné; the former, while it makes certain assumptions and draws certain conclusions with which many will not agree, is valuable principally for its breadth of view and for its record of a precise stratigraphical observation made at Naqada (Seligman 1921: 116).

The Stone Age in Egypt consists of a typological comparison between Egyptian and European stone tools. Petrie made a selection of artefacts from his collection at University College London: three hundred palaeoliths, three hundred 'Solutrean' artefacts from the Faiyum, one hundred flints from early settlements, and three hundred from prehistoric graves with relative dating. In studying this subject we must first place the Egyptian examples side by side with the European, to see the similarity of form. Then, if no other facts disagree, we cannot do otherwise than assign the types in Egypt to the same general period as those types in Europe (Petrie 1915: 62).

For comparison with the European types, Petrie took illustrations from the Musée Préhistorique (1881) drawn by Professor Adrien de Mortillet, and Die Diluviale Vorzeit Deutchlands by Robert Rudolf Schmidt (1912). The parallels which he drew between European and Egyptian Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts are valid, although he erroneously classified some Predynastic crescent drills as Acheulian, on the basis of their dark patina and the height above sea level at which they were found. For the Upper Palaeolithic, however, he was wide of the mark, illustrating European Aurignacian cores alongside Egyptian Epipalaeolithic and Predynastic cores. We now reach one of the clearest stages in the Egyptian series, that of the Fayum flints, found at Dimeh and other sites to the west of the Lake. Here, unhappily, as to records, we are even worse off than in the Nile Valley. The whole of the 300 specimens in University College have been found by natives, and are without any history. Most of them I selected at a dealer's from a barrel-full of many thousands, in order to show all varieties of types. The main fact which seems obvious about them is their close equivalence to the Solutrean family of Europe (Petrie 1915: 74).

The 'Solutrean' artefacts from the Faiyum which Petrie compared with Solutrean foliate points from Laugerie-Haute and La Solutré are, in fact, Predynastic in age. The more significant part of Petrie's paper, as Seligman was obviously aware, was his attempt to link the fluctuations between glacial and interglacial periods with the rise and fall of the River Nile as a consequence of changes in sea level (Figure 3.11). The Egyptian curve has no human remains yet known associated with its first rise of sea level, where they have been searched for in the Theban vale (Valley of Tombs of the Kings). In the second rise there is the rolled Chellean implement of Esneh at about 450 feet over present sea level, implying that the Chellean age was before the middle of this rise. These limitations of the Chellean age agree with its position in Europe. In the second rise is here marked the change 38

Figure 3.11 Illustration from Petrie (1915) The Stone Age in Egypt showing the correlation between glacial and interglacial sea levels in Europe and Egypt

from a rainy to a dry climate, as indicated by the entire absence of erosion since the deposit of the high level gravel at Sohag ... ... Unhappily, in recent years, the surface flints have been remorselessly gathered up by the cartload to the order of speculators, and their history and meaning entirely lost. All over the Theban desert, which was one of the richest and the most important by the successive periods there traceable, there is not a flint worth notice left, only sad little pits dotted over the ground, where they have lain. Some good and careful work was done by Mr Montague Porch, who levelled by aneroid the positions of the fine series of flints which he collected, and I have always noted the levels of the flints which I have picked up. A fine Acheulian flint, with secondary working, lay by a cliff edge, 800 feet high, at Naqadeh, or at 1,030 over sea. This would never have been submerged, and no heavy rainfall occurred since its time sufficient to denude the rock and wash it away. This accords with the appearance of its position. On the other hand a well rolled Chellean pick (coup de poing) I picked up on a spur of a hill behind Esneh, estimated at 200 feet over Nile, or 460 over sea; and this is within the submersion of the 3rd glacial period. The main matters to search for now are traces of raised beaches of the submersions, and flints connected with them; levels of waterworn and of unworn flints of each early period at about 600 feet over sea; any worked flints in the Kings' Valley filling, or in the banks of débris washed out of side valleys at high levels; the period (Mousterian?) of flints in the high gravels, and the relation of Fayum flints to the continuous prehistoric civilisation. Of course, flints may be found perfectly fresh and unpatinated if they chanced to be buried very soon, without water wear, and have only been uncovered by denudation lately. Such was the case with one of the rudest and most massive picks, probably lost in the zero level period of early Chellean, and 39

then bared again in modern times where I found it, at near Nile level. By far the most important matter is the levelling and position of flints on the slopes and ledges of the hills in the Thebaid, where there was always a land surface throughout all the changes in level (Petrie 1915: 132135).

Despite Petrie's long involvement with the development of Egyptian Palaeolithic studies, his book on Prehistoric Egypt, which was published in 1920, totally ignored the Palaeolithic period, concentrating instead on the Predynastic phase of Egyptian prehistory. The second paper which influenced Seligman's work, Sterns' The Palaeoliths of the Eastern Desert, was based on a collection of flints made in 1914 by George William Murray (1885-1966), a Scottish surveyor and explorer who worked for the Egyptian Survey Department. Murray's first collection was donated to London University, and a subsequent one was given to the Peabody Museum of Harvard University. The artefacts were all found between the Nile and the Red Sea in the vicinity of the Qena-Quseir road, and the sites represented are Rabah, Wasif, Hammama and Mahamid. In his publication Sterns compared Murray's collections with the artefacts published by Haynes in 1882 (see above). Like Currelly, he was also particularly interested in the patination of the artefacts, a point which Seligman picked up on in The Older Stone Age of Egypt. However, according to Sterns there seemed to be no relationship between the kind of flint and the site from which the artefacts came, nor between the kind of flint and the type of artefact. The patination shows great variation, but here again there is no correlation between depth of patina and type of implement or type of site. One variety of patination, however, deserves special notice. It develops mainly in little depressions, in scratches, under the arêtes, and between the wave-like ridges on the side of the cones of percussion away from the point of impact of the blow. From its resemblance in appearance to the dendrites formed by certain mineral deposits, I call this type of patina dendritic (Sterns 1917: 48-49).

With the exception of the publications by Arcelin et al. (1869) and Lenormant (1870), of which Seligman does not appear to have been aware, the works mentioned above constituted the building blocks available to him when he was preparing The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt. On the comparative side for Europe he consulted Victor Commont's monograph on Les Hommes Contemporains du Renne dans la Vallée de la Somme (1914). The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt was based on four distinct groups of material: artefacts which Seligman collected on the slopes of Thoth Hill (Thebes) in 1908; artefacts which he collected at Thebes (Figure 3.12) and Abydos in 1914; artefacts collected by Murray at Hammama, Wasif and Wadi Dib in the Eastern Desert; and a number of selected specimens from the Sturge Collection. He was well aware that certain conditions and reservations had to be kept in mind when comparing the specimens from the Nile Valley (Abydos and Thebes) with those from the Eastern Desert. In the Nile Valley, especially at Thebes, the carrying away of palaeoliths has been extensively practised, not only by dealers, but also by Europeans who have regularly sent out natives to bring them every decent specimen they could find, so that it is no exaggeration to say that sacks full have been removed each winter, without the least regard to the position or site of collection. Such "collectioneering" could have only one result; the great majority of the larger and better worked and more obviously valuable specimens have been picked up years ago. This especially applies to the hand-axes and crescents, so that there are scarcely any of these left to the present day. Thus only one crescent was picked up in the fortnight or so at Thebes in 1914. The Mousterian implements have not proved so profitable; the native for the most part regards them as mere flakes left over from the manufacture of the more massive types, and though aplenty have been carried away, the desert has not been skinned of these to anything like the same extent. Mr Murray's collection from the Eastern Desert from new sites discovered by 40

Figure 3.12 Map of Thebes from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

himself is not at this disadvantage, and a large proportion of his specimens are of the Chelles or St. Acheul type, flakes forming relatively a minority (Seligman 1921: 118-119).

Like Currelly, Seligman was particularly interested in the patina present on the artefacts. The majority of the artefacts from Thebes, regardless of whether they were of Lower or Middle Palaeolithic type, had a more or less lustrous surface of a yellow-brown, deep brown, brown-red or mahogany colour, or of a tinge of orange flecked with black, and one of the faces of each artefact was almost always darker than the other. This he called 'palaeolithic patina'. A much smaller number of artefacts was characterised by a dull white 'stone' colour and pinkish grey, and these were often irregularly mottled and marbled. Seligman realised that these lighter coloured pieces were absent from the high desert plateau, but were very common at the foot of cliffs forming wadi sides, and that their light colour was therefore due to them having been weathered out of the cliffs comparatively recently. The use of river terraces to date Palaeolithic tools was a technique that had originated in Boucher de Perthes's work in the Somme River Valley, France, in 1847. In his 1921 publication Seligman revised his earlier views, which had been so apparent in his diary entries, on the relevance of the height at which the artefacts were found, since both Lower and Middle Palaeolithic forms and techniques were found at every altitude. He concluded that: ... there is nothing, as far as my observations go, in the surface distribution of these flints at the present day to indicate that one type is more ancient than the other' (Seligman 1921: 119).

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Seligman was the first to call attention to the fact that many Egyptian 'tortoise cores' (Levallois cores) showed evidence of further use as tools in themselves, after their primary function as cores had been accomplished. There are two implements which have been developed from the tortoise core. The first of these is the large hollow scraper, an extremely well defined form for which I suggest the term 'crescent'. The second implement is a heavy drawing or dragging point which is worked on the narrow end of the less domed tortoise cores and for which I propose the name 'tortoise point' (tortoise points not so much because they occur on tortoise cores, but because this stout, rather blunt point recalls the beak of a tortoise). Although crescents are well known and have been figured by almost every writer on the stone implements of the Egyptian desert, and although Dr Sterns has made the valuable suggestion that they are a local form limited to the Thebaid, their origin from the Mousterian tortoise core has not, I think, been noticed hitherto (Seligman 1921: 123-124; Figure 3.13). The tortoise point, the second class of tool which is typically derived from the tortoise core, is more difficult to describe. Regarding for the moment the face of the tortoise core, from which the Levallois flake is removed, as the upper surface, this tool consists in the production at its narrow end of an upturned point or beak. In its simplest form this is produced by the meeting at the narrow end of the core of the two planes bounding the flake-bed left by the removal of the Levallois flake, and of the facet constituting a third plane joining these at an angle, produced by striking off a flake from near the point of the lower surface of the core. It follows that the point or beak should be triangular in section, as it actually is in many instances, while in others it is somewhat pyramidal owing to secondary flaking, i.e., in those instances in which the operator did not succeed in removing one sufficiently large flake at a single blow (Seligman 1921: 125-126; Figure 3.14).

Seligman's training as an anthropologist shows through clearly in his interpretation of the use of these crescents and tortoise cores. With regard to the use of these crescents, it may be suggested that they were used to trim saplings and the branches of trees, and that their chief use was to fashion the shafts of spears, a suggestion that will, I think, be the more readily accepted by those who have watched a Melanesian smooth a spear shaft with the tusk of a wild pig, an implement having, as regards curvature, very much the working edge of these crescents ... I have already alluded to Dr Stern's suggestion that the crescents were a local and peculiar form to the Thebaid. The occurrence of such rough but effective implements, and the fact that no crescent was found by Mr Murray on his untouched sites in the Eastern Desert, go far to support Dr Stern's view (1921: 125). The form of these 'tortoise points', as I propose to call them, indicates that they were used as a heavy drawing point, i.e., with a drawing or dragging motion while the hand exerted considerable pressure. In a certain number of examples the distal portion of the crest, that nearest the point, shows minute abrasions, additional evidence in support of the suggestion that this implement was used with a drawing motion, considerable pressure being exerted at the same time ... The suggestion may be made that these tools were used for cutting hides; such a point would furrow or cut a stiff sun-dried hide - as those used by the Veddas - just as it does a piece of stout millboard (1921: 127).

Seligman drew the following conclusions from his research: Typological (1) Besides the well-known implements of River-drift and Mousterian types, forms transitional to the Capsian and fully Capsian, though relatively few in number, are to be found on the surface of both the Eastern and Western Deserts. (2) Forms transitional to the Capsian and fully Capsian include end-scrapers, transverse end-scrapers, nose-scrapers, notched end-scrapers, and some tanged points. 42

…(a) and (b) represent somewhat diagrammatically the two aspects of a tortoise core from the neighbourhood of Thebes, figures (c) and (d) represent the two aspects of a crescent, (a) and (c) show the convex surface with part of the original crust left in situ, the dotted line in (a) marking off the area that has been broken away from the core to give the scraping edge of (c). Figures (b) and (d) show the plane surfaces of the two specimens, the arrow at (d) pointing to the single crescentic flake that in a number of these implements has been removed from the working edge, before the final touches were given to the opposite surface. These crescents vary somewhat in the accuracy of the flaking of the plane surface, as well as in the size of the crescentic flake removed from the working edge: often this extends from limb to limb, i.e., forms the whole length of the working edge of the flake-bed surface … (Seligman 1921: 124-125).

Figure 3.13 Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

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The upper figure represents somewhat diagrammatically the face of a tortoise core … the lower part of the scarbed (F) of the Levallois flake is bounded by two longer, narrower facets (lettered 1 and 1a), and their intersection gives rise to a crest of ridge. This crest (R) and uts two bounding facets are terminated abruptly by the facet numbered 3, produced by a single blow struck on the opposite surface of the stone. This is shown diagrammatically in the lower figure, which represents an end-on view of the ‘point’ (Seligman 1921: 125-126)

Figure 3.14 Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt

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Figure 3.15 Illustration from Seligman (1921) The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt showing 'tortoise' points from Abydos and Thebes

(3) The form of tortoise-core commonly found in Egypt is unlike the usual European type, and is often specially worked to form an implement having a heavy triangular or pyramidal point. This tool must have been used with a drawing or dragging motion. The same point, which it is proposed to call a 'tortoise point', is sometimes produced apart from tortoise-cores. (4) A number of rough tanged points (spear or arrow-heads) have been found. Some of these appear to be definitely Mousterian. (5) No implements of Solutrian or Magdalenian type were found among the large number of specimens collected from the high desert and its terraces. Stratigraphical (6) The great majority of implements of all types - River-drift, Mousterian, and Capsian present a characteristic surface, and a series of shades of colour (palaeolithic patina), found only in specimens which have long been exposed on the face of the desert. (7) Implements of a highly developed Mousterian type, which do not present the palaeolithic patina, are found in situ in undisturbed gravels geologically of Pleistocene age.

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(8) Numerous implements of Mousterian type, and a few of River-drift and Capsian type, which do not present the palaeolithic patina, but which resemble the specimens found in undisturbed gravels, are to be found at the base of the cliffs bounding the wadys, indicating that they have weathered out relatively recently from the gravels forming these cliffs (Seligman 1921: 142).

The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt stands out from the publications that preceded it. Though Petrie and his friend, Montague Porch, sometimes recorded the heights of the terraces on which they were finding artefacts, the results of this work were never published. Seligman was therefore the first to make these records in a systematic fashion, doubtless as a result of Petrie's influence, as is revealed by Brenda Seligman's 1908-09 diary, and he was also the first to publish the fact that altitude and the age of an artefact bore no correlation. This was a significant discovery which, unfortunately, was overlooked by some later researchers. His theory about the manufacture of crescents which are, indeed, only found at Thebes, was correct, and his 'tortoise points' are what we would now call Nubian type-1 cores (see Chapter 6; Figure 3.15). In most of Europe's overseas colonies, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century development of archaeology followed broadly similar lines and was characterised by amateur collecting (Trigger 1989). In Egypt, however, alongside the amateur collecting activities of people like Seton-Karr and de Rustafjaell, there was a scientific element present almost from the beginning, starting with Lubbock in 1873, and continuing with the work of Haynes, Pitt Rivers, Hall, Petrie, Currelly and Seligman. In common with most of Europe's overseas colonies, though, the overriding goal of these first collections was to record the range of artefact types found and compare them with European types in order to establish a cultural framework for the country's Palaeolithic. As part of this process of comparison, many of the artefacts were dispatched abroad, a process which was facilitated by Egypt's lax antiquities laws at the time, and they now form important collections in many museums, including the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Palaeolithic research in Egypt from 1921 to the present day Until 1921, when the French prehistorian Edmond Vignard reported finding stone tools at Nag' Hammadi, there was no Egyptian Upper Palaeolithic. Like his predecessors, Vignard also looked for comparisons in the European Palaeolithic record in order to place his finds in a cultural sequence, and he attributed his finds from Nag' Hammadi to the Aurignacian period (Vignard 1921, 1922). Following criticism from Jacques de Morgan, who maintained that the tools were in fact Predynastic, Vignard later modified his views, but only to concede that they might be Protomagdalenian instead, because of the presence of raclettes (Vignard 1957; Figure 3.16). During the 1920s he excavated a number of prehistoric sites on the Kom Ombo Plain and became convinced that they also dated to the Upper Palaeolithic period because of their geological context and the abundance of burins in the assemblages. He named this new industry the Sebilian, and divided it into three distinct phases. The Early Sebilian (or Sebilian I) was essentially a Levallois industry with Mousterian-like retouched points. The Sebilian tradition gradually developed through Sebilian II (Middle Sebilian; Figure 3.17) and Sebilian III (Late Sebilian) into a true microblade industry (Vignard 1923, 1928). The Middle Sebilian corresponded with the Aurignacian, Magdalenian, Solutrean and Azilian, while the Late Sebilian was the equivalent of the Tardenoisian. Thus Vignard's Sebilian covered the entire length of the European Upper Palaeolithic, comprising an ideal bridge between the Levallois-tradition industries and the microlithic industries. Compared to the Upper Palaeolithic industries in Europe, Vignard felt that the Sebilian retained many Mousterian characteristics, and was therefore technologically

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Figure 3.16 Illustration from Vignard (1957) Pointe de vue sur l'industrie de Champ de Bagasse de Nag Hamadi comparing raclettes from Nag' Hammadi with similar tools from the French Upper Palaeolithic

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Figure 3.17 Illustration from Vignard (1955) Les stations et industries Sébiliennes du Burg el Makkazin showing Sebillian II artefacts

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conservative. This, he believed, showed that Africa in general, and the Nile Valley in particular, constituted cultural backwaters at the time (Hoffman 1981; Midant-Reynes 2000). Paul Bovier-Lapierre (1873-1950) was a French archaeologist and priest who visited Egypt for the first time in 1905 to teach science in Cairo under Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the biologist, physicist and philosopher. In 1914 he returned to Egypt and, after an accident to his eyes which prevented him using a microscope, he gave up his scientific work and concentrated on the study of Egyptian prehistory (Dawson & Uphill 1972). The prehistory of the Delta had remained practically unexplored since the times of Jacques de Morgan in 1896, and in 1926 Bovier-Lapierre made important discoveries at Abbassia, near Cairo, which enabled him to isolate and analyse a stratified sequence of rolled Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts deposited at the same time as the formation of the ancient Nile terraces. Bovier-Lapierre presented the results of his research at Abbassia at the 11th International Congress of Geography and Ethnology in Cairo in April 1925 (Bovier-Lapierre 1926b). For the young Egyptian nation, struggling to free itself of British control and establish its reputation as a respected member of the world community, it was an important occasion. King Faud I had proposed that the conference be held in Cairo to commemorate the half century since the founding of the Royal Geographical Society of Egypt by his father, Khedive Ismail, in 1875. The King of semi-independent Egypt was anxious to play the role of an enlightened, modern constitutional monarch. It took three years to plan the congress, and scholars were invited from all over the world. At the time the congress was held, both the president (George Foucart) and vice-president (Pierre Lacau) of the Royal Geographical Society of Egypt were archaeologists. Bovier-Lapierre was particularly generous in his praise of Pierre Lacau, who was also Director of the Antiquities Service at the time. According to Bovier-Lapierre, Lacau differed from most of his predecessors since de Morgan because of the interest he displayed in Egyptian prehistory, and his facilitation of prehistoric surveys and excavations around Cairo (Hoffman 1980). Between 1924 and 1928 two women, Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1888-1985), prehistoric archaeologist, and Elinor Wright Gardner (1892-1981), geologist, undertook four seasons of survey along the northern shore of Lake Moeris (today known as Birket Qarun) in the Faiyum basin (Caton-Thompson & Gardner 1934). The lake was originally much larger, and on the assumption that it was gradually shrinking over the course of several phases, and that the cultural remains associated with high fossil beaches were earlier than remains on lower beaches, they suggested that a clearly Neolithic cultural group (Faiyum A) had settled at the edge of the lakeshore at a height of +10 metres, and that this was followed by an Epipalaeolithic group (Faiyum B) which was located at the lower height of +2 metres. They therefore formulated the idea of a kind of cultural degeneration from the Neolithic of Faiyum A to the Epipalaeolithic of Faiyum B (Midant-Reynes 2000). From the beginning, not everyone agreed with this interpretation. Petrie cited convincing historical evidence that the lake had fallen and risen on a number of different occasions, thus contradicting the basic assumption of continuous decline upon which Caton-Thompson's scheme of relative dating was based (Hoffman 1980). He cautioned that ... both physically and historically it seems clear that there is evidence for a lake rising with the Nile rise. The interpretation of geological evidence for the opposite course can hardly be weighed until full consideration has been given to the traces likely to remain for variable lakelevels (Petrie 1926: 327).

Thirty years later, radiocarbon dating and geomorphological analyses showed that the cultural sequence needed to be inverted and that, as Petrie had suggested, the history of the different Faiyum lakes during the Holocene was in fact a much more complex sequence of floods, comprising alternating highs and sudden lows (Arkell & Ucko 1965; Wendorf & Schild 1976).

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In 1926 James Henry Breasted (1865-1935), an American Egyptologist and orientalist, and founder of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, commissioned English geologists Kenneth Stuart Sandford (1899-1971) and William Joscelyn Arkell (1904-1958) to undertake an extensive prehistoric survey of the Nile Valley and its river terraces. In 1919, in a speech before the National Academy in Washington, D.C., he had suggested ... the possibility of a rough parallelism between the then-known Nile terraces and the succession of glaciations in Europe; but the knowledge of Nile geology then available was far too incomplete and imperfect to give such a reconstruction a stable basis (Breasted 1928: viiviii).

Sandford and Arkell tried to use the heights of the Nile terraces to date the associated Palaeolithic tools, apparently unaware that Seligman has already proved that such an approach was futile. That they were unaware of Seligman's work, which had been published in a prominent journal, is clear from their lack of reference to it in their writings. We have already shown that in Paleolithic times the Land of the Nile was not a desert but it had at times a heavy rainfall. We have shown that the rainfall was periodic, and that there were certain periods of great river activity giving rise to erosion and to enormous spreads of gravel; that there were periods of rest during which the river and its tributaries smoothed out the material and put everything in order before the next period of rainfall and erosion renewed the process. Above all, we have found in these terrace gravels human implements falling into cultural assemblages, each one in its own terrace; and most important of all, the assemblages are of a type and technique similar to those found in similar circumstances in Europe. We can apply the culture classification in Africa just as we can on the river Somme or in the caves of the Dordogne. We can say that the implements were contemporary with pluvial periods; and we have reason to hope that one day we shall be able to say what relation those pluvial periods bear to glacial and interglacial periods in Europe (Sandford & Arkell 1928: 23). 150-foot terrace ........................................……............. Barren 100-foot terrace ................…….............. Chellean implements 50-foot terrace ...............……............... Acheulian implements 25-30 foot terrace ......…........................... Earliest Mousterian 10-15 foot terrace ............…….............................. Mousterian

Over the next decade Sandford and Arkell produced a four volume study of the geology and archaeology of the Nile Valley (Sandford 1934; Sandford & Arkell 1929, 1933, 1939). This study still remains a landmark in Egyptian Palaeolithic research, despite the fact that many of their conclusions have been revised by palaeoclimatologists like Karl Butzer and Carl Hansen, and geologists like Rushdi Said: The futility of using elevations in correlations is obvious in a valley with as complex a history as that of the Nile Valley which was formed by several streams following one another and separated by long periods of intense tectonics and erosion (Said 1975: 28).

The first part of Sandford and Arkell's work was based in the Faiyum, where they clashed with Caton-Thompson and Gardner. The women had been unable to return to the area for the 1926-27 season, but anticipated resuming their work the following year. In their absence, the Oriental Institute of Chicago team moved in (Hoffman 1980). In her report on the 1927-28 field season published in Man (1928), Caton-Thompson felt it necessary to mention the controversy, since it had affected her progress. Tranquil in the tradition which forbids appropriation of another person's work without inquiry as to their intentions to continue it, I found to my dismay, when applying in the spring of 1927 50

for renewal of concession, that, owing to alleged sensational discoveries (a great prehistoric cemetery; shelter with breccia ranging from Acheulian to Campigny; rows of dolmens; pile dwellings, etc.) by Count de Prorok, working unauthorized in our vacated area from the University of Michigan's base, an American expedition had secretly applied for, and been virtually accorded the N. Fayum concession. Prolonged negotiations with the Dept. of Antiquities, so devoid of prehistorians as to be unable to verify the authenticity of the Fayum discoveries, resulted in acknowledgement of our moral right to continue the work in which we had led the way, but left undefined the area to be assigned to us. The positions of the sites coveted by the Oriental Institute of Chicago were widespread: no attempt was made from that quarter to alleviate our position; and on arrival in Egypt in November we found ourselves reallotted a restricted concession within the area we had already exhausted both prehistorically and geologically, sandwiched in between Chicago's western concession near Qasr-el-Sagha, containing the 'Palaeolithic cave', and their eastern one near Kom Ashim, containing the 'prehistoric cemetery' and 'dolmens' ... In view of the grave inadequacy of this concession, I applied at once for a second one, covering the very difficult ground at the west-end of the lake: this was granted in January (Caton-Thompson 1928: 109-110).

In the end, however, she was vindicated, as one by one the inflated claims of the interlopers were proved to be totally inaccurate (Hoffman 1980). My attention has been called to some confusion as to the identity of site arising from allusion to a gypsum-vase factory in the Fayum, in a letter to The Times of 13th April from Professor Breasted, describing the Oriental Institute's work there. This place, excavated in January by Mr Brunton and Dr K.S. Sandford of the Oriental Institute, is none other than the famous 'Palaeolithic' shelter! Situated near Kasr-el-Sagha, some 15 miles from the great Umm es Sewan site, an isolated gypsum worker carried on his trade beneath a sheltering cliff, on a little platform about 10 feet square. The early Old Kingdom date of the little place had been known to me since November, when I was shown in Cairo specimens of the 'Acheulian' and 'Campignian' flints brought in by Prorok and Bovier-Lapierre, and recognized them as handpicks and grinders of early dynastic date, and the 'breccia' as consolidated gypsum debris. As their Palaeolithic authenticity was accepted in Egypt, I sent a private report on the place to the Royal Anthropological Institute. Knowledge of this affair, and of the even more comic 'prehistoric cemetery', consisting of entirely natural mounds known to us, make but slight amends for frustration of our prehistoric research (Caton-Thompson 1928: 111).

Meanwhile, Petrie continued to collect stone tools whenever a suitable opportunity presented itself. In 1928, while excavating in the Delta at Tell el-Fara'in in the Wadi Ghuzzeh, Petrie wrote in his notebook: Large water-worn palaeoliths are to be picked up in the wady here among the stream-bed flints; half a dozen have come in; in the hills are many little scrapers, and now a delicate arrow-head and another half-made, showing how the form was blocked out before working it down thin. We buy up all we can at 1/4d. or 1/2d. each. Boys and men rake all the bed for 6 to 8 miles both ways (Drower 1985: 373).

Though they do not specifically refer to Petrie, or to any one else, Sandford and Arkell were very disapproving about this kind of practice: Egypt, and particularly Thebes, has long been a happy hunting-ground for the collector of flint implements. In certain localities the worked flints lie so thickly upon the surface of the desert that it is impossible to walk without treading upon the skilled workmanship of men who lived scores of thousands of years ago. These flints, scorched daily by the sun and reduced by night to freezing-point, have acquired a superficial coloured film (called patina) of great beauty; the colour varies from orange to deep chocolate in its most attractive shades and greatly enhances the value of the implements in the eyes of collectors. Thus these implements, which are exceedingly common, have been eagerly sought after, and no collection of any scope is without 51

them. So great has been the demand, and so great the lure which the patinated implement exercises, that collectors have commonly hired ignorant natives to scour the desert and bring in these works of art in sacks, like potatoes. The implements so collected are without data of any sort and are virtually useless. There is a dreary monotony in finding in one museum after another a collection of these gems torn from their settings and proudly displayed under the legend 'Implements from Egypt' or 'Flints from Thebes' (Sandford & Arkell 1928: 2-3).

The 1930 summer exhibition at University College displayed a large collection of palaeoliths collected by Petrie from the bed of the Wadi Ghuzzeh. The flint working around Beth-pelet was astonishing. It had been said that there were no chipped flints in the southern region. But our work boys brought up thousands of them from Wady Ghuzzeh which ran past our tell. We selected over a thousand palaeoliths to keep, some of entirely new types; many were very heavy, and could only be held in both hands. Sorting these over impressed on me the meaning of the most unusual forms; the heavy pointed flints must have been used for breaking up the ground to reach the roots for winter food; the sharpedged ovates must have been for cutting soft green summer food. Neither form is at all applicable to cutting wood, or any other use than food gathering (Petrie 1931: 265). Eann MacDonald had classified these in the orthodox way, as Chellean, Aurignacian and so on. Petrie rearranged them according to purpose, as "pick forms for breaking earth, ovates for cutting food, axes, choppers, borers, pounders, bashers". His classification was unorthodox, but probably of greater interest to the viewing public (Drower 1985: 378-379).

While Sandford and Arkell were continuing their prehistoric survey of the Nile Valley, CatonThompson and Gardner were exploring Kharga Oasis in the Western Desert for the Royal Anthropological Institute (Caton-Thompson 1932, 1946a, 1952; Caton-Thompson & Gardner 1932; Gardner & Caton-Thompson 1933). Caton-Thompson was the first modern archaeologist in Egypt to report Lower and Middle Palaeolithic industries far out in the desert and to carefully record the relationship between prehistoric implements and the geological-ecological context in which they were found (Hoffman 1980). The potential of the Western Desert had first been recognised through the exploration surveys of members of the Geological Survey of Egypt, Prince Kemal el Din Hussein (1928), and the Egypt Exploration Society (Bagnold 1931, 1933, 1939; Myers 1939; Peel & Bagnold 1939) in the Gilf Kebir and Gebel 'Uweinat. These early expeditions revealed an abundance of artefacts ranging in age from the Acheulian to the Neolithic. The systematic surveys and excavations carried out by Caton-Thompson and Gardner, Sandford and Arkell, and Vignard, were disrupted by the onset of World War II and by the subsequent political developments in Egypt. The war meant a return to amateur collecting by some of the British troops stationed there, comparable to the activities in the 1880s and 1890s of Field Marshal Grenfell and Captain Seton-Karr, and by the latter again during the First World War. For example, between 1939 and 1942 Lieutenant Grace made two important collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Heliopolis and Abu Suwair, on the outskirts of Cairo, which are housed in the Geography department of Cairo University (Montet-White 1957). It was during the war, too, that the first indigenous synthesis of Egyptian prehistory was published. The Place of Egypt in Prehistory: A Correlated Study of Climate and Cultures in the Old World (1941) was written by Suliman Ahmad Huzayyin (1909-1999) when he was a Lecturer in Geography at Cairo University. After his graduation from the Egyptian University in 1929, he had been selected to further his postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom, where he was awarded an MA by Liverpool University and a PhD by the University of Manchester. On his return to Egypt in 1935 he joined Caton-Thompson and Gardner in their fieldwork at Kharga Oasis.

52

The erroneous impression obtained from the earlier work of Vignard, that Nilotic Palaeolithic materials were both scarce and culturally retarded in comparison with adjacent areas of the Near East, inhibited interest in the area even when it was once again possible to carry out research (Wendorf & Schild 1975). Furthermore, the 1952 revolution further alienated foreigners from archaeological work in Egypt. As a result, no significant research on the Palaeolithic of the Nile Valley was undertaken for a period of more than 20 years until 1961, when construction began on the New High Dam at Aswan and an international campaign was launched to salvage the archaeological sites threatened by the dam. Under the auspices of UNESCO, a multinational commission of archaeologists and Egyptologists was formed, and Egypt and the Sudan relaxed their antiquities laws and agreed to permit large numbers of foreign archaeologists to work in the threatened area. At least 50 million US dollars were spent on this operation, and scientific teams from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Japan, Australia and India participated (Hoffman 1980). The principal focus of the Nubian Salvage Campaign was directed towards Pharaonic sites, since the economies of both Egypt and the Sudan rely so heavily on the tourists that these attract. However, in Egypt two groups focused almost exclusively on prehistoric sites. The Yale University-Canadian National Museum team worked at Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt and in Egyptian Nubia (Butzer & Hansen 1968; Reed 1966; Smith 1966a, 1966b), while the Combined Prehistoric Expedition, under the direction of Fred Wendorf of the Southern Methodist University, worked in both Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia from 1961 to 1966 (Wendorf 1965, 1968). As a result of this concentrated activity, over 100 Palaeolithic sites were studied in the reservoir and Kom Ombo area. When the Aswan Reservoir began to fill and field work in Nubia was discontinued in 1966, one group worked downstream from Aswan to Sohag in Upper Egypt between 1967 and 1968; the project was terminated in late 1969 due to political events, and the group moved to the Faiyum (Said et al. 1970, 1972a, 1972b; Wendorf & Schild 1976; Wendorf et al. 1970). No work was undertaken in the area between Sohag and the Faiyum, a distance of approximately 400 kilometres. One of the most important results of the Palaeolithic research which has been done in the Nile Valley since 1961 has been a complete revision of the geological history of the river. The research initiated by Petrie, and continued by Sandford and Arkell in the 1920s and 1930s, had concentrated on broad correlations of riverine terrace levels, on relating these to Pleistocene fluctuations of the Mediterranean sea level, and on dating these terraces through occasional finds of artefacts. But the poor chronological control, based mostly on derived artefacts, resulted in widespread scepticism of the details of the sequence, and consequently reduced the usefulness of much of that work. In contrast, since 1961 major emphasis has been given to detailed studies of local areas and the development of local stratigraphic sequences based on numerous profiles and sections. These geological studies were often accompanied by extensive excavations at sites which can be directly related to the local sequences. The results from this research turned upside down the previous notions relating to the Egyptian Palaeolithic, displacing Vignard's Sebilian industry and bringing to light a series of cultural developments that were peculiar to the Nile Valley (Wendorf & Schild 1976). The Belgian Middle Egypt Research Project of Leuven University, led by Pierre Vermeersch, has carried out more than twenty-four years of research in northern Upper Egypt, involving survey and the excavation of twenty-nine sites dating from the Acheulian to the Epipalaeolithic in the stretch of the Nile Valley between Asyut and Thebes. The project did not set out to make a systematic survey of the area, but rather to recognise the different Nile deposits as described by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild (1976) and the prehistoric sites within them, and to look for sites that were in danger of being destroyed by irrigation or building activities (Vermeersch 2000a). While the team from Leuven University continues its work in the Nile Valley, most of the fieldwork carried out today is concentrated in the various oases of the Western Desert. The first post-war team to head to the oases was run by James Hester, Philip Hobler and Frank Eddy, who set out to explore the 53

prehistoric settlement patterns of a huge area around Dungul Oasis and Kurkur Oasis between 1963 and 1965. The joint project, organised by the Egyptian Geological Survey and the Southern Methodist University, was set up in the belief that an understanding of the Nile Valley cultures could only be achieved if the adjacent desert was surveyed to determine its use by the Nile Valley inhabitants. The area was unknown to science, although it had been visited by a number of exploration parties in the first half of the twentieth century (Hester & Hobler 1969). Further south, Palaeolithic sites were investigated in the early 1970s by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition in the Bir Sahara-Bir Tarfawi region, where a new highway and military post seemed to pose a threat to the numerous Middle Palaeolithic sites in those basins (Wendorf et al. 1993b). Aside from the mention of a few stone tools found by Winlock in 1908 (Winlock 1936), study of the prehistory of Dakhla Oasis began only in the 1970s. In 1972 members of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition led by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild visited Dakhla as part of an archaeological reconnaissance of the southern half of the Western Desert, and excavated two Pleistocene spring mounds in the eastern lowlands (Schild & Wendorf 1977). In 1978 the Dakhla Oasis Project, with Canadian archaeologist Anthony Mills as field director, began its investigation of human adaptations to changing environmental conditions within the oasis throughout prehistoric times. The Dakhla Oasis Project, which is jointly sponsored by the Royal Ontario Museum, the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities and the Dakhla Trust, divides the prehistoric sequence into Pleistocene and Holocene portions, with Maxine Kleindienst responsible for the former and Mary McDonald for the latter portion (Churcher & Mills 1999; Kleindienst 1999). Prehistoric research in Kharga Oasis was resumed in 1976 with the Combined Prehistoric Expedition led by Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild (Wendorf & Schild 1980), and subsequently a short survey undertaken by the University of Kansas' Western Desert Expedition in 1982-83 contributed an important assessment of prehistoric settlement patterns in Kharga by surveying the basins beyond the Eocene scarp (Mandel & Simmons 2001; Simmons & Mandel 1986). Since 1992 members of the Dakhla Oasis Project have been engaged in reassessing Caton-Thompson's classic sequence, and in obtaining Uranium-series dates on associated wadi tufas (Kharga Oasis Prehistoric Project, directed by Maxine Kleindienst of the University of Toronto at Mississuaga). Research in Farafra Oasis by the University of Rome 'La Sapienza' began in 1987 and has continued in annual field seasons. Fieldwork has focused on an archaeological survey to determine as much as possible of the type of exploitation of this region in prehistoric times, especially the development of agricultural or pastoral activities by Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers (Barich 1999). At Siwa Oasis and Bahariya Oasis, research by Fekri Hassan has also been focused on the Late Palaeolithic archaeology (Hassan 1999a, 1999b). Compared with the Nile Valley and the oases of the Western Desert, the Palaeolithic of the Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula has been virtually ignored. An expedition to the Eastern Desert led by Fernand Debono in 1949, at the time of construction work on the Qift-Quseir road, succeeded in locating surface finds dating to the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic on the heights overlooking the Laqeita depression (Debono 1950, 1951), and archaeological surveys carried out by a French team in 1982-84 (Montenat 1986) and by the Egypt Exploration Society in the 1990s (Bomann 1995; Bomann & Young 1994) have simply provided confirmation of the early occupation of this area, but as yet only preliminary reports have been published. In the Sinai Peninsula sporadic finds made by Seton-Karr (1923) have been followed by excavations of only a handful of sites by Neuville (1952), Bar-Yosef & Phillips (1977), and Phillips (1988). During 1996 the Southern Methodist University (SMU) conducted an archaeological project in east-central Sinai called An Archaeological Preservation Study of the Sinai. The purpose of the SMU project was to preserve archaeological information endangered by agricultural reclamation and development, as part of plans by the Egyptian government to relocate two million Nile Valley farmers and their families to 54

the Sinai for food production purposes. The project discovered various surface scatters of Palaeolithic material, and excavated one Middle Palaeolithic site (Eddy & Wendorf 1999). Recent fieldwork in Egypt by teams working on later periods has led to fortuitous discoveries of Palaeolithic sites; for example, • 1999: a University of Rome 'La Sapienza' mission directed by Barbara Barich at Farafra Oasis, investigating Neolithic quarry and workshop sites on the Northern plateau, revealed Middle Palaeolithic artefacts (Giddy 2000a); • 1999: an Institut Français d'Archeologie Orientale team led by Michel Wuttmann at 'Ayn Manâwîr in Kharga Oasis, investigating Persian and Roman Period canal systems, discovered concentrations of lithics around artesian springs, and an Epipalaeolithic scatter was studied in detail (Giddy 2000a); systematic survey of the area subsequently revealed thirty-six Palaeolithic and six Epipalaeolithic sites (Mathieu 2002: 482-487); • 1999-2000: a multi-national team led by Renée Friedman of the University of California, Berkeley/British Museum worked in and around Wadi Abu Suffian at Hierakonopolis (Kom elAhmar) in the Nile Valley, where the archaeological remains are under severe threat from land reclamation activities; a large and well-preserved Middle Palaeolithic locality called Saayda I was investigated at the south-western end of the wadi (Giddy 2000b); • 2000: Ulrich Luft and a Hungarian team from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest worked at Bir Minih in the Eastern Desert, studying a 5th-7th century settlement; a Palaeolithic site was found 100 metres above Wadi Minih (Giddy 2001); • 2001: Fekri Hassan and a British/Egyptian team (Institute of Archaeology, University College London/St Katherine Protectorate) undertook survey work in the Sinai Peninsula to collate and reassess Israeli surveys conducted during the Israeli occupation of the Sinai in 1967-82, and to construct a database of all sites in the region, including Palaeolithic ones (Giddy 2002). The possibility of future Palaeolithic research being conducted in the Nile Valley is being seriously threatened by land reclamation activities. In 1992 the Egyptian government passed the Tenancy Law, which allows people to farm unused land and thus gain title to it. The law created a land rush, and people moved to the low desert, levelled the land and drilled wells. Various Palaeolithic sites explored by the Belgian Middle Egypt Research Project, such as Rifa, Nazlet Safaha, Shuwikhat 1, Shuwikhat 2, Makhadma 2 and Arab el Sabaha, have been destroyed as a result. The Palaeolithic archaeology of the southern part of the Western Desert is also under threat. The Toshka Project (or Southern Valley Development Project), which was initiated in 1997, involves the irrigation and colonising of an area to the northwest of Lake Nasser over a period of thirty years. This will increase the occupied area of Egypt from 4% to 24%, and by the end of the project some 1.43 million hectares will have been reclaimed (Elarabawy & Tosswell 1998). In contrast to the 1960s, no international salvage programme has been organised, despite pleas being made to the Egyptian government by Western archaeologists, and the offer made by the International Commission of the Later Prehistory of Northeastern Africa (headed by Fred Wendorf) to organise archaeological surveys of the area. The reason for the lack of response by the Egyptian government is simple: there are no Pharaonic temples in this area and therefore, in their eyes, there is nothing worth saving. Archaeology, politics and tourism in Egypt are, as ever, inextricably linked.

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4 The Chronological Development of the Egyptian Palaeolithic Ever since the investigations in the Nile Valley by Sandford (1934) and Sandford and Arkell (1928, 1929, 1933, 1939), the main point of interest has been the establishment of a chronology based essentially on the Nile terrace deposits. Palaeolithic industries were considered in relation to these terraces, and were looked upon as chronological markers for the deposits. Caton-Thompson (1946b) adopted a similar approach. Her account of the Palaeolithic industries assumed that all artefacts recovered from the (presumed) same terrace could be regarded as a unit for the whole length of the Valley (Van Peer & Vermeersch 1990). Since Caton-Thompson's day, much work has gone into refining the chronological sequence, dating it, and establishing the degree of regional variation present. This chapter presents a brief outline of the main cultural units which make up the Egyptian Palaeolithic. There is some debate over the terminology and existence of certain cultural units, particularly between Vermeersch on the one hand and Wendorf and Schild on the other. Further details on the sites mentioned here are presented in Chapter 5. For explanations of the technological and typological terminology, see Chapter 6.

Lower Palaeolithic Oldowan artefacts have reputedly been found in situ in Lower Pleistocene gravel deposits in terraces near Thebes (Biberson et al. 1977; Debono 1973). However, the human origin of these 'artefacts' has been questioned (Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987). Acheulian artefacts have been found below the deposits of the Prenile (the so-called Dandara Formation) in the Abbassia I gravels (Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987; Vermeersch et al. 2000a), and in rubified gravels (Abbassia II gravels) which rest on the silts of the Dandara Formation near Abydos (Vermeersch et al. 2000b). However, the majority of the Acheulian artefacts in the Nile Valley are derived surface finds. The Acheulian assemblage at Nag el Amra which was found in the Abbassia I gravels is thought to date to about 400,000 BP and is very poor, consisting of only one core, two retouched flakes, and sixteen unretouched flakes (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). At Nag Ahmed el Khalifa, on the other hand, where an Acheulian assemblage was found in the Abbassia II gravels, the large assemblage included various types of handaxe, in particular amygdaloid forms and lesser quantities of ovates and cordiforms. The Levallois technique is absent, and the assemblage has been assigned to the Final Acheulian (Vermeersch et al. 2000b). The Abbassia II gravels have an approximate date of 350,000-300,000 BP. Cleavers are conspicuously absent in the Nile Valley Acheulian assemblages (Vermeersch 2001). The Late and Final Acheulian assemblages from Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara in the Western Desert, with their pronounced emphasis on small, triangular and cordiform handaxes, as well as the presence of Levallois technology, are thought to be more evolved than the assemblage from Nag Ahmed el Khalifa (Vermeersch et al. 1980a, 2000b). At site KO10 at Kharga Oasis the handaxes are lanceolate and pear-shaped, and fine secondary retouching of the handaxe edges is more frequent. The handaxes are associated with Levallois artefacts, which suggests that the Khargan assemblage is more recent in date than that from Nag Ahmed el Khalifa. Similar reasons have been put forward to suggest that the Acheulian site E-72-1 at Dakhla Oasis is also younger in age (Vermeersch et al. 2000b). However, recent research at Kharga and Dakhla indicate that the Acheulian there is in fact older than 400,000 BP. This age is based on Uranium-series dates of tufa which is overlying the Acheulian sites (Kleindienst et al. 1996, 1999). In contrast to the Nile Valley, cleavers are found at sites in the Western Desert. The Acheulian assemblages in Egypt are therefore characterised by considerable regional variability, and there are not yet enough dated sites 57

for us to fully understand the chronological significance, if any, of variation in handaxe type and the presence or absence of cleavers and the Levallois technique.

Middle Palaeolithic There are currently three areas where assemblages can be integrated into a relative framework based on stratigraphic observations, and a number of chronometric dates are also available. In the Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara basins in the Western Desert, sites are mostly stratified in the deposits of five successive Middle Palaeolithic lakes, and they have been dated by a variety of methods to between 175,000 and 70,000 BP (Wendorf & Schild 1992; Wendorf et al. 1993b). In the Lower Nile Valley in Upper Egypt, at least three phases of use are stratigraphically attested at the site of Taramsa I (Vermeersch & Paulissen 1997; Vermeersch et al. 1990b). A third key area in terms of chronology is the Eastern Desert, where the sequence at Sodmein Cave covers the whole of the Upper Pleistocene (Mercier et al. 1999; Vermeersch et al. 1994). A three-phase subdivision of the Middle Palaeolithic proposed on geomorphological and technotypological grounds is therefore supported by a chronometric framework and stratigraphic evidence (Van Peer & Vermeersch 1990). Van Peer (1998) has argued for the presence of two different technological traditions in northeastern Africa: the Lower Nile Valley Local Complex and the Nubian Complex. From a technological point of view the Nubian Complex is characterised by the use of Nubian Levallois methods for point production, alongside the classic Levallois method for flake production. In the Local Complex only the classic Levallois method is attested, in addition to flake and blade production from single and dual platform cores. There are also typological differences between the two complexes. A number of tool types are present in the Nubian Complex assemblages which are never encountered in the Local Complex, such as bifacial foliates, Nubian scrapers, Nazlet Khater points and truncated-facetted pieces, while lateralised Levallois flakes (Van Peer 1991b), have so far been observed only in the Local Complex assemblages. Several diachronic phases can be distinguished in the Nubian Complex. Among the oldest are those that are characterised by the presence of thin bifacial tools, in addition to the Nubian technique. These assemblages belong to the Early Middle Palaeolithic, and are of Middle Pleistocene age. The Late Nubian Complex is present from about 100,000 BP, in the Early Late Pleistocene. Both complexes are present in the Lower Nile Valley and adjacent deserts throughout the Middle Palaeolithic, though technological and typological changes are seen to occur within each of them. Of the industries mentioned below, the Nubian Middle Palaeolithic, the N-group, the Bir Tarfawi/Bir Sahara last interglacial industries, the Eastern Saharan Aterian and the Khormusan belong to the Nubian Complex. The non-Nubian Middle Palaeolithic, the K-group, and the transitional assemblages belong to the Local Complex (Van Peer & Vermeersch 2000; Vermeersch & Van Peer 2002b). Early Middle Palaeolithic In the Nile Valley the Early Middle Palaeolithic seems to predate Oxygen Isotope Stage 5. Extremely few sites, however, have been dated. In both deserts adjacent to the valley, the Early Middle Palaeolithic seems to extend into Oxygen Isotope Stage 5. Assemblages associated with Lake Phases 1 and 2 in the Sahara and the lower level of Sodmein Cave contain bifacial foliates which have almost entirely disappeared in roughly contemporary sites in the Nile Valley (Van Peer 1998). Nubian Middle Palaeolithic (Nubian Complex) sites from this period are characterised by assemblages with handaxes, bifacial foliates, Nubian scrapers, tanged points, and Levallois points made using the Nubian type-1 and Nubian type-2 methods. These sites are mainly known from Nubia (e.g. Guichard & Guichard 1965, 1968), while in Egypt no well preserved sites have been discovered, though scattered sites are found all over the lower desert in Upper Egypt (Vermeersch & Paulissen 2000). The Lower Nile Valley Local Complex (non-Nubian Middle Palaeolithic) is 58

characterised by assemblages which lack any of these types. No Early Middle Palaeolithic sites have yet been recorded in the Nile Valley in Middle and Lower Egypt. Mid-Middle Palaeolithic A stratigraphic position of Mid-Middle Palaeolithic above Early Middle Palaeolithic industries is attested in each of the three key areas. At Taramsa 1 extraction features containing Mid-Middle Palaeolithic assemblages have been dug through older structures. The time elapsed between these two phases must be significant, since the Early Middle Palaeolithic artefacts have acquired significant rubification. In contrast to the Early Middle Palaeolithic stage, Mid-Middle Palaeolithic industries occur all over the Lower Nile Valley. Two groups, the N-group or Nubian Mousterian, and the K-group or Denticulate Mousterian, have been described (Marks 1968a; Van Peer 1991). In the N-group, the Nubian type-1 method of point production is the dominant one. Nubian scrapers as well as foliate points have largely disappeared, but some assemblages from Nubia have a few handaxes. The N-group's technological system also seems to include a true blade component with single and dual platform cores. In contrast, Nubian Levallois methods are completely absent in Kgroup assemblages, as are handaxes, foliate points, and Nubian scrapers, and no blade reduction strategies are attested. From a technotypological point of view, the K-group assemblages are similar to the non-Nubian Middle Palaeolithic assemblages from the Early Middle Palaeolithic in Nubia. The N-group has a wider distribution than the K-group, occurring both in the Nile Valley as well as in the Western and Eastern Deserts. At Sodmein Cave in the Eastern Desert, two N-group layers occur above the Early Middle Palaeolithic layer. The same is true at Bir Tarfawi 14 in the Western Desert (Wendorf et al. 1993a, 1993b). Late Middle Palaeolithic Several industrial groups are ascribed to the Late Middle Palaeolithic. The Aterian is characterised by the presence of bifacial foliates and tanged points. It is a flake industry, frequently produced by Levallois technology and, alongside the bifacial foliates and tanged points, the artefacts consist primarily of various kinds of sidescrapers, denticulates, and occasional Upper Palaeolithic types such as endscrapers and burins (Wendorf & Schild 1992). Though some assemblages from Bir Tarfawi have been characterised at Denticulate Aterian (Wendorf et al. 1987), the Aterian sensu stricto is not represented here (Van Peer 1998). A few Aterian sites associated with undated spring sediments have been reported from the Western Desert, and in particular from Kharga Oasis (Caton-Thompson 1946a, 1952; Simmons & Mandal 1986), Dungul Oasis (Hester & Hobler 1969) and Dakhla Oasis (McDonald 1999). Van Peer (1998) believes that the Aterian sensu stricto postdates the Mid-Middle Palaeolithic as represented at Bir Sahara/Bir Tarfawi, and he provisionally includes it in the Late Middle Palaeolithic. There is a possible tanged Levallois flake from the uppermost N-group level at Sodmein Cave in the Eastern Desert, and a tanged point was found in Wadi Dib, but more evidence is required before inferring an Aterian presence east of the Nile (Van Peer 1998). Likewise, except for a possible occurrence at site E-78-11, a small cluster of artefacts on the eroded surface of the lower wadi gravels at Wadi Kubbaniya (Singleton & Close 1980; Wendorf & Schild 1992), another possible occurrence at Deir el-Bahari, Thebes, where three foliate points were found at site 10 and one tip fragment was found at site 3/74 (Kozlowski 1954, 1972), and two tanged points from Thebes, one of them from the Seligman Collection in the Petrie Museum (see Appendix), the Aterian is not known to be present in the Nile Valley (Kleindienst 1999). Here, numerous non-Aterian Late Middle Palaeolithic sites are located in the Nile floodplain and stratified within fine fluviatile deposits or dune sands. At the same time, exploitation sites located on old gravel terraces continued to be used. The paucity of Aterian sites in the Nile Valley may be significant, or it may be a consequence of the emphasis given to the Late Palaeolithic in more recent studies along the Nile (Wendorf & Schild 1992). The Khormusan (Marks 1968b; Wendorf & Schild 1992) is represented at a number of sites in Sudanese Nubia, near the Second Cataract, with one possible locality at Wadi Kubbaniya just north 59

of the First Cataract in Egyptian Nubia. Its precise chronological position has not been established, but according to radiocarbon dates it is older than 40,000 years. The distinctive lithic assemblages are characterised by burins, with occasional sidescrapers, endscrapers and denticulates, all frequently made on Levallois flakes. There is no general agreement on the position of two other entities attributed by some authors to the Late Middle Palaeolithic. The Idfuan (Wendorf & Schild 1976) and the Halfan (Marks 1968c) combine Middle Palaeolithic technological features with Upper Palaeolithic tool types. This 'mixed' character is paralleled by a controversial radiocarbon chronology, as a number of Idfuan and Halfan radiocarbon dates are very recent. Paulissen and Vermeersch (1987), questioning the radiocarbon dates and the homogeneity of the assemblages, argued that both industries should be included in the Middle Palaeolithic, whereas Wendorf & Schild (1992) reject this, and place the two industries firmly in the Late Palaeolithic. The two industries are discussed in more detail below.

Upper Palaeolithic The transition to the Upper Palaeolithic was essentially a process of technological evolution which accompanied the appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens. The production of blades, which had already begun in the Middle Palaeolithic, now intensified and reached a higher level of technical quality and raw material economy. There are, however, very few sites for the period between 40,000 and 25,000 BP when this 'transition' took place, which means that the process of the transition is difficult to follow. The earliest Upper Palaeolithic site known so far in Egypt is Nazlet Khater 4 in the Nile Valley (Vermeersch et al. 1984a, 1984b). The knapping techniques proceeded almost exclusively from single platform cores, producing irregular blades without careful core preparation. No Levallois or Halfan technology is present. Since the site is a chert mine, retouched tools are rare. The tools are made on flakes and blades, with denticulates being the most common type, accompanied by a few burins and one endscraper. A single bifacially flaked foliate point was found, and several bifacial axes (Vermeersch 1992). The Ahmarian of the Lagaman sites of Gebel Maghara in northern Sinai, with an age range of 34,000-30,000 BP, is dominated by the production of blades and bladelets with lipped platforms and curved profiles. Cores have one or two flat striking platforms. There are high frequencies of retouched blades, bladelets and El Wad points, few scrapers and burins, and low frequencies of notches and denticulates. Semi abrupt to fine retouch dominates. At Abu Noshra I in the southern Sinai, which dates to 30,000 BP, the assemblage consists of partially backed blades, blades with ogival bases, finely retouched blades and bladelets, endscrapers on blades, truncated blades and bladelets, and burins (Vermeersch 1992). The Shuwikhatian (25-22 kya) differs from other Upper and Late Palaeolithic assemblages of the Nile Valley (Wendorf & Schild 1976, 1989a). Named after the type site at Shuwikhat 1 in Upper Egypt, these assemblages are found in the context of the Shuwikhat clays, a stratigraphic unit covered by the black Sheikh Houssein clays. Similar assemblages have been found at El Abadiya Central and Southern Sectors, and Esna E71K9, also in Upper Egypt. Characterised by the production of wide, rather thick blades that served as blanks for tools, the technical approach to blade production is specific: two opposite platforms were created on a nodule in such a way that they form sharp angles with the flaking surface. The core preform was further shaped by lateral flaking creating unilateral or bilateral crests. In this way the knapper was able to create a thick core with a fairly convex core surface. The striking platform was then carefully retouched, creating a convex facetted butt. The blades generally have two ridges and parallel or distally converging edges. Basal blunting is well represented. The tools include endscrapers, burins and composite tools. Backed blades are present but not typical. The most characteristic pieces are the unilateral or bilateral denticulated blades (Vermeersch 1992). 60

The Early Upper Palaeolithic industries are followed by a series of regional variants of Late Palaeolithic industries, which in general are characterised by the persistent presence of backed microblades, very often of the Ouchtata type, and microliths. Again, there is disagreement over the number of cultural units represented. Roubet and el Hadidi (1982) list sixteen distinct cultural units from the Nile Valley and Western Desert dating between 20,000 and 9500 BP, while Connor and Marks (1986) note no fewer than ten lithic industries in Upper Egypt from between 15,000 and 11,000 BP. The simpler scheme of Vermeersch (1992) is used here. The Fakhurian (21-19.5 kya) is a microlithic industry defined by Lubell (1974) on the basis of a number of sites found in the vicinity of Esna (sites E71K1-5) in Upper Egypt. It is characterised by a bladelet technology based on the production of microlithic blades and flakes struck from single and dual platform cores. The most common tools are backed bladelets, sometimes with Ouchtata retouch, followed by retouched pieces, perforators, notches and denticulates. Scaled pieces can sometimes be numerous. Endscrapers are present but less frequent, while truncations and burins are rare and generally poorly made (Vermeersch 1992). The Halfan (19.5-17.5 kya BP) is a microlithic industry based on small Nile pebbles, which has been found at a number of sites between the Second Cataract and the Sudanese-Egyptian border near Wadi Halfa (Marks 1968c) and near Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt (Smith 1967a, 1967b). Halfan assemblages are characterised by a mixture of Levallois, Halfan and microlithic typologies. According to Marks the Halfan is characterised by a technological and typological evolution in which the older sites attest the presence of numerous Halfan cores and flakes, while at the more recent sites the Halfan technique is represented in between four and fifteen percent of the cores, while very little Levallois debitage is present (2-5%). Most of the debitage at the younger sites comes from single platform bladelet cores. These tool assemblages are dominated by backed bladelets (>85%), most of which have Ouchtata retouch. The remaining tools include endscrapers, burins, notches and denticulates, truncations, scaled pieces, retouched pieces and rare atypical perforators (Vermeersch 1992). According to Wendorf and Schild (1989a), the Halfan is the Nubian equivalent of the contemporaneous Kubbaniyan industry at Wadi Kubbaniya, the two showing many similarities. Vermeersch (1992), however, believes that the early Halfan sites date to the Late Middle Palaeolithic, and that the term 'Halfan' should be reserved for the later sites with bladelets. Only four Halfan sites have been dated, all of them to the Late Palaeolithic. The Kubbaniyan (19-17 kya) was defined on the basis of assemblages found in the Wadi Kubbaniya area near Aswan in Upper Egypt (Wendorf et al. 1980, 1989a). The tool inventory is characterised by a predominance of backed bladelets, especially of the Ouchtata type, representing between sixty and eighty percent of all tools. The bladelets were mainly struck from single platform cores, though occasionally dual platform cores were used. A single Levallois core was found at site E-81-1, but some rare Levallois flakes have been identified at a few sites, especially at early Kubbaniyan sites. Ouchtata bladelets are less frequent in the later Kubbaniyan sites where they are replaced by scaled pieces which may account for up to seventy-five percent of the tools. Apart from Ouchtata bladelets and scaled pieces, little else is characteristic of the Kubbaniyan. Perforators, endscraper, burins, notches and denticulates are rare or absent (Vermeersch 1992). The Idfuan (c. 17 kya) is known from two groups of sites near Idfu and Esna in Upper Egypt. The original definition of the industry (Wendorf & Schild 1976) has subsequently been modified (Wendorf & Schild 1989). According to this new definition, the debitage consists of flakes and blades struck from single and dual platform cores, and Levallois and Halfan preparation flakes. It is a blade rather than a bladelet industry, and there are very few formal tools. Most of these are retouched pieces and a few denticulates, some of which are thick and heavily retouched. There are occasional elongated blades with basal blunting, but almost no Ouchtata bladelets, scaled pieces or burins (Vermeersch 1992). There is much confusion over the Idfuan as a taxonomic unit. The type 61

site, which is the only 'Idfuan' site to have been radiometrically dated, has been reattributed to the Kubbaniyan, while another 'Idfuan' site has been reattributed to the Shuwikhatian. Since the industry was redefined, Vermeersch no longer believes that the 'Idfuan' is a Late Middle Palaeolithic industry (Vermeersch 1992). The Silsilian (16-15 kya) was first identified at several sites in the Kom Ombo Plain in Upper Egypt (Smith 1966a, 1967a, 1967b, 1968). Because it shares similarities with an industry discovered in Nubia about 50 kilometres north of Wadi Halfa, the Ballanan (Wendorf 1968), some scholars group them together (Vermeersch 1992; Wendorf & Schild 1989a). The distinctive features of the Ballanan-Silsilian are a debitage from single and dual platform cores, and frequent use of the microburin technique to make backed and truncated bladelets. While well-made burins are quite common, Ouchtata retouch and geometric microliths are rare, and endscrapers are never common (Vermeersch 1992). The Sebilian (15-12 kya) is an exclusively Nilotic industry found between Wadi Halfa in Egyptian Nubia and Qena in Upper Egypt. Its characteristics were originally defined by Vignard (1923) on the basis of assemblages from the Kom Ombo Plain, and later revised (Marks 1968d). The debitage techniques have often been described as Levallois, but according to Vermeersch (1992) this is not in fact the case. The cores do not have the typical tortoise shape of true Levallois cores and, in contrast to real Levallois, the Sebilian utilises a debitage technique with continuous centripetal flaking without preparation on discoidal cores. Tool typology is dominated by truncated pieces, very often with proximal truncations. Some denticulates and notched pieces also occur. Vermeersch believes that the presumed age of the Sebilian is doubtful (Vermeersch 1992). The Afian (13.5-12.5 kya) has only been found in Upper Egypt, at Makhadma 4 north of the Dishna Plain, near Esna, in the Kom Ombo Plain and at Wadi Kubbaniya. It is characterised by a debitage mostly from dual platform bladelet cores. The tool inventory has numerous but atypical geometric microliths, mostly large triangles but also some rare lunates and trapezes. Truncated bladelets, backed bladelets and truncated backed bladelets are present. On some sites the microburin technique was intensively utilised (up to 33%), whereas on others it is absent. Perforators, burins and composite tools are rare, while the frequencies of endscrapers and sidescrapers are variable but can be high (Vermeersch 1992). The Qadan (13-12 kya) has been found at sites between the Second Cataract in northern Sudan and Tushka in Egyptian Nubia (Shiner 1968) and at Wadi Kubbaniya site E-78-10 in Upper Egypt (Banks 1980). The Qadan is a microlithic flake industry with some bladelets. The flakes and bladelets are mainly struck from single platform cores, though dual platform cores also occur and, in some cases, Levallois technology was used, almost exclusively for the production of points. The retouched tool types include arch-backed bladelets, lunates, burins, endscrapers, sidescrapers, basally blunted points and scaled pieces. The relative frequency of these tool classes varies considerably, perhaps reflecting functional specialisation (Vermeersch 1992). The Isnan (c. 12,500 BP) stands out because of its macroliths. Isnan assemblages have been found in three large areas in the regions of Esna, Naqada and Dishna in Upper Egypt. The cores are globular in shape indicating the production of large flake tools. The most common tool type is the endscraper made on a flake, and no other Nile industry has such a large quantity of these tools. Less important are notches, denticulates and burins. Backed elements, such as arch-backed bladelets and double truncated backed bladelets, are present but rare (Vermeersch 1992). Similar assemblages were found by Smith in the region of Gebel el-Silsila in Upper Egypt, characterised by an abundance of endscrapers and non-microlithic flakes and blades. These are known as Menchian, but a basic study is lacking and the industry has been described only very briefly (Smith 1967a). 62

The same applies to the Sebekian, a poorly defined occupation level above the Silsilian assemblage at site GS-III (Smith 1966a, 1967a). The Mushabian (14-12.5 kya) is the name given to a Late Palaeolithic industry found in the Gebel Maghara, northern Sinai. Lithic technology is dominated by the production of bladelets from single and dual platform cores. The microburin technique is used extensively, and there is a very high frequency of backed bladelets, especially arched backed and truncated forms. La Mouillah points are present in high frequency at most sites, and double La Mouillah points also occur with some geometric microliths (Vermeersch 1992). A penecontemporary industry, the Geometric Kebaran A, which is also found in the Gebel Maghara, is characterised by large numbers of trapezoidal and rectangular microliths which make up between sixty and eighty percent of the toolkit (Bar-Yosef & Phillips 1977).

Epipalaeolithic While many authors tend to use a generic Epipalaeolithic to refer to the early Holocene industries, some regional variants have been identified. In the Nile Valley the Elkabian is an Epipalaeolithic industry which takes its name from the site of Elkab in Upper Egypt. It is made entirely on blades and bladelets, and predominantly consists of backed bladelets, with relatively low numbers of geometric microliths, comprising elongated triangles, lunates and trapezes made using both the ordinary microburin technique and the Krukowski technique. Backed bladelets include straight backed bladelets and shouldered pieces. Notches and denticulates are also common, while burins, truncations and endscrapers are rare or absent. Radiocarbon dates place the Elkabian at c. 8000 BP (Vermeersch 1978). In the Faiyum, 600 kilometres downstream from Elkab, the Qarunian was defined on the basis of assemblages found to the north of Lake Qarun, on the plateau of Qasr el-Sagha (Wendorf & Schild 1976). Fifty percent of the industry consists of backed blades and bladelets, mostly pointed archbacked ones, accompanied by notches and denticulates, geometric microliths (triangles and trapezes) and both ordinary and Krukowski microburins. On the other side of the Nile, the Helwan industry is characterised by blades, bladelets and geometric microliths (especially lunates) and the Helwan point: a sharpened bladelet with proximal bilateral notches, and sometimes with retouched edges (Midant-Reynes 2000). In Kharga Oasis, after the post-Aterian hiatus, the beginning of the Epipalaeolithic period was contemporary with the formation of the Holocene playas, 9000-7200 BP. Caton-Thompson (1952) discovered surface sites characterised by a microlithic toolkit consisting of blades and backed bladelets, which she attributed to the Bedouin Microlithic. There were few 'true' geometric tools and no sign of the microburin technique. The tools included arrowheads made from transverse flakes, Ounan points and fine rhomboidal microliths which had been bifacially worked. The Khomanian industry found at Bahariya Oasis is characterised by bifacial and unifacial arrowheads, large thin bifacial tools, bifacial double-pointed points (perforators?), sidescrapers, endscrapers, burins, notches and denticulates (Hassan 1999a). Further north, in the Siwa Oasis, an abundance of sites has been found associated with early Holocene deposits (Hassan 1976, 1978). The Siwan industries from Hatiyet Um el-Hiyus in Siwa Oasis are mainly dominated by straight backed bladelets, burins, microburins and borers, as well as several bifacial points. A radiocarbon date on ostrich eggshell places this group at 8154±65 BP. In general the assemblages of the Siwan industry are in the same tradition as the Epipalaeolithic assemblages of the Libyco-Capsian (Libya) and Qarunian (Faiyum) (Hassan 1999b). In Garra Oasis, 130 kilometres from Siwa, a group of seven sites yielded assemblages consisting primarily of 63

burins, denticulates, borers, blades and backed bladelets, endscrapers, scaled pieces and notches. Microburins are absent. A radiocarbon date on ostrich eggshell places this group at about 8258 BP (Hassan 1976). Nearer the Nile Valley, at Nabta Playa in the Western Desert, Epipalaeolithic industries have been found associated with a humid pluvial phase (Wendorf & Schild 1980). Backed bladelets generally predominate. The ordinary microburin technique is absent, but Krukowski microburins are present. This technique was used to make lunates, trapezes and triangles. A coherent group of radiocarbon dates show that the occupation stretched from 8960 to 8300 BP.

64

5 The Geographical Distribution of Palaeolithic Sites in Egypt Egypt has a surface area of 1,002,000 square kilometres (386,900 square miles) consisting largely of desert, with its population concentrated chiefly along the fertile valley of the River Nile. The country is divided into three main geographical regions (Figures 5.1 and 5.2): the Delta (Lower Egypt) and Valley (Middle Egypt, Upper Egypt and Egyptian Nubia) of the Nile; the Arabian or Eastern Desert and the Sinai Peninsula; and the Libyan or Western Desert. Since all of these areas are represented in the Egyptian Palaeolithic collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum, the aim of this chapter is to provide a geographical and archaeological context for these collections.

The Nile Valley The Valley and Delta together form an area of about 34,000 square kilometres. One of the world's longest rivers (6670 km), the Nile spans some 34 degrees of latitude, from 2° south of the equator to 32° north. It draws its waters from the Ethiopian Plateau and the lake district of equatorial East Africa. The irregular watershed of the Nile cuts across several tectonic provinces, with a complex geological history that remains imperfectly understood. A river did run northwards, near the course of the western Egyptian Nile, since at least Oligocene times (forty million years ago), but it did not yet tap into the sub-Saharan basins of the Blue and White Nile. The updoming of Ethiopia began thirty million years ago, with the capping basalt flows in place twenty-four million years ago. That would have directed much of the Ethiopian drainage towards the older sedimentary basin in southern Sudan. Uplift and initial erosion of the Red Sea Hills between twenty to seventeen million years ago began to define the axis of the Saharan Nile, connecting the Blue Nile drainage by five million years ago (Butzer 1999). The Nile Valley is incised into the erosional surface of the eastern Sahara, running roughly parallel to the axis of the Red Sea Hills on its northward course to the Mediterranean Sea. Through Nubia, the valley is shallow and cut into Nubian Sandstone, with local thresholds of hard, igneous rocks that form six cataracts between Khartoum and Aswan. A tectonic basin intersects the valley at Kom Ombo. Near Esna, high cliffs (200-500 metres) of Eocene limestone close in on the valley, remaining prominent downstream to el-Minya. From there the margins of the valley open up, with sand-swept plains to the west, and open hill country to the east. The Faiyum Depression, its bedrock floor fifty metres below sea level, has overland and subsurface links to the Nile, with a more shallow counterpart in the Wadi Natrun (Butzer 1999). Deep entrenchment of the Nile Valley and its Delta is dated to the Messinian (between six and four million years ago), when the Mediterranean Sea dried up and a remarkable canyon was cut by river action, facilitated by crustal movements, to 2000 metres below modern sea level near Cairo, and 175 metres below sea level as far upstream as Aswan. During the subsequent two or three million years, this over-deepened canyon was filled with marine, estuarine and fluvial beds, remnants of which are visible along the valley margins. But the weight of the accumulating sediment continued to depress the underlying crust, now as much as four kilometres below the surface (Butzer 1999). Egypt experienced an arid episode at the beginning of the Pleistocene (2-1.8 million years ago) and the Nile ceased to exist. This long period of hyperaridity lasted for one million years, and was interrupted by two short episodes of frequent rains. During these wet episodes the Nile became an 65

Figure 5.1 Physical geography of Egypt

ephemeral river (Protonile), unconnected with sub-Saharan Africa (Said 1993). With the advent of the Middle Pleistocene, the Prenile was fed by waters from the Ethiopian plateau. The duration of the Prenile episode is difficult to assess. During the first two million years of the Pleistocene, the geomorphological processes controlling the evolution of the Nile Valley were influenced by climatic fluctuations of a periodic nature. These fluctuations were expressed by phenomena such as erosion and the deposition of alluvium. This process of successive transportation, deposition and erosion of alluvia in these unconsolidated sediments had the effect of creating terraces of gravels and nodules. The connections between the phases of these terraces and the occurrence of

66

Figure 5.2 Geographical division of the Nile Valley

Palaeolithic industries were revealed by the work of Sandford and Arkell in 1929-39. In fact it was only fragments of terraces that were discovered, since each readjustment connected with the new climatic conditions brought about the partial erosion of the contours of earlier deposits. The terraces of tributary wadis correspond with these Nile terraces, which formed, according to Sandford and Arkell, as readjustments of the river in response to the eustatic fluctuations of sea level (MidantReynes 2000). Research over the last thirty years has served to demonstrate the complexity of this process of terrace formation, whereby deposits accumulated in various ways, mixing together, intersecting, 67

Figure 5.3 Generalised cross-section through the Nile Valley between Sohag and Asyut Vertical scale exaggerated (after Baines & Málek 1980)

dividing and combining, and it appears that the earliest terraces, located north of Asyut in Middle Egypt, are not directly linked with those in Upper Egypt. The conclusions reached by Sandford and Arkell may still be valid in principle, but the processes that influenced the formation of these terrace-levels are now known to be much more complicated, with cycles of sedimentation and erosion being augmented by climatic fluctuations that have led to significant aggradation and degradation at a regional level. In addition, the base level of erosion was frequently modified near the coastline, as a result of the eustatic variations in the Mediterranean. This phenomenon of intense denudation of the Pleistocene series has led geologists to make a study section by section, accompanied by attempts to make fairly difficult links. The detailed geological and geomorphological analyses of local sequences have facilitated the identification of lithological entities known as 'formations', each of which has been named after the town or region where it was first discovered. Thus Sandford and Arkell's 'terraces' have been replaced by the Dakka, Korosko, Dandara and Qena formations, to name only a few, each corresponding with phases in the accumulation of gravels in the wadis. Their chronostratigraphy is linked to the study of the Palaeolithic industries that they contain, and has expanded our knowledge of this early prehistoric period (Midant-Reynes 2000). During the Middle and early Late Pleistocene, phases of gravel accumulation and terrace formation alternated with phases of Nile and wadi incision and pediment formation. However, after about 75,000 years ago the Nile ceased to accumulate gravels, and switched to its modern regime of summer flood silts. This change was not the result of a shift in behaviour of the Upper Nile, but of the tributary wadis in the Egyptian deserts; their channels became almost defunct, with only sporadic activity since that time (Butzer 1999). Between about 14,000 and 12,000 BP abnormal floods reached heights of eight or nine metres above the modern flood plain. These so-called 'Wild Nile' inundations were related to climatic changes in the headwaters and occurred in an environment largely determined by local climatic conditions. During the highest floods of the 'Wild Nile' episode the changes in the Nile Valley must have been dramatic. The inundated area would 68

have extended throughout the valley, leaving no refuge in the Nile Valley bottom for animals or humans (Vermeersch et al. 2000i). In historical times the Nile has migrated eastward, leaving traces of its earlier raised banks (Figure 5.3). The formation sequence and its terminology has changed over time, and continues to vary among different authors (compare Butzer 1980; Butzer & Hansen 1968; de Heinzelin 1968; Said 1975, 1981, 1993). Here a simplified scheme is used (Figures 5.4 and 5.5), based on Vermeersch et al. (2000i) and Midant-Reynes (2000). The main sites in the Nile Valley are divided into four geographical areas: Lower Egypt (the Delta), Middle Egypt (Memphis to Asyut), northern Upper Egypt (Asyut to Thebes), and southern Upper Egypt/Egyptian Nubia (Thebes to the Sudanese border) (Figure 5.2). Lower Egypt The low hills to the west of Alexandria and the coastal strip from Alexandria to Abukir are formed of a calcareous Quaternary formation of shells and foraminifera mixed with oolitic granules, grains of quartz sand and fine gravel. The cultivated plains of the Delta consist of recent alluvial deposits ranging from fine sand to the finest of silt, laid down by the water of the annual inundation. Under these lie coarser yellowish sands and gravels of Pleistocene age, which here and there reach the surface of the Delta as islands of sandy waste among the rich cultivation of the surrounding country, while Pliocene sands and loams occur to the south of the pyramids at Giza (Midant-Reynes 2000). The Quaternary geology of the Delta means that exposed deposits containing Palaeolithic sites are relatively few in number. Palaeolithic artefacts of an unspecified period were found by Petrie at Tell el-Fara'in (see Chapter 3), which is the northernmost Palaeolithic site known in the Delta. The Acheulian handaxes found stratified in gravels at Abbassia near Cairo in the eastern Delta (Bovier-Lapierre 1925, 1926a) are among the oldest in Egypt. Acheulian handaxes were also found by Haynes (1882) on the desert surface a few kilometres east of Cairo. Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were recovered from the gravels at Abbassia (Bovier-Lapierre 1925, 1926a), and elsewhere as surface finds in the eastern Delta at Heliopolis, Abu Suwair in the Wadi Tumilat, Shibin el-Qanatir near the Ismaila Canal and Wadi Angabiyya on the Suez road, forty kilometres northeast of Cairo (Caton-Thompson 1946b; Montet-White 1957; Sandford & Arkell 1939). In the western Delta Middle Palaeolithic artefacts have been found at Abu Ghalib, at Merimda Beni Salama, between Abu Rawash and Giza (Caton-Thompson 1946b) and at Saqqara (Lenormant 1870). Finally, Epipalaeolithic artefacts were discovered at Helwan by Haynes (1882), JukesBrowne (1878), Caton-Thompson (n.d.), and Debono (1948). With the exception of the discoveries of Debono, these were all chance finds, to which we can add the Middle Palaeolithic artefact found by Balfour at Giza (see Chapter 8). Middle Egypt The Palaeolithic of Middle Egypt is even more impoverished. Palaeolithic sites have been found in the Faiyum (29°20'N 30°40'E), a lakeside semi-oasis west of the Nile Valley south of Memphis, which is fed by the Bahr Yusuf Canal, a branch of the Nile that diverges westward north of Asyut. Though the Faiyum is similar to the depressions in the Western Desert, its natural connection with the Nile and the fact that its soil is made up of alluvial silts both mean that it is usually included within the general area of the Nile Valley. This large, fertile depression is some sixty-five kilometres from east to west, with a lake (modern Birket Qarun, or Lake Moeris of the Classical writers) in its northwestern part. Nowadays the lake only occupies about one fifth of the Faiyum (1700 square kilometres) and is some forty-four metres below sea level, but in the past it was much larger. Before it became a depression, the Faiyum had been a delta of an earlier version of the Nile. Opinions have differed as to the origins of the depression itself: tectonic deformation, fluvial

69

Figure 5.4 Summary of Nile and wadi behaviour, lithostratigraphy, palaeoclimate and prehistoric sites in Upper Egypt during the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic

70

Figure 5.5 Summary of Nile and wadi behaviour, lithostratigraphy, palaeoclimate and prehistoric sites in Upper Egypt during the last 40,000 years

erosion and deflation have all been put forward as possibilities at different times. Today there is a tendency to consider the Faiyum to be like the oases of the Western Desert, and that variability in the hardness of the Eocene and Oligocene strata resulted in fluvial erosion (Baines & Málek 1980; Midant-Reynes 2000). The lake was the focus for settlement in the Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic (Caton-Thompson & Gardner 1934; Hassan 1986; Henneberg et al. 1989; Mussi et al. 1984; Sandford & Arkell 1929; Wendorf & Schild 1976; Wenke et al. 1983), though an earlier presence in the area is documented by Evans-Pritchard's find of a Middle Palaeolithic artefact at Gebel Qatrani (see Chapter 8). To the south of the Faiyum Seligman found two Middle Palaeolithic artefacts at Sidmant and one Upper Palaeolithic artefact at Maiyana on the Bahr Yusuf Canal, and various Middle Palaeolithic artefacts at Meir on the Sohagiya Canal (see Chapter 7). Sandford 71

(1934) also found Middle Palaeolithic artefacts on the Sohagiya Canal at Tuna el-Gebel, north of Meir. In the main Nile Valley there are only a few Middle Palaeolithic sites, including Shaibah, elHiba and Timai (Sandford 1934). No Late Palaeolithic sites have been recorded in Lower and Middle Egypt. The climate at this time was hyperarid, and because of the aridity in the Nile headwaters, and important erosion activity caused by the late glacial cold affecting the highlands of Ethiopia, the river Nile had less water and much more clay. In Lower and Middle Egypt the Nile was deeply incised due to the very low water level of the Mediterranean Sea, more than 100 metres below present sea level. This resulted in a regressive erosion along the Nile, creating a surface that has since been covered by more recent alluvia, burying potential sites (Vermeersch et al. 2000i; Wendorf & Schild 1976, 1989a). Northern Upper Egypt The survey work of the somewhat confusingly-named Belgian Middle Egypt Research Project of Leuven University has done much to enhance our understanding of the Palaeolithic of northern Upper Egypt between Asyut and Thebes (Vermeersch et al. 1990a). The most important sites in the stretch between Asyut and Sohag are located at Nazlet Khater, twelve kilometres west of Tahta. Here the Nile Valley is incised in the hard limestone of Eocene age forming high cliffs on both sides of the valley, and the valley is filled with Pliocene clays which form the basement rocks of the lower desert. The Pliocene clays have been eroded by pedimentation and are covered by successive wadi and Nile deposits, creating an undulating topography in the lower desert (Vermeersch 2000b). The oldest Nilotic deposits in the area are the clays of the Dandara Formation, which are covered by highly weathered reddish sandy deposits containing Acheulian artefacts. Younger Nilotic deposits consisting of non-local gravels covered by sandy silty clays outcrop as terrace remnants. These in turn are covered with deposits containing Middle Palaeolithic assemblages (Vermeersch 2000b). Seven Palaeolithic sites were found in the area. Nazlet Khater 1, 2, 3 and 5 can be attributed to the Middle Palaeolithic, whereas Nazlet Khater 4, 7 and 8 are Upper Palaeolithic in age. Three of the Middle Palaeolithic sites are chert extraction quarries (Vermeersch & Paulissen 1993; Vermeersch & Van Peer 2002a; Vermeersch et al. 1978a, 1978b, 1989b, 1995): Nazlet Khater 1 (Vermeersch et al. 2002a) and Nazlet Khater 3 (Vermeersch et al. 2002c) belong to the Nubian Complex, while Nazlet Khater 2 (Vermeersch et al. 2002b) belongs to the Local Complex. There is also an Upper Palaeolithic underground chert mine at Nazlet Khater 4 (Vermeersch et al. 1984a, 1984b, 2002d). Nazlet Khater 4 is the earliest Upper Palaeolithic site known so far in the Nile Valley. A series of radiocarbon dates on charcoal samples gave an age between 30,000 and 35,000 BP (Vermeersch et al. 2002d), whereas optical dating produced an age of 44,000±6000 BP (Stokes & Bailey 2002). Another probable chert extraction site was found at Rifa, a few kilometres to the southwest of Asyut. The assemblage from Rifa is Mid-Middle Palaeolithic in age, and belongs to the Nubian Complex (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). Several surface scatters have been found at El Gawanim, west of Sohag. El Gawanim 2 is a MidMiddle Palaeolithic chert extraction site belonging to the Nubian Complex, while El Gawanim 1 is considered to be a Late Middle Palaeolithic mixed activity site, where chert was extracted from the terrace gravels and the numerous tools found document domestic camp activities. The site of Ezbet Rabab, which lies on the right bank of the Nile opposite the town of Sohag, is also a Late Middle Palaeolithic chert extraction site. Back on the left bank, Middle Palaeolithic sites of indeterminate affiliation have been found at Wadi Qasab and Wadi Ahaywa (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). A probable Ballanan-Silsilian industry was found at Nag el Ezba, not far from Sohag. No excavations have been carried out, but numerous chert artefacts were extracted from a section of the terrace, three of which have been refitted which suggests that the assemblage has not been subjected to major postdepositional reworking (Vermeersch et al. 1981, 2000a). 72

Figure 5.6 Palaeolithic sites on the left bank of the Nile in the Abydos area (after Vermeersch et al. 2000b) 73

The Abydos area contains a number of sites of different periods (Figure 5.6) and, given the quantity of artefacts from Abydos in the Seligman Collection, this area is of particular interest here. The oldest artefacts in this stretch of the Nile Valley come from the Abbassia I gravels at Nag el Amra, which predates the deposition of the Dandara Formation and dates to about 400,000 BP (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). Nag el Amra lies about ten kilometres south of Abydos. In this area low cliffs, five to ten metres high, separate the floodplain from the El Ghineimiya Plain which gently slopes towards the western border of the valley. The site of Nag Ahmed el Khalifa lies about four kilometres north of Nag el Amra. This site is particularly important because it is one of the few Acheulian sites to have been excavated. The artefacts were collected at different levels in the rubified gravels indicating that they are not archaeologically in situ, but rather that they had been displaced by the erosional activity of the wadi that had aggraded the gravels. The site is covered by a red palaeosol and the gravel deposit is tentatively correlated with the Abbassia II gravels, overlying the Qena Sands and the silts of the Dandara Formation. The assemblage from Nag Ahmed el Khalifa can be attributed to the Final Acheulian (Oxygen Isotope Stage 9, 360-300,000 BP) (Vermeersch et al. 1980, 2000b). Midway between Nag el Amra and Nag Ahmed el Khalifa, Acheulian artefacts were found in all levels of a huge wadi-fan deposit at El Ghineimiya (Vermeersch et al. 2000a; Figure 5.7). Paulissen & Vermeersch (1987) reported various sites in the Abydos area with in situ Middle Palaeolithic material. The most important of these is Beit Allam, eight kilometres north of Abydos (Vermeersch et al. 1978a). The site lies on a small, isolated surface one metre above the floor of the wadi and eight metres above the Nile floodplain. The rich archaeological material is embedded within the wadi deposits, which overlie a core of very coarse sands and gravels of Nilotic origin. Beit Allam is a quarry site, where chert cobbles were extracted from the wadi floor. The assemblage fits into the Local Complex (Otte et al. 2002; Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987). Another quarry site, this time of Late Middle Palaeolithic age, was found at Beit Khallaf 3, about twelve kilometres north of Beit Allam. Beit Khallaf 3 lies on the flat surface of a gravel terrace which has been dissected by wadi activity, about fifty metres above the cultivated plain (Otte et al. 1991; Vermeersch et al. 2000a). Nubian, classic Levallois, single platform and dual platform cores are all present, which suggests a mixture of Nubian and Local Complex activity at the site. Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were also collected at Beit Khallaf by Garstang in 1900-1901 (see Chapter 8). To the south of Abydos the Early Middle Palaeolithic site of El Baraghit (ME 76/38) is situated in the western lower desert near Nag' Hammadi (Vermeersch et al. 2000a), in the same area where Vignard found Middle Palaeolithic sites, as well as Acheulian handaxes and Late Palaeolithic artefacts (Vignard 1921, 1922, 1957). The assemblage from El Baraghit fits into the Nubian Complex. Numerous Middle Palaeolithic sites were also recovered from all levels of the huge wadifan deposit at El Ghineimiya, seven kilometres south of Abydos (Vermeersch et al. 1980). This deposit is separated from the modern floodplain by an eleven metre scarp. A cluster of very fresh artefacts was recovered from the lower part of the fan deposit, and many of these artefacts could be refitted, indicating that they were nearly archaeologically in situ (Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987). The assemblage from El Ghineimiya 3 was found in deposits interstratified with Nilotic clays and silts and also belongs to the Mid-Middle Palaeolithic phase of the Nubian Complex, while the Nubian Complex assemblage from El Ghineimiya 2 is probably slightly younger but still MidMiddle Palaeolithic in age (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). Several Palaeolithic sites of unknown age were discovered near El Qara, fifteen kilometres south of Abydos. Dense artefact scatters were found in various places on the surface of the high gravel terrace, about five kilometres into the western lower desert, lying on spurs between the main wadi and the affluent wadis. The artefact scatters differ in that some have a significant number of blades while at others they are absent. Most of the artefacts are relatively fresh, but have a brown desert 74

1. gravel in a sandy matrix; 2. sand; 3. Nile silts interfingering with a Middle Palaeolithic wadi fan deposit; 4. heavily weathered silts attributed to the Dandara Formation; 5. very coarse matrix with red soil on top; 6. important wadi stages ordered from younger to older Figure 5.7 Wadi deposits in the Abydos area Heights show metres above the floodplain (after Vermeersch et al. 2000b)

patina. Refitting work resulted in two refitted cobbles (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). Late Palaeolithic assemblages which are too poor to be compared with the established sequence of Nile Valley industries have been found in the Abydos area at Beit Khallaf 2 and El Qat'a. Beit Khallaf 2 lies three kilometres northwest of Beit Khallaf 3. The site is situated in the lower desert on the highest limestone mesa, the remnant of an erosional pediment, close to the valley cliffs (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). El Qat'a, which was called site 76/43 in a preliminary publication (Vermeersch et al. 1977), lies twelve kilometres northwest of Nag' Hammadi in the lower desert, also on the highest level of a limestone mesa. An almost circular concentration of artefacts measuring about 20 square metres was discovered on the mesa surface (Vermeersch et al. 2000h). On the right bank of the Nile, opposite Beit Allam, is the site of Arab el Sabaha (Huyge et al. 2000; Vermeersch et al. 1985). While several typological and technological characteristics of the Arab el Sabaha assemblage are reminiscent of the Silsilian and Afian, it is thought to fit in a more recent and as yet unidentified and unnamed industry. In the absence of absolute dates, the assemblage has been attributed on technological and typological grounds to the cultural hiatus that is apparent between the end of the 'Wild Nile' stage around 12,500 BP and the appearance of Epipalaeolithic industries (Elkabian and Qarunian) around 8000 BP (Huyge et al. 2000). The Dishna Plain is an extension of the larger Qena Plain, on the right bank of the Nile. It is a small embayment surrounded by a limestone escarpment with cliffs rising to more than 300 metres above the floodplain. The width of the Dishna Plain is constricted at the edges, reaching only a few kilometres in width, compared to a maximum width of about twenty kilometres in the centre (Hassan 1974). Survey by Fekri Hassan revealed various Late Palaeolithic sites, including Sebilian and Isnan industries, in the southwest corner of the plain (Hassan 1972, 1974). The Belgian Middle Egypt Research Project subsequently found various Late Palaeolithic sites on the terrace surface on the northern part of the plain, at the foot of the limestone cliffs. The geographical position of these sites corresponds with a floodplain edge situation (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). One of these sites is 75

Shuwikhat 1, the type site of the Shuwikhatian, which has been dated by TL to 25.0±2.5 ka (Ox85TL) (Paulissen et al. 1985; Vermeersch et al. 2000c), while a Silsilian assemblage was found at Shuwikhat 2 (Vermeersch et al. 2000e). Just east of Shuwikhat, various Palaeolithic sites have been found at Makhadma, about twelve kilometres downstream from Qena (Vermeersch 1985; Vermeersch et al. 1983). The Makhadma area was first surveyed by the Combined Prehistoric Expedition, who discovered a Late Palaeolithic assemblage at site E6104 (Wendorf & Schild 1976). This site was renamed Makhadma 1 by the Belgian Middle Egypt Research Project, who found rolled Middle Palaeolithic and very fresh Upper and Late Palaeolithic artefacts (Vermeersch et al. 2000a). At Makhadma 6 a rolled assemblage and two fresh assemblages were excavated, all of which fit into the Mid-Middle Palaeolithic Nubian Complex. The chronological difference between the rolled assemblage and the two fresh ones is likely to be significant, because considerable slope evolution has occurred between the two occupational phases. The two fresh assemblages are thought to date to Oxygen Isotope Stages 4-2. However, internally the technological homogeneity of the assemblages is striking (Paulissen & Vermeersch 1987; Van Peer 2000). Makhadma 4 is an Afian fishing site which was located on the lower slope of a gravel terrace, resting on the Qena Sand and on the edge of the Shuwikhat Terrace, and just out of reach of the high floods of the 'Wild Nile' with which the site was contemporary. Radiocarbon dates suggest that Makhadma 4 was occupied between 12,500 and 12,300 Cal BC (1 sigma) (Vermeersch et al. 1989a, 2000g). The Isnan is represented at Makhadma 2. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the site was occupied between 13,400 and 12,100 Cal BC (1 sigma). The site is a midden which formed as a result of a long, but not necessarily continuous, occupation period. Indeed, the superimposition of a hearth above a posthole is indicative of subsequent or repetitive use of the site. Makhadma 2 is also contemporaneous with the 'Wild Nile' alluviation. The site was a fishing site, and probably had a seasonal character related to the Nile flooding season (Vermeersch et al. 1989a, 2000f). On the left bank of the Nile in the Qena bend, opposite Makhadma, are the Late Middle Palaeolithic chert quarries at Nazlet Safaha (Van Peer et al. 2002; Vermeersch et al. 1986). OSL dating at Nazlet Safaha gave an age of about 60,000 BP (Stokes & Bailey 2002). The Combined Prehistoric Expedition also found a small Late Palaeolithic assemblage at the site (Wendorf & Schild 1976). Nearby at Dandara Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found by MacIver (see Chapter 8) and Sandford (1934). Downstream from Qena, towards Abydos, the abundance of Late Palaeolithic sites on the right bank contrasts with the rarity of similar sites across the river (Vermeersch et al. 1987). A considerable number of Late Palaeolithic sites were discovered upstream from Qena, towards Thebes, all of them on the left bank, including the Isnan site E71C2 (Kabacinski & Usai 1999). A number of sites on the right bank were probably swept away by the activity of the huge wadis draining the Red Sea Hills, or were destroyed by modern reclamation which has shifted far into the lower desert (Vermeersch et al. 1987). On the left bank Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic surface scatters have been found in the Naqada-Ballas area (Sandford 1934; Vermeersch et al. 2000a), and a Shuwikhatian site was found at El Abadiya near Danfiq (Vermeersch et al. 2000d). A large part of the Seligman Collection, and the majority of the other Egyptian Palaeolithic collections housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum, come from Thebes. The first discoveries of Palaeolithic artefacts in Egypt were made at Thebes by Arcelin, Hamy and Lenormant (1869), followed by Lubbock (1875) and Haynes (1882). Pitt Rivers' discovery of stratified Palaeolithic artefacts in the wadi gravels (Pitt Rivers 1882) established Thebes as the centre of activity for late nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors, archaeologists, geologists and explorers interested in the Egyptian Palaeolithic, such as Seton-Karr (1897), Blanckenhorn (1902), Hall (1905), Schweinfurth (1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1909), and de Rustafjaell (1907) (see Chapter 3). More recent fieldwork by Debono and Biberson found Oldowan artefacts in situ in Lower Pleistocene 76

gravel deposits (Biberson et al. 1977; Debono 1973), a claim disputed by Paulissen and Vermeersch (1987). Debono also discovered, or rediscovered, and mapped an abundance of Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic surface sites in Wadi Remeila, Wadi Bariya, the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Spanish Pilgrims (Debono 1973). The Middle and Upper Palaeolithic knapping sites which he found in the Valley of the Queens are located in the same area as Schweinfurth's 'Palaeolithic factories' (Figure 2.3). Numerous Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were also found in the Thebes area by Sandford and Arkell (1933). In summary, the work of the Belgian Middle Egypt Prehistoric Project and, to a lesser extent the Combined Prehistoric Expedition, has resulted in a well documented Palaeolithic sequence in northern Upper Egypt, with assemblages attributed to the Late and Final Acheulian, the Early, Midand Late Middle Palaeolithic, the Early Upper Palaeolithic, the Late Palaeolithic Shuwikhatian, Ballanan-Silsilian, Afian and Isnan variants, and the Epipalaeolithic. There appear to be main four hiatuses in the occupation sequence at 70-35,000 BP, 30-25,000 BP, 22-16,000 BP and 11-8000 BP. The last of these may be related to the poor visibility of the sites (Vermeersch 1992), and Connor and Marks (1986) have argued that the down-cutting during the 'Wild Nile' stage would have reduced the floodplain, which may also be a factor. With very few exceptions, the Acheulian sites are surface sites. The fate of the Middle Palaeolithic sites is similar to that of the Acheulian sites: all over the desert one can find scattered artefacts, and judging from the high number of these, an important site density may be inferred. They cover the surface of the wadi beds and terraces and are found in gravely slope material, in wadi deposits and in certain Nile lag deposits. The sites all appear to be lithic workshops rather than living sites, and most of them fit into the Nubian Complex. While Upper Palaeolithic sites are rare, probably because of the limited area of outcropping deposits of the Shuwikhat Formation, Late Palaeolithic sites are comparatively abundant. Arab el Sabaha is the only Epipalaeolithic site known in this tract of the Nile (Vermeersch et al. 2000i). Southern Upper Egypt/ Egyptian Nubia Compared with northern Upper Egypt, the Palaeolithic of southern Upper Egypt and Egyptian Nubia is quite impoverished, despite the work of the Combined Prehistoric Expedition who surveyed the area between 1967 and 1968 (Wendorf & Schild 1976; Wendorf et al. 1987c). During that period various Late Palaeolithic sites were found in several localities, one of the richest areas being about ten kilometres north of Esna, where there is a remnant of Late Pleistocene silts and sands standing from five to six metres above the modern floodplain. The area was already being reclaimed for agriculture, and most of the silt areas had been prepared for cultivation. The archaeological sites were found among the fossil dunes which were excluded from reclamation, since the dunes were thought to be too sandy for farming (Wendorf & Schild 1976). A Shuwikhatian industry was found at E71K9, where a TL date of 21,590±1520 BP (OxTL 161.C.1) was obtained on burnt clay from a hearth (Wendorf & Schild 1976), and Fakhurian industries were found at site E71K12 (Wendorf et al. 1997) and sites E71K1-5 (Lubell 1974). Other Late Palaeolithic industries are the Kubbaniyan at site E71K13 (Vermeersch 1992), Idfuan at sites E71K8 and E71K9X (Wendorf & Schild 1976), Ballanan-Silsilian at site E71K20 (Vermeersch 1992), Afian at sites E71K6B and K18A-E (Wendorf & Schild 1976), and Isnan at sites E71K14 and E71K22 (Wendorf & Schild 1976). A Lower Palaeolithic handaxe was found by Seton-Karr near Esna (see Chapter 8) and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found at Armant, north of Esna (Sandford & Arkell 1933). Moving upstream on the left bank, a group of sites dating to the Middle Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic was found at Elkab (Sandford & Arkell 1933; Vermeersch 1978, 1981), and a Sebilian site was found at el Kilh (Hassan & Wendorf 1974). Near Edfu there are Lower and Middle Palaeolithic findspots (Sandford 1934), a Kubbaniyan site at E71P1 areas C and D 77

(Vermeersch 1992), Idfuan sites at E71P1 areas A and B and E71P2, and an Isnan site at E71P5 (Wendorf & Schild 1976). On the right bank in the Kom Ombo Plain there are Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites (Sandford 1934), Halfan sites (Smith 1967a, 1967b), a Ballanan-Silsilian site at GS-2B-II (Phillips & Butzer 1973), Sebilian sites (Vignard 1955a, 1955b, 1955c, 1956), and an Afian site at GS-2B-I (Close et al. 1979). About ten kilometres north of Aswan on the left bank of the Nile, Wadi Kubbaniya (24°12'N, 32°52'E) is one of three major wadis that reach the Nile from the southwestern desert, draining most of the area between the river and the Eocene scarp on the west. On each side of the wadi are steep sandstone scarps thirty to forty metres above the wadi floor. The Late Pleistocene sequence begins with a thick series of wadi gravels in which rolled Early Middle Palaeolithic artefacts occur, and on the eroded top of the wadi gravels there was a typical Aterian assemblage with tanged and bifacial points. Directly overlying the Middle Palaeolithic gravels at the mouth of Wadi Kubbaniya is a thick unit of Nile silts assigned to the Late Middle Palaeolithic valley-fill which contained Late Middle Palaeolithic artefacts. On the deflated surface of the silts was a small Khormusan assemblage. Eight TL dates from the sediments below and above the Late Middle Palaeolithic horizons place the accumulation of Late Middle Palaeolithic valley fill between 65,000 and 40,000 BP (Wendorf & Schild 1992). Near the mouth of Wadi Kubbaniya is one of the densest and most extensively studied groups of Late Palaeolithic sites in Egypt. By 21,000 BP the floodplain at Aswan was some sixteen metres higher than today, and still rising. When the valley fill became higher than the mouth of the wadi, the seasonal flooding invaded the wadi and would have extended for several kilometres, so that the lower part of the wadi became a large embayment of the floodplain, and the water permitted vegetation to grow along its edge. A process of simultaneous dune and silt accumulation resulted in the formation of an extensive dune field close to the northern scarp, while the centre of the wadi remained a floodplain where only silts were deposited. The Late Palaeolithic occupants of the wadi settled on the dunes and the seasonally dry floodplain, and the settlements in both areas are large and were used repeatedly. These earliest Late Palaeolithic sites are called 'Fakhurian-related', because of the similarities with the stone tools from Deir el-Fakhuri near Esna. However, most of the Late Palaeolithic sites in Wadi Kubbaniya are assigned to the Kubbaniyan, such as site E-83-3 (Scoggins 1989) and E-84-1 (Hill et al. 1989). The wadi continued to be used by Late Palaeolithic groups long after the Kubbaniyan, but after 12,500 BP a dune barrier formed across the mouth of the wadi which would have destroyed the conditions favouring wetland plants and rendered the area less attractive for habitation (Wendorf 1999). The area was occupied during the Ballanan-Silsilian at sites E-78-5e, E-84-2 and E-83-2 (Wendorf & Hill 1989; Wendorf et al. 1989), during the Afian at site E83-4 (Wendorf & Schild 1989a), during the Qadan at site E78-10 (Banks 1980) and during the Isnan at site E-81-5 (Wendorf & Schild 1989b). In Egyptian Nubia, which stretches from Aswan to the Sudanese border, Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found at Tushka (Sandford & Arkell 1933), as well as Qadan assemblages (site 8905), where three phases of occupation extended from 14,000 to 12,500 BP (Shiner 1968). Tushka is now flooded by Lake Nasser, as is the Ballana region on the Sudanese-Egyptian border, where sites 8956, 8857 and 8863 were referred to the Ballanan (Ballanan-Silsilian), and sites 8898 and 8899 to the Sebilian (Wendorf 1968). In summary, the Upper Palaeolithic and Late Palaeolithic sequence in southern Upper Egypt and Egyptian Nubia is more complete that that of northern Upper Egypt, with Khormusan, Shuwikhatian, Fakhurian, Halfan, Kubbaniyan, Idfuan, Ballanan-Silsilian, Sebilian, Afian, Qadan and Isnan variants, followed by the Epipalaeolithic. On the other hand, our knowledge of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic is comparatively impoverished, since it is limited to occasional finds of uncertain chronology made by Sandford and Arkell (1933), and deposits of the appropriate age have not been closely examined since. 78

The Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula The Eastern Desert and the Sinai Peninsula make up a single geomorphological entity with a surface area of 287,000 square kilometres comprising alternate zones of high massifs of igneous and metamorphic rocks and sedimentary plateaus. A large number of wadis pass through the desert, their deep valleys draining off towards the Gulf of Suez in the Sinai. A line of hills, some peaks of which are 2000 metres in height, runs parallel to the Red Sea and at a short distance from it. This is wholly formed of crystalline rocks (granite, gneiss, diorite, hornblende-schist, mica-schist, talcschist and andesites). The eastern and western slopes of this range are overlaid by sedimentary rocks, usually Nubian Sandstone but also, in the northern part, by limestones and marls. These stretch away towards the west forming a great plateau of limestone in the north and sandstone in the south, in which the Nile Valley forms a narrow trough. Because of the mountainous nature of the Eastern Desert, it was characterised by more humid atmospheric conditions which facilitated seasonal activity in the wadis and erratically replenished wells (Midant-Reynes 2000). The northern part of the Sinai Peninsula is a low-relief landscape composed of broad plains and hill country marked by considerable folding and faulting. In contrast, the central Sinai is a plateau made up of rock shelves of varying altitudes creating a step-like appearance. The plateau treads are tilted to create monoclinal cuestas or table-land steps. The most prominent of these plateau table-lands is the Gebel El Tih, while lesser, lower-level steps are the Gebel El Igma and the Ogret El Arnab Plateau. These stepped landforms are sculpted by lateral stripping of an alternating series of sedimentary rocks which include limestone, shale, chalk and sandstone beds. Stripping has denuded the more resistant sedimentary rock to create a caprock surface to each plateau. To the south, in the apex of the Sinai triangle, lies a 'moonscape' country of sharp, angular mountains, culminating in St Catherine's mountain at 2641 metres, separated by narrow, V-shaped valleys. This rugged landscape is formed on crystalline bedrock made up of granite, schist and gneiss, which has been highly faulted and marked by intrusive dykes (Eddy & Wendorf 1999). Acheulian handaxes have been found in the northern Sinai near the Gebel Libni (Seton-Karr 1923), as well as in the Wadi Quderat near Qadesh Barnea (Neuville 1952). In the central Sinai Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts are present in lag gravel deposits made up of scree which mantles the pediment surfaces (Eddy & Wendorf 1999). Of particular interest are the Nubian type-1 point core found at Gebel Urayf an Naquah, and the bifacial foliate found at Wadi Al Koreas. A Middle Palaeolithic rockshelter site was excavated at Sinai-20 at the foot of Gebel Khasem El Taref, revealing a large assemblage of the Nubian Mousterian type, as well as a few Upper Palaeolithic artefacts (Eddy & Wendorf 1999). In the southern Sinai Lower Palaeolithic artefacts were found at Wadi Abura and Wadi Sidri, and a single Middle Palaeolithic artefact at Gebel Ekma (Montenat 1986). Seven Upper Palaeolithic sites dated between 36,000 and 29,000 BP have been reported from the Abu Noshra Basin in southern Sinai (Phillips 1988), and eight Ahmarian 'Lagaman' sites ranging in age from 34,000 to 31,000 BP are known from the Gebel Maghara in the north (Bar-Yosef & Belfer 1977). After the Ahmarian, there seems to be an important hiatus in the human occupation of Gebel Maghara, and reoccupation of the region is renewed at 14,000 BP with the Mushabian, named after the type site at Mushabi 1, and the Geometric Kebaran A at North Lagama VIII (Bar-Yosef & Phillips 1977). The mountainous regions of the Eastern Desert are characterised by a multitude of widespread, partly interlocked systems of pediments and wadi sediments. In the north, numerous Middle Palaeolithic findspots occur on the gravels of the pediments in Wadi Deir (Dittmann 1993). Further south are Wadi Abu Had and Wadi Dib, which lie on the western side of the Gulf of Suez. Palaeolithic sites are located in a part of the two wadis in an area measuring thirty by twenty kilometres (27°36'-27°50'N, 33°08'-33°23'E). To the east the area is bordered by a granite and dolerite mountain range reaching 448 metres above sea level. The plain of Wadi Abu Had is twenty-five kilometres long and is bisected longitudinally by a range of Cretaceous and Eocene 79

limestone, Gebel Safr Abu Had, rising between 202 and 290 metres above sea level. The western edge of the plain is delineated by the andesite mountain of Gebel Ladid el-Gidan, with peaks reaching 1131 metres above sea level. The Wadi Abu Had plain forms a natural crossroad in the desert with the lateral-running Wadi Dib in the north. In the south, Wadi Abu Had merges with Wadi Mellaha where, fifty kilometres beyond, the Roman quarries of Mons Porphyrites are located. Both Wadi Abu Had and Wadi Dib join the great Wadi Qena, leading to the Nile Valley in the west, and in the east emerge onto the coastal plain of the Gulf of Suez. The two wadis therefore form secondary routes in the central Eastern Desert (Bomann 1999). Bomann's survey concentrated on the eastern and western plains of Wadi Abu Had and around Gebel Safr Abu Had, before moving into the Wadi Dib. A major Palaeolithic flint quarry with associated artefacts was located, as well as other flint-working sites and stray finds near the foothills of Gebel Safr Abu Had. The main sources of flint in the area are nodules stratified in seams in the Gebel Safr Abu Had, though tabular flint is also present. The main quarry is half a kilometre long, and thirteen sites were located on the limestone ridges. These show evidence of the in situ extraction and working of weathered flint nodules to produce flake blanks. The site of an ancient lake, which is demonstrated by landforms and tufa deposits, lies in the western plain and in the region of Gebel Safr Abu Had. Twenty-seven sites were located within a five square kilometre area in the western plain of Abu Had, and the presence of standing water and raw materials for making stone tools may explain why so many sites are located in such a small area. The artefacts range from the Late Middle Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic in age (Bomann 1995, 1999; Bomann & Young 1994). Montenat (1986), on the other hand, found Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts in Wadi Dib and Wadi Abu Had, the Middle Palaeolithic component comprising an abundance of Levallois material. Of particular interest is an Aterian-type tanged point found in the Wadi Dib associated with Levallois debitage. Various Upper Palaeolithic knapping sites were also found to the north of Abu Had. Some of the artefacts in the Seligman Collection which were collected by Murray in 1914 come from Wadi Abu Had and Wadi Dib; these are Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in age (see Chapter 7). Montenat's survey of the Eastern Desert covered an extensive area along the Gulf of Suez and Red Sea coast, between 28°N and 24°N. The survey revealed thirteen Lower Palaeolithic, thirteen Middle Palaeolithic, two Upper Palaeolithic and one Epipalaeolithic findspots (Montenat 1886). This is the same area that was explored in 1914 by Murray, who also found numerous Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites. Some of the material collected by Murray was sent to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and was published in 1917 by Sterns (see Chapter 3), while other artefacts form part of the Seligman Collection in the Pitt Rivers Museum (see Chapter 7) and part of the Seligman Collection in the Petrie Museum (see Appendix). The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites discovered by Murray which Montenat rediscovered are Wadi Mellaha and Wasif (spelt Wassif in Montenat's publication). Located between Wadi Mellaha and Wasif are Wadi Abu Marua and Wadi Belih, where Murray also found a small number of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts (see Chapter 7). Wasif lies in the Wadi Safaga which runs northwest towards a tributary of the Wadi Qena, called Wadi Hammama. The Wadi Hammama turns into the Wadi Umm Selimat before it reaches the Wadi Qena, and Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found in both of these wadis by Murray (see Chapter 7). The Wadi Qena, which runs in a northerly direction through the Eastern Desert, has also yielded artefacts of this age, at Arras and Heita (see Chapter 7). To the south of this group of wadis lies the Wadi Hammamat (25°54'N 33°10'E), which constitutes the central section of one of the most important routes between the Nile and the Red Sea. The Wadi Hammamat lies halfway between these two water bodies, about sixty kilometres from Qift on the Nile or from Quseir on the Red Sea coast. The Wadi Hammamat route is one of the shortest NileRed Sea tracks, and for this reason it has been used for millennia and is now marked by scores of ancient ruins and hundreds of rock engravings or graffiti. Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic and Sebilian artefacts have been found on the heights overlooking the Laqeita depression (Debono 1950, 1951). 80

Sodmein Cave, which lies 35 kilometres north-west of Quseir, is the first site in the Eastern Desert to reveal stratified Middle and Upper Palaeolithic levels. The uppermost Upper Palaeolithic level (UP1) is thought to constitute the re-worked upper part of Upper Palaeolithic level 2 (UP2), while the latter can be considered a true occupation level with an accumulation of lithics around a hearth which has been radiocarbon dated to 25,200±500 BP. Numerous blades are present, and the cores are generally of the single platform type. Retouched tools are virtually absent. Middle Palaeolithic level 1 (MP1) contains few artefacts, including two points with basal thinning on the ventral face. This characteristic qualifies them as Emireh points, a common type in the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic. A radiocarbon date on charcoal from a hearth in Middle Palaeolithic level 2 (MP2) yielded an age of >30,000 BP, and the presence of tanged Levallois artefacts might support the identification of this level as Aterian. Middle Palaeolithic level 3 (MP3) has a radiocarbon age of >45,000 BP, and Levallois technology, including both the classic and the Nubian methods, is well represented. The lithic assemblage from Middle Palaeolithic level 4 (MP4) is very similar to that from MP3, while the few artefacts retrieved from the lowest archaeological level (MP5) include a Nubian type-1 Levallois core. A thermoluminescence date on burnt flint from this level provides an age estimate of 118,000±8000 BP (Mercier et al. 1999; Moeyersons et al. 1996; Vermeersch 1994; Vermeersch et al. 1994). In summary, our knowledge of the Palaeolithic occupation of the Eastern Desert is very poor, primarily due to scarcity of research. Murray's 1914 collection of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts does little more than add dots to the map of known sites and, in common with most collectors at that time, his selection was biased towards larger items such as handaxes and cores. Murray was not, in fact, particularly interested in the Palaeolithic artefacts themselves; his primary objective was to explore the Roman roads which ran through the wadis in the central part of the Eastern Desert, and he collected the artefacts whenever he came across them by chance (Murray 1968). Though the surveys by Bomann and Montenat were more systematic and less selective, revealing Upper Palaeolithic sites and one Epipalaeolithic sites, they were restricted to relatively small areas, and the results have not been published in full. The vast area between Wadi Hammamat at nearly 26°N and the Sudanese border at just over 22°N has yet to be explored for Palaeolithic sites. Consequently, it is difficult to place the discoveries made at Sodmein Cave within a regional context. As for the Sinai Peninsula, our knowledge of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic is based on a very limited number of excavations and a few chance finds. The Upper Palaeolithic industries in the Sinai Peninsula would appear to be more closely linked with those of the Levant than with those of the Nile Valley.

The Western Desert The Western Desert is totally different to the Eastern Desert in its flatness and its aridity. Covering nearly 681,000 square kilometres, this vast eroded surface constitutes two-thirds of the entire country. The large limestone Libyan Plateau gradually rises to about 500 metres above sea level, its southern escarpment overlooking the lower plain of Nubian Sandstone to the south, and the high massifs of Gebel 'Uweinat and the plateau of Gilf Kebir. Within deep bays in this Eocene escarpment lie the oases of Kharga, Dakhla and Farafra, while that of Bahariya is situated in a depression surrounded by the higher plateau. The floor of the oases of Kharga and Dakhla consist mostly of dark-coloured sands and clays of the Upper Cretaceous formation. To the south of these oases lies the low plain of Nubian Sandstone, which presents a rolling surface covered with blackened flint pebbles. In some areas the Nubian Sandstone has been eroded by wind to form flattopped gebels. Farafra Oasis lies further to the west, and a plateau of Eocene limestone extends to the north and west of it as far as the Siwa Oasis, where the strata are mainly of Miocene age. The Western Desert is one of the most arid regions on Earth. Apart from the artesian springs to which the oases owe their existence, there is an almost total absence of water. There is no rain and little 81

drainage; the only wells are at the edges of the Mediterranean coast and the massifs of the Gebel 'Uweinat. This aridity is responsible for the formation of lines of sand dunes thirty to sixty metres high which stretch across the desert plateau in a south-southeasterly direction from Bahariya to Kharga. They are most developed to the west of Dakhla Oasis (Midant-Reynes 2000). The region is nearly barren of people today, but Palaeolithic sites are abundant in certain geomorphic settings, providing evidence of long but discontinuous occupation in the region over the past half million years. A common element to most of these settings was a readily available source of water, and the archaeological record is closely tied to ancient playas, springs and wadis (Mandel & Simmons 2001). Much of the archaeological research in the Western Desert has focused on large depressions and oases south and east of the Libyan Plateau, including Kharga Oasis, Dakhla Oasis, Farafra Oasis, Bir Sahara-Bir Tarfawi and Nabta Playa. Lakes within the large depressions were fed by rainfall and springs during late Quaternary pluvial periods, providing favourable environments for vegetation, game and people (Mandel & Simmons 2001). The presence of large depressions transformed into passes by artesian springs facilitated human migrations. From the southeast to the northwest, the oases of Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra, Bahariya and Siwa served as relay stations along a route which has still not become desertified. Practically all of these depressions are marked, like the Faiyum, by an escarpment to the north and a floor which descends gently southwards until it reaches the same level as the surrounding desert. These escarpments were created out of hard limestone, which was more resistant to erosion than the adjacent marls and schists (Midant-Reynes 2000). Siwa Oasis (29°12'N, 25°31'E) lies in the northwestern corner of the Western Desert, close to the Libyan border, and is the northernmost oasis in the Egyptian Sahara. It lies approximately 560 kilometres west of the Nile Valley and 274 kilometres south of the Mediterranean coast. There are several smaller oases nearby, including Garra, el-Areg, Bahrin and Sitra, situated in a depression in the Marmarica plateau. Sites in the Siwa region consist of scatters of Epipalaeolithic artefacts and fragments of ostrich eggshells associated with early Holocene deposits (Hassan 1999b; Hassan & Gross 1987). In a short note on his discoveries of Acheulian handaxes in the Sinai Peninsula, Seton-Karr noted that he had found similar examples near Siwa (Seton-Karr 1923). To the south of Siwa lies Sitra Oasis, where the oldest archaeological evidence comes from site 85/05 where several Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found on the surface (Cziesla 1993). Bahariya Oasis (28°21'N 28°51'E) is located about 400 kilometres south of the Mediterranean coast and 225 kilometres west of the Nile Valley. Through desert tracks the oasis is connected with Siwa Oasis, the Faiyum and Farafra Oasis in the Western Desert, and el-Minya and el-Mahasna in the Nile Valley. The oasis lies in a depression forty-two kilometres wide (east-west) and eighteen kilometres long (north-south), and the floor of the depression is about 100 to 175 metres below the surface of the desert plateau. To date the earliest evidence for human occupation at Bahariya Oasis are the Epipalaeolithic Khomanian sites which date to the early Holocene (Hassan 1999a). Farafra Oasis (27°03'N 27°58'E) is the smallest of the northern Egyptian oases, lying at the centre of a depression 10,000 square kilometres in area. The earliest evidence for human occupation dates to the Middle Palaeolithic (Giddy 2000a), and the area was more densely occupied during the Epipalaeolithic. The artefacts have affinities with the Khomanian artefacts found at Bahariya (Barich 1993). Kharga Oasis (25°26'N 30°33'E), situated about 200 kilometres west of the Nile, is the easternmost of the five major oases in the Western Desert. It is an elongated depression approximately 185 kilometres long and between twenty and eighty kilometres wide, lying with its principal axis in a north-south direction. To the east and north it is bounded by steep escarpments capped with Eocene limestone, and to the west by an irregular escarpment which lacks this 82

limestone cap. The oasis is open to the south and southwest, where the floor of the depression, some 300 to 400 metres below the top of the adjacent Libyan Plateau, rises gradually to meet the sandstone floor of the Sahara (Wiseman 1999). The earliest cultural unit found in the Oasis was described by Caton-Thompson as 'typically evolved Acheulian'. Although none of these sites can be dated directly, preliminary Uranium-series dates on associated tufas suggest an age of over 400,000 BP. Well-made handaxes (lanceolate and pear-shaped) are the dominant tool type, while other tools such as choppers and flakes are present in lower frequencies. Levallois elements are rare, and it appears that Caton-Thompson's 'Acheulio-Levalloisian' material, found only at Refuf Pass, is a natural admixture of Upper Acheulian and 'Lower Levalloisian' artefacts (Wiseman 1999). The presence of wadi tufas overlying Acheulian deposits, and the floral evidence, suggest that the climate during the late Acheulian was considerably wetter than today. Favoured site locations appear to have been near wadi courses in the vicinity of the Libyan Plateau, or adjacent to spring mounds on the depression floor. A period of hyperaridity which followed the late Acheulian wet phase was succeeded by multi-staged, Middle Palaeolithic wet periods, interrupted by drier intervals. In Caton-Thompson's sequence there are five Middle Palaeolithic taxonomic units at Kharga: from oldest to youngest these are 'Lower Levalloisian', 'Upper Levalloisian', 'LevalloisoKhargan', 'Khargan' and 'Aterian'. More recent evidence, however, suggests that the Khargan postdates the Aterian (Wiseman 1999). Only two of the ten 'Levalloisian' sites reported by CatonThompson are found in spring mound deposits on the floor of the depression. The remaining eight are situated in scarp areas, and thirty-five additional sites were reported by the Western Desert Expedition, mostly from the Libyan Plateau. In view of the fact that none of Caton-Thompson's 'Levalloiso-Khargan' assemblages is in a secure context, the integrity of this cultural unit is considered doubtful. The validity of the 'Khargan' itself has also been questioned by some, partly because the industry as a whole is so morphologically variable that it defies rigid typological classification, and partly because of the random, ad hoc appearance of much of the retouch, which could be the result of natural agencies. Others, however, believe the 'Khargan' to be a valid archaeological designation. The restricted distribution of Khargan material, both at Kharga and in the Western Desert as a whole, appears to reflect the increasingly arid conditions which followed the Aterian wet phase. At Kharga, all known sites are in the scarp deposits of the Bulaq Pass (Wiseman 1999). According to the Western Desert Expedition, Middle Palaeolithic settlement at Kharga was orientated to the exploitation of a wide variety of habitats. Of the forty-two Middle Palaeolithic sites identified, however, seventy-two percent are associated with deposits of ephemeral lakes (playas), twenty-six percent occur along wadi courses, and two percent are near spring mounds (Wiseman 1999). The Egyptian Palaeolithic collections housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum includes a number of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Kharga Oasis (see Chapters 6 and 7). Caton-Thompson used the term 'Epi-Levalloisian' to denote all those regional, Levallois-related industries which are believed to fall 'anachronistically' within the time-span of the Upper Palaeolithic. This term, however, seems to be a theoretical construct of Caton-Thompson's to bridge the gap between these apparently late, Levallois-derived industries and the succeeding microlithic assemblages. To date there is no known lithic sequence from the Western Desert which dates to the 40,000-20,000 BP period. Climatic conditions improved around 10,000 BP, and with the onset of the Holocene wet period there is evidence of increased human habitation in the area and renewed artesian spring discharge and playa formation. Archaeological assemblages of the early Holocene are characterised by blade and bladelet technologies, and an emphasis on microlithic tool production. Caton-Thompson classified such material as 'Bedouin Microlithic', found at eight localities in Kharga, two of which are on the depression floor and six at silt pans on top of the eastern escarpment. An additional twenty-one 'Terminal Palaeolithic' (Epipalaeolithic) findspots have been reported by the Western Desert Expedition (Wiseman 1999). 83

Dakhla Oasis (25°42'N 28°54'E), which is located in the Western Desert halfway between the Nile Valley and the Libyan border at roughly the latitude of Thebes, is a depression seventy kilometres long (east-west) by twenty kilometres wide. The oasis is bounded to the north by a 300 metre high plateau, and is divisible into three zones north to south. The piedmont zone slopes southward from the base of the plateau to the central lowland; further south the third zone, with fossil spring terraces and spring mounds, old playas and sandstone ridging, slopes upward to the desert plain beyond. The Pleistocene geomorphological sequence includes erosional episodes which left three gravel-bearing pediment remnants in the piedmont zone labelled, from oldest to youngest, P-I, P-II and P-III. A sequence of lacustrine laminated sediments falls between P-II and P-III in time, while several episodes of artesian spring activity within and just south of the central lowlands have left behind extensive sheets of water-deposited sediments, as well as spring mounds at points where the water surfaced (McDonald 1999). The Palaeolithic artefacts in Dakhla Oasis are largely derived from surface scatters, and several Pleistocene cultural units have been identified from the analysis of the stone tools. These can be classified as either Lower Palaeolithic, traditionally characterised by Acheulian handaxes, or Middle Palaeolithic, characterised by Levallois cores and flakes. The earliest material identified so far at Dakhla consists of a few distinctive handaxes found on P-II gravel surfaces and the flanks of a spring mound. The handaxes are large, usually of quartzite rather than flint, and are worked round their entire circumference. Typologically they are 'Upper Acheulian', and might be 400,000 years old (McDonald 1999). The next well-defined unit is called the 'Balat unit'. The handaxes are mostly made of chert, and they are small (mean circa 100 mm) with thick unworked butts and trimming confined to the tip and one or both side edges; there is little evidence for the use of the Levallois technique. Balat unit artefacts are commonly found on the pediment surfaces and elsewhere in the oasis, and from river gravels of probable P-II age. The Balat is thought to be a transitional Lower/Middle Palaeolithic industry, older than 100,000 years old (McDonald 1999). Several units have been defined for the Middle Palaeolithic, distinguishable in part by the size of the artefacts and by site locations within the oasis. As with the Lower Palaeolithic, the evidence is largely from surface scatters. There are two specialised groupings of stone tools: the 'Aterian' or 'Dakhla unit', and the 'Khargan'. The 'Aterian' or 'Dakhla unit' is divisible into at least two variants, based in part on artefact size. The larger variant, featuring tools up to 150 mm long, has been found on the piedmont associated with post P-II sediments and P-III gravels, and on an occupation site in the desert, well south of the oasis. The smaller variant, with flakes ranging up to 110 mm, occurs as knapping sites on the P-II gravels and as scatters in central and southern Dakhla Oasis. It resembles the Aterian of Kharga Oasis, and may be less than 50,000 years old. A still smaller Middle Palaeolithic unit which is found in Dakhla on younger surfaces and spring deposits may be the equivalent of Caton-Thompson's 'Khargan'. The area appears to have been abandoned during the hyperarid period 50,000-12,000 BP, after which the area was reoccupied by highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers who left sparse clusters of lithics scattered across the Oasis and on top of the northern plateau. 'Masara' is the local name for this Epipalaeolithic cultural unit (McDonald 1999). The Dungul area, in the southern part of the Western Desert, can be subdivided into two major physiographic provinces: a butte and pediment wasteland (the Nubian Plain), which contains numerous Nubian Sandstone inselbergs capped occasionally by Eocene limestone; and a plateau (Sinn el-Kedab) capped with Eocene limestone elevated from 100 to 200 metres above the Nubian Sandstone pediments and bordered by a nearly vertical escarpment. Several oases along the plateau escarpment are the result of exposure, by wind erosion, of the Eocene chalk aquifer underlying the plateau. Oases of this type include Dungul, Kurkur and Nakhila. Evidence of the past environment at Dungul consists of clay sediments of fossil springs, tufa deposits, wadi gravels, wadi deposits, playa alluvial deposits and pedimented surfaces graded to former playa levels (Hester & Hobler 1969). 84

Dungul Oasis (23°26'N 31°37'E) was probably formed during the Acheulian period. During the Middle Palaeolithic there was a series of ponds within the basin which left behind clay deposits alternating with water-laid gravels and unconformities marking periods of erosion. At some time between the Middle Palaeolithic and the Khargan occupations, escarpment retreat breached the basin and Dungul Wadi was formed. The subsequent Neolithic wet period was marked by increased flow from springs that are now dry. The nature of the sediments suggests that the climate during the past 100,000 years has been primarily dry, though wet periods, marked by pond and tufaceous spring deposits associated with human occupation debris, have occurred several times during this timespan (Hester & Hobler 1969). The archaeological survey demonstrated that there has been a close relationship between areas possessing surface water today and human habitation in the past. However, the Dungul region appears to have been climatically marginal and sensitive to climate change: it was one of the first areas in the desert to reflect increasing aridity, and one of the last to receive increased moisture from encroaching climatic zones. Cultural materials associated with the wetter periods are Middle Palaeolithic, Khargan and Aterian (Hester & Hobler 1969). An Acheulian site found on top of Gebel Umm Shagir and three other findspots of this age suggest that population was sparse during the Lower Palaeolithic. Site 8715, which lies on the northwest slope of Gebel Umm Shagir, contained quarry pits from which coarse-grained quartzitic sandstone was mined and then knapped to make flakes, core tools and handaxes. Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found in situ in spring deposits underyling Tufa 3, and strewn over older surfaces. The Middle Palaeolithic sites recorded at Dungul are identical in site situation to those found along the Kharga escarpment by Caton-Thompson (1952). The sites consist of artefacts incorporated in gravels within depressions at the edge of the Sinn el-Kedab plateau, and represent the campsite debris of people living near small ponds or springs in these depressions and hunting on the plateau. Site situations less frequently utilised were pedimented surfaces adjacent to the escarpment and isolated butte tops (Hester & Hobler 1969). The Khargan implements are littered over the Tufa 2 and 3 surfaces, and the sites indicate that this period featured one of the population peaks of the prehistoric occupation of the Dungul region. The sites are numerous and are restricted primarily to the plateau and to its sources of water. Four sites with Khargan stone tools have associated stone circles, where tools and flakes were found both in and around the circles, and none of the sites featured mixed cultural debris. For example, Site 8817 consists of a stone circle eleven metres in diameter made of tufa slabs set vertically in the ground; the wall is three or four slabs thick in places. An area of one hundred metres in diameter around the circle contained scattered concentrations of Khargan type (Hester & Hobler 1969). Finally, Aterian artefacts were found strewn over the chalk plateau. Aterian sites are rare, but they occur in two situations: on the tops of pedimented surfaces adjacent to the escarpment, and on terrace surfaces within the Dungul depression. As the sites are neither common nor large, it appears that the population was much smaller than during the Khargan period (Hester & Hobler 1969). There is one Middle Palaeolithic artefact from Dungul Oasis in the Evans-Pritchard Collection (see Chapter 8). Palaeolithic sites at Kurkur Oasis (23°54'N 32°19'E) are much rarer. Hester & Hobler (1969) found two Acheulian, two Middle Palaeolithic, one Upper Palaeolithic, six Khargan and two 'Diminutive Khargan' findspots, while Aterian sites were absent. Only one site, Site 49, contained artefacts in situ. These consisted of two Acheulian handaxes made of siliceous limestone which were found within a gravel lens in the Tufa IIIa formation (Hester & Hobler 1969). Acheulian sites are also known from the Gilf Kebir Plateau (23°27'N 26°00'E) and Great Sand Sea, in the southwest of the Western Desert. Site 1000 is an extensive Late Acheulian scatter along the base of the Gilf Kebir Plateau, which lies in the uppermost stratum of a gravelly alluvial fan (Bagnold 1939; Wendorf & Schild 1980). In the Great Sand Sea region, Acheulian artefacts occur as surface lag and extend under sandy muds and derived sands reflecting playa conditions. Acheulian artefacts are also associated with the contact between the surface of a dune ridge and 85

alluvium, or older playa deposits transitional to the alluvium (Hill 2001; Roe et al. 1982). Lower Palaeolithic artefacts have also been found in the Gebel 'Uweinat region (de Heinzelin et al. 1969; Pond et al. 1938). The Bir Sahara-Bir Tarfawi area (22°52'N 28°37'E - 22°55'N 28°53'E) is situated within the Darb el Arba'in Desert, a term applied to distinguish the most hyperarid region of the Sahara. At Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara East the Acheulian occupation seems to be associated with emergent groundwater pools and the margins of perennial lakes, far removed from any lithic resources (Hill 2001). Geochronometric dating has provided age estimates for deposits containing or related to the Acheulian that are at least 350,000 years old, and may be in the range of 600,000-460,000 BP (Wendorf et al. 1994). In the Bir Tarfawi basin there is a sequence of five lacustrine Middle Palaeolithic events separated by periods of hyperaridity and deflation, while in the Bir Sahara basin a sequence of four Middle Palaeolithic lake episodes, separated, preceded and followed by deflations, has been established (Schild et al. 1992). Sedimentary remnants containing or associated with Middle Palaeolithic artefacts range from more than 350,000 BP to less than 50,000 BP, though the more likely estimates range from slightly older than 200,000 BP to around 70,000 BP (Close 1993; Miller et al. 1991; Schild & Wendorf 1975, 1981; Wendorf et al. 1987a, 1987b, 1990, 1993a, 1993b, 1994). Between Bir Tarfawi and the Nile Valley, Late Acheulian handaxes are found on the pediments in the Nabta area, in lag position near Bargat el Shab, on the surface of a red soil at the top of sands near Bir Kiseiba, and within basal sands along the southeastern bank of the Kiseiba Scarp (Wendorf et al. 1984). An important set of sites in geologic context has been documented near Kiseiba, south of Two Hills playa (Haynes et al. 1997, 2001). One of these, Kiseiba Acheulian site no. 1 (KAS-1), yielded Acheulian handaxes, cleavers and other artefacts that do not appear to have been significantly redistributed by fluvial action (Hill 2001). The sandy sediments containing these Acheulian artefacts have an OSL date of >500,000 BP (Haynes et al. 2001). Late Acheulian artefacts have also been reported on top of gravels at Bir Dibis southwest of Bir Kiseiba (Wendorf & Schild 1980). South of Bir Tarfawi, Middle and Upper Acheulian artefacts were discovered near and in Wadi Arid, south of Wadi Arid, and around Bir Safsaf. Some of these sites are in primary context, such as the Middle Acheulian site 84f22-2 (E-85-13 in Wendorf et al. [1987b]), while others are in lag position. Carbonate adhering to flakes dated by Uranium-series to 212,000 BP provides a minimum age for the Acheulian site 84f21-7 Area A (McHugh et al. 1998a, 1988b). At site 84f21-7 Area Z (E-85-14 in Wendorf et al. [1987b]) Middle Acheulian artefacts were found embedded in slopewash, which might indicate that they had been transported to some degree. Acheulian artefacts were also found on top of the truncated calcified pebble surface and partially embedded in gravels, and crude handaxes were embedded in the calcified pebble gravel at Wadi Arid (McHugh et al. 1998a, 1988b), while site E-85015 in the Wadi Arid region contains an early Upper Acheulian assemblage (Wendorf et al. 1987a, 1987b). The Bir Safsaf area yielded several Acheulian sites on sandsheets or gravel covered hills (McHugh et al. 1988a, 1988b), while in the Dagdag basin, southeast of Bir Safsaf, Acheulian artefacts occur within the top of gravels and sands containing calcareous concretions and plates (Wendorf et al. 1987b). At site E-85-2 there are two taxonomic components; most of the abraded artefacts are Middle Acheulian, while less weathered and fresh artefacts are Upper or Final Acheulian. On the northern edge of the Dagdag basin slope-wash deposits contain Late or Final Acheulian artefacts (Wendorf et al. 1987b). Southwest of Dungul, just north of the border with Sudan, lies a series of oases: Bir Nakhlai (22°29'N 30°19'E), Bir Taklis, El Sheb and an unnamed oasis twenty kilometres east of El Sheb. These oases differ from Dungul and Kurkur, in that they receive their water from the Nubian Sandstone. Geological reconnaissance suggested that the oases occur at points where an old system 86

of major east-west faults is broken by short north-south faults, and these points of structural weakness permit water to rise to the surface through capillary action. The oases are thought not to have been in existence prior to about 7000 years ago. The only Palaeolithic remains found were two knapping sites on the flanks of the Nubian Sandstone gebels adjacent to Bir Sheb. These sites are of Middle Palaeolithic age and must antedate the formation of the modern oasis. Middle Palaeolithic and Khargan artefacts have also been found on benches of the escarpment of the limestone plateau twenty-five kilometres north of Bir Nakhlai (Hester & Hobler 1969). The oases of Bir Nakhlai, Bir Taklis and El Sheb are currently being drowned by sand, and evidence of the short life of some oases suggests that fossil oases may be present in areas which today lack surface water. Consequently, research which focuses on areas where water is present today may be missing important areas of Palaeolithic settlement. However, the main problem with trying to reconstruct Palaeolithic occupation of the Western Desert is the high rate of erosion and deflation which limits the number of local depositional situations in which artefacts are found in situ. In this arid region, the wind over time has removed all but the most consolidated of deposits, and often all that remains are surface scatters of stone tools which have been redistributed or mixed with later material. In summary, the earliest recognised occupation of the Western Desert is the Acheulian. Sites are normally found in the best watered regions, such as the Gilf Kebir, Kharga floor, Kharga scarp and almost certainly at Gebel 'Uweinat, and tend to be associated with spring mounds. The oases in the butte and pediment province south of the limestone plateau contain a small number of Acheulian knapping sites. Other settlement situations are also known from the Bir Sahara, Bir Tarfawi and Kharga areas; these include sand plains, lake shores and wadi courses (Mandel & Simmons 2001). The Middle Palaeolithic in the Western Desert dates from about 250,000 BP to before 38,000 BP. Middle Palaeolithic sites are concentrated along the edge of the plateau, and also occur in mound springs at Kharga and on Nubian Sandstone buttes near Bir Sheb. Although distributional data are incomplete, Middle Palaeolithic sites appear to be more closely associated with the escarpment than were the Acheulian sites. Khargan sites are largely restricted to the plateau and adjacent pedimented surfaces, and sites may also occur at Gebel 'Uweinat. Although restricted in geographic extent, the sites are more widespread in the Dungul and Kurkur regions than are sites of the preceding periods. There Khargan sites occur in high numbers, and would appear to represent a larger population. The distribution of Khargan sites in adjacent regions is extremely limited, and they have only been reported from Kharga Oasis and Nag' Hammadi in the Nile Valley. Geologic evidence suggests that this period was drier than the preceding interval, in which case the wider distribution of Khargan sites in the Kurkur and Dungul areas could imply cultural rather than climatic reasons for this dispersal. Finally, Aterian sites are rare and are restricted to the better watered areas on the escarpment and the floor of the Kharga depression. The poor representation at Dungul and the absence of Aterian sites at Kurkur suggests that Dungul may lie on the eastern border of the Aterian occupation of the Libyan desert (Hester & Hobler 1969). In the Western Desert a period of progressive hyperaridity is believed to have begun around 60,000 years ago, and to have lasted until the onset of the Holocene wet period about 11,000 years ago. Many scholars believe that this period of progressive climatic stress resulted in an occupational hiatus within the Western Desert at this time. For example, Close and Wendorf state that After [at least 50,000 years ago], there was nothing and no one in the desert, except wind, sand and stars ... until the Early Holocene ... (Close & Wendorf 1992: 63).

Other scholars, however, such as Wiseman (2001), are more reluctant to accept this idea of total abandonment, on the grounds that there is an increasing body of evidence for a Late Pleistocene presence in other arid areas such as the Sinai Peninsula. Unfortunately, any attempt to resolve this 87

question is hampered by the almost total lack of data on which to base any palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. After this apparent hiatus, Epipalaeolithic sites occur in the Western Desert. The earliest Epipalaeolithic sites appear to be contemporaneous with the beginning of Holocene playa formation about 9000 years ago or slightly earlier. The lithic assemblages are distinct, with an emphasis on microlithic tool production. In comparison with earlier human occupations, the Epipalaeolithic represents a radical departure in settlement patterns. Only two basic geomorphic associations are known: sites associated with internally drained basins or playas, and sites around springs. Of particular interest is the fact that recorded Epipalaeolithic sites associated with playas occur in two slightly different settings: on sand dunes or sand sheets along the shores of playas, or closer to the centre of the playas on lacustrine silts. The sites located along the shorelines are characterised by the presence of several artefact concentrations, which may either represent activity foci of single large occupations, or else reoccupations of favoured locales by smaller groups. In addition to the chipped stone assemblages, grinding implements also occur; this is the first time that groundstone occurs in the Western Desert. The sites situated on the floors of playas are either single-unit or multiunit occupations (Mandel & Simmons 2001).

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6 Technological and Typological Glossary This glossary provides a definition of the terms used in Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and the Appendix, as well as definitions of the tool types referred to in Chapter 4 which are characteristic of the Egyptian Palaeolithic. Backed blade: a blade that has continuous, abrupt retouch along one edge which is consequently blunt. Bifacial foliate: a thin, leaf-shaped artefact that has been retouched on both faces. Bifacially retouched piece: any non-leaf-shaped artefact that has been retouched on both faces. Blade: a blank with parallel or semi-parallel edges, and a length at least twice its width, excluding those with the morphological characteristics of an end product of the Levallois reduction strategy. Classic Levallois core: in the classic Levallois method, Levallois flakes and blades were produced using the opposed, parallel or centripetal disposition of preparatory flake scars. The core is characterised by two opposed convex surfaces, one thicker than the other. One convex surface serves for the preparation of striking platforms, the other as a surface from which predetermined flakes are struck. At least two striking platform areas occur on the periphery of the dividing plane between the two core surfaces, one of which is the striking platform for the preferential flake (Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1 Classic Levallois core (after Van Peer 1991a)

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Figure 6.2 Nubian Levallois cores (after Van Peer 1991a)

90

Core rejuvenation flake: a flake struck from a core to remove the striking platform in order to prepare a new one. The flake is thick and polygonal, and bears the scars left by previous flake or blade removals from the core. Crested blade: a blade struck during the preparation of a core, characterised by a triangular crosssection and alternate flake scars on each side which originate from the sinuous central ridge rather than from the edges of the blade. Discoidal core: a core with two opposed convex surfaces, of roughly the same thickness. The two surfaces, separated by the dividing plane which constitutes a single continuous striking platform, are exploited in an alternating sequence. The blanks, evidenced on the cores by flake scars with deep negative bulbs, are struck in planes that are tangential to the dividing plane. Distal fragment: a fragment of a broken flake or blade that retains its tip but not its platform. Dual platform core: a core with two striking platforms at opposite ends. Flake: a blank of which the length is less than twice the width, excluding those with the morphological characteristics of an end product of the Levallois reduction strategy. Flake core: a thick flake with flake scars on the ventral surface. Halfan Levallois core: in the Halfan Levallois method a series of parallel or subparallel microblades were struck from a platform opposed to the one from which the future Levallois flake would be struck. A number of flakes were then removed from this second platform, stripping the cortex left on the upper core surface. Occasionally a few flakes were also struck from the lateral edges of the core. The striking platform was then facetted by fine retouch, and a short and wide flake was struck, removing most flake scars from the upper surface. This flake did not normally encroach on the microblade scars on the far half of the upper core surface. The striking platform was then facetted again by retouch, and the core was then fully prepared. The next flake, if successful, would have the form of the Halfa flake: typically square tipped, and more rarely pointed, with a facetted platform and a pronounced bulb of percussion. The Halfa core (Figure 6.2) would then show a major flake scar at one end and a series of partial microblade scars at the other. Handaxe preform: a handaxe that has been shaped bifacially, but has been left unfinished. Hinge termination: a rounded termination caused when the force of impact used to remove the flake or blade turns or rolls away. Lateral fragment: a fragment of a flake or blade which retains both its platform and its tip, but is missing one of its lateral edges. Lateralised Levallois flake: Levallois flakes with one edge, almost always the right one, retouched in the proximal area of the dorsal face; rarely the left edge or both edges are retouched. The retouch, which is mostly fine and semi-abrupt to abrupt, characteristically starts at the interface between the platform and the flake edge. Levallois flake/blade: a flake or blade produced using the Levallois reduction strategy, evidenced by an opposed, parallel or centripetal disposition of preparatory flake scars on the dorsal surface. The platform is usually facetted. Mesial fragment: a fragment of a broken flake or blade that retains neither its platform nor its tip. 91

Multi platform core: a core with more than two striking platforms. Nazlet Khater point: a point made on a Levallois, often Nubian, blank with invasive ventral retouch on its distal/medial part. Sometimes the bulb of percussion area is truncated by inverse retouch. Nubian scraper: thick ovaloid, more of less elongated, scraper with retouch on one or both sides, and/or at the distal end. The retouch is scalar and invasive. Nubian type-1 Levallois core: the Nubian type-1 method enables the production of points or pointed flakes by means of a distal ridge created from the platform opposed to the one from which the future Levallois flake would be struck. The distal ridge, which lies approximately along the axis of the core, is created by striking two elongated flakes or blades. A series of smaller flakes are then removed from the sides of the other end of the core, and a facetted striking platform is prepared for the removal of the Levallois point (Figure 6.2). Nubian type-2 Levallois core: the Nubian type-2 method enables the production of points or pointed flakes by means of a central ridge on a triangular core formed by the removal of a series of transversal scars. The resulting core is often of triangular or sub-triangular shape, and the distal end presents a protruding point (Figure 6.2). Orthogonal core: a core with two striking platforms placed at approximately 90° to one another. Ouchtata retouch: minute flake scars forming semi-abrupt or slightly abrupt backing retouch on bladelets. Ovate handaxe: a handaxe of which the maximum breadth is central to its length. Platform: a term which refers to the part of the core which is struck in order to create a flake or blade. In the course of striking, part of this platform becomes detached from the core, along with the flake or blade. The platform on the flake or blade bears witness to the degree of preparation of the platform on the core, ranging from unprepared (cortex, flat, and dihedral platforms) to prepared (facetted platforms). Plunging termination: a termination which incorporates part of the opposite end of the core, and which is consequently broad, thick and curved at its distal end. Pointed handaxe: a handaxe of which the maximum breadth falls near the butt. Precore: nodules from which only a few flakes have been struck, thus allowing the original shape and volume to be reconstructed. Primary flake or blade: a flake or blade with an entirely cortical dorsal surface. Proximal fragment: a fragment of a broken flake or blade that retains its platform but not its tip. Secondary flake or blade: a flake or blade with some dorsal cortex. Single platform core: a core with one striking platform. Step termination: a right-angle termination which occurs when the flake or blade breaks during removal. 92

Tanged point: a point which has been retouched at the proximal end to create a tang. Tertiary flake or blade: a flake or blade without any dorsal cortex. Truncated-facetted piece: a thick flake of which the bulb has been removed by a ventral truncation.

93

Part II

7 Catalogue of the Seligman Collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic Artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum The Seligman Collection of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts comprises 785 objects: 596 from the Nile Valley in Upper Egypt, fourteen from the Nile Valley in Middle Egypt, 134 from the Eastern Desert, three from the Western Desert, and thirty-eight for which the provenance is unknown. Virtually all the artefacts from the Nile Valley were collected by Seligman himself, as described in his diary (see Chapter 2), while those from the Western Desert were bought at an auction (see Figure 3.2). The artefacts from the Eastern Desert were collected by George Murray, a surveyor and explorer who worked for the Egyptian Survey Department. The artefacts which Seligman collected in the Nile Valley are particularly interesting because he collected everything: tools, cores, waste flakes and even small fragments. The presence of a few refitting flakes is further testament to this. Seligman's collections from Abydos and Thebes are therefore neither selective nor biased, in stark contrast with those of other collectors, and in particular those wanting to find representative artefact types to send to museums and other institutions abroad, who tended to collect only tools and cores. He was also careful to keep separate the artefacts which he found in different localities, and to note their provenance. Therefore, even though Seligman's collections from Abydos and Thebes come from undateable surface contexts and, like all surface collections they doubtless represent palimpsests of different phases of occupation, they are still informative from an archaeological point of view, and not just a historical one. In this catalogue the sites are grouped according to the three main geographical regions (the Nile Valley, the Eastern Desert and the Western Desert) and the location of each site is shown in Figure 7.1. The sites within each region are arranged in alphabetical order, with the exception of Abydos and Thebes, since some of the groups of artefacts contain objects from both of these sites (listed here under Abydos/Thebes). The sites in the Nile Valley are therefore ordered Abydos, Thebes and Abydos/Thebes, after which alphabetical order is resumed. General information is given for each site concerning its location and, if applicable, cross-reference is made with the geographical and archaeological context provided in Chapter 5. The Seligman Collection of Palaeolithic artefacts arrived at the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1940 when Tom Penniman was Curator. Penniman used a different system for accessioning artefacts to that of his predecessors and successors, by indicating the month in which each collection was acquired. Due to the quantity of material that had to be accessioned in the Seligman Collection, which comprised not just archaeological artefacts but ethnographic ones as well, numbers were initially given to groups of material, rather than to individual artefacts; individual artefact numbers have now been assigned. Each artefact is therefore numbered showing the year in which the collection was acquired, the month of the collection, the number of the group of artefacts, and the number of the artefact within that group. Therefore, as an example, '1940.12.728.1' indicates that it was accessioned in 1940, in December, that it is the 728th group in the collection, and that it is the 1st artefact in that group. Each artefact is individually described, giving the artefact identification followed by a description of any salient features, including its condition if it is other than fresh. The measurements given are 95

Figure 7.1 Sites referred to in Chapter 7

maximum length parallel to the axis of percussion, maximum width perpendicular to the axis of percussion, and maximum thickness. The illustrations show the artefacts at a scale of 1:1.

96

The Nile Valley Abydos (26°11'N 31°55'E) For most of the artefacts which Seligman collected at Abydos, he made a note of the terrace that they were found on. However, since he found no correlation between the age of the artefact and the height of the terrace, it was decided to leave the artefacts in the way that Seligman had grouped them, rather than divide them among the different terraces. Each group or 'assemblage' therefore consists of artefacts collected from different terraces. As discussed in Chapter 5, the Abydos area has yielded numerous Lower, Middle and Upper/Late Palaeolithic assemblages. The Middle Palaeolithic assemblages belong to either the Nubian Complex (characterised by Nubian Levallois techniques alongside the classic Levallois technique, and the presence of characteristic tool types such as truncated-facetted pieces) or the Local Complex (characterised by an absence of Nubian Levallois techniques and Nubian Complex tools, and the presence of single platform, dual platform and classic Levallois cores). Most of the 'assemblages' which Seligman found at Abydos seem to represent a mixture of the two Complexes. The diagnostic Upper Palaeolithic elements in the 'assemblages' are crested blades and dual platform blade cores, characteristic of the Shuwikhatian. There are no Late Palaeolithic or Epipalaeolithic artefacts. (1) Fifty-one artefacts marked 'A alpha', 'Amo', 'Am alpha', 'Ao' and 'A beta alpha' in ink, denoting the different terraces on which they were found. Of note are the Nubian type-2 core and the two truncated-facetted pieces. 1940.12.728.1

Classic Levallois core marked ' A alpha'. 67x46x21 mm.

1940.12.728.2

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 75x55x12 mm.

1940.12.728.3

Classic Levallois core marked 'Amo'. 83x63x29 mm (Figure 7.2).

1940.12.728.4

Pointed handaxe marked 'A alpha'. 115x66x32 mm.

1940.12.728.5

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Amo'. 80x34x10 mm.

1940.12.728.6

Multi platform core marked 'A alpha'. 88x60x34 mm.

1940.12.728.7

Classic Levallois core marked 'A alpha'. 89x84x21 mm.

1940.12.728.8

Dual platform core marked 'A alpha'. 91x50x18 mm.

1940.12.728.9

Retouched flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Amo'. 80x55x15 mm.

1940.12.728.10

Dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 109x80x35 mm.

1940.12.728.11

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Am alpha'. 73x24x17 mm.

1940.12.728.12

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Am alpha'. 73x20x8 mm.

1940.12.728.13

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Am alpha'. 58x32x13 mm.

97

Figure 7.2 Seligman Collection: cores from Abydos 98

1940.12.728.14

Retouched tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 41x28x8 mm.

1940.12.728.15

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 50x50x8 mm.

1940.12.728.16

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 73x44x9 mm.

1940.12.728.17

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 53x39x13 mm.

1940.12.728.18

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, broken at distal end, marked 'Am alpha'. 54x27x11 mm.

1940.12.728.19

Secondary flake with a cortex platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 95x49x9 mm.

1940.12.728.20

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Am alpha'. 50x39x13 mm.

1940.12.728.21

Retouched flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Am alpha'. 40x40x11 mm.

1940.12.728.22

Secondary blade with a facetted platform and plunging termination struck from a dual platform core. The distal end of the blade bears evidence of the opposite platform of the core, marked 'A alpha'. 87x26x8 mm.

1940.12.728.23

Distal fragment of a secondary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 124x44x15 mm.

1940.12.728.24

Orthogonal core, marked 'Am alpha'. 56x50x23 mm.

1940.12.728.25

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Ao'. 50x44x19 mm.

1940.12.728.26

Tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 88x29x11 mm.

1940.12.728.27

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 43x45x14 mm.

1940.12.728.28

Orthogonal core, marked 'Ao'. 60x55x38 mm.

1940.12.728.29

Lateral fragment of a flake, marked 'A alpha'. 32x15x6 mm.

1940.12.728.30

Secondary flake with a cortex platform, marked 'A alpha'. 41x44x15 mm.

1940.12.728.31

Levallois flake with a facetted platform and plunging termination, marked 'A alpha'. 86x49x10 mm.

1940.12.728.32

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 46x32x11 mm.

1940.12.728.33

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 37x32x10 mm.

1940.12.728.34

Retouched secondary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'A alpha'. 87x37x17 mm.

1940.12.728.35

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, weathered, marked 'A alpha, picked up by side of weathered pseudo Solutrean piece'. 65x33x10 mm.

99

1940.12.728.36

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 61x27x16 mm.

1940.12.728.37

Unworked flint nodule, marked 'A alpha'. 47x35x14 mm.

1940.12.728.38

Broken retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 53x34x9 mm.

1940.12.728.39

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'A alpha'. 50x37x10 mm.

1940.12.728.40

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary blade struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 84x37x10 mm.

1940.12.728.41

Secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 79x46x17 mm.

1940.12.728.42

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 121x47x19 mm.

1940.12.728.43

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A beta alpha'. 86x57x17 mm.

1940.12.728.44

Distal fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'Amo'. 32x40x7 mm.

1940.12.728.45

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'Amo'. 82x40x12 mm.

1940.12.728.46

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Amo'. 91x46x16 mm.

1940.12.728.47

Secondary blade with a cortex platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Amo'. 75x28x12 mm.

1940.12.728.48

Nubian type-2 Levallois core, marked 'Amo'. 93x62x23 mm (Figure 7.2).

1940.12.728.50

Bifacially retouched piece, weathered, marked 'A alpha lying close to Mousterian flake'. 107x31x20 mm.

1940.12.728.51

Large retouched secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 77x78x40 mm.

(2) 119 artefacts marked 'A alpha theta I Abydos hut circle' in ink. This is Abydos hut circle no. 1 which Seligman explored on 14th January 1914 (see Chapter 2). The presence of refits, cores, core rejuvenation flakes and abundant waste flakes indicates that this was a knapping site. 1940.12.729.1

Flake core. 72x41x23 mm.

1940.12.729.2

Orthogonal core. 80x51x22 mm.

1940.12.729.3

Multi platform core. 48x48x14 mm.

1940.12.729.4

Discoidal core. 45x51x26 mm.

1940.12.729.5

Discoidal core. 59x62x27 mm.

1940.12.729.6

Discoidal core. 55x60x22 mm.

1940.12.729.7

Multi platform core. 43x49x25 mm.

100

1940.12.729.8

Dual platform core. 54x52x35 mm.

1940.12.729.9

Classic Levallois core. 104x86x54 mm.

1940.12.729.10

Dual platform core. 54x55x18 mm.

1940.12.729.11

Dual platform core. 64x44x32 mm.

1940.12.729.12

Orthogonal core. 77x53x32 mm.

1940.12.729.13

Broken core. 59x45x34 mm.

1940.12.729.14

Secondary flake with a flat platform and hinge termination. 36x45x11 mm.

1940.12.729.15

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 39x28x6 mm.

1940.12.729.16

Secondary flake with a flat platform and hinge termination. 32x22x6 mm.

1940.12.729.17

Secondary flake with a flat platform and hinge termination. 41x26x12 mm.

1940.12.729.18

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 61x27x13 mm.

1940.12.729.19

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 21x18x4 mm.

1940.12.729.20

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform and hinge termination. 14x30x6 mm.

1940.12.729.21

Secondary flake with a cortex platform. 40x63x15 mm.

1940.12.729.22

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 46x32x11 mm.

1940.12.729.23

Primary flake with a facetted platform. 39x27x8 mm.

1940.12.729.24

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 40x47x11 mm.

1940.12.729.25

Primary flake with a flat platform. 44x35x6 mm.

1940.12.729.26

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform. 44x37x9 mm.

1940.12.729.27

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 41x30x8 mm.

1940.12.729.28

Secondary flake with a cortex platform. 39x33x10 mm.

1940.12.729.29

Primary flake with a flat platform. 50x41x11 mm.

1940.12.729.30

Secondary flake with a facetted platform. 48x26x10 mm.

1940.12.729.31

Secondary flake with a cortex platform struck from a single platform core. 71x41x15 mm.

1940.12.729.32

Distal fragment of a secondary flake. 53x34x10 mm.

1940.12.729.33

Secondary flake with a cortex platform. 57x40x12 mm.

1940.12.729.34

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform struck from a dual platform core. 37x32x9 mm.

1940.12.729.35

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 52x29x12 mm.

1940.12.729.36

Distal fragment of a secondary flake. 24x38x10 mm.

101

1940.12.729.37

Distal fragment of a secondary flake. 35x37x7 mm.

1940.12.729.38

Secondary flake with a cortex platform. 41x48x7 mm.

1940.12.729.39

Secondary flake with a facetted platform. 29x41x8 mm.

1940.12.729.40

Mesial fragment of a blade struck from a dual platform core. 43x23x8 mm.

1940.12.729.41

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 28x43x9 mm.

1940.12.729.42

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 37x21x5 mm.

1940.12.729.43

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform. 26x22x6 mm.

1940.12.729.44

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 39x27x11 mm.

1940.12.729.45

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 21x33x8 mm.

1940.12.729.46

Distal fragment. 26x20x5 mm.

1940.12.729.47

Tertiary flake with a flat platform and a hinge termination. 27x36x13 mm.

1940.12.729.48

Distal fragment. 31x40x14 mm.

1940.12.729.49

Mesial fragment. 40x22x6 mm.

1940.12.729.50

Secondary flake with a cortex platform. 37x18x6 mm.

1940.12.729.51

Secondary blade with a flat platform. 47x17x4 mm.

1940.12.729.52

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 30x16x5 mm.

1940.12.729.53

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform. 32x22x6 mm.

1940.12.729.54

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform and a hinge termination. 31x24x7 mm.

1940.12.729.55

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 35x19x6 mm.

1940.12.729.56

Lateral fragment with a flat platform. 43x26x5 mm.

1940.12.729.57

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 34x15x9 mm.

1940.12.729.58

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform. 19x18x3 mm.

1940.12.729.59

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a multi platform core. 36x24x7 mm.

1940.12.729.60

Proximal fragment with a cortex platform. 23x33x8 mm.

1940.12.729.61

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 53x33x7 mm.

1940.12.729.62

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 31x29x6 mm.

1940.12.729.63

Mesial fragment of a blade. 27x23x5 mm.

1940.12.729.64

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform. 37x42x7 mm.

1940.12.729.65

Proximal fragment of a blade with a dihedral platform. 24x19x5 mm.

1940.12.729.66

Secondary flake with a facetted platform. 22x37x10 mm.

102

1940.12.729.67

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform. 28x22x5 mm.

1940.12.729.68

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform and a hinge termination. 27x35x13 mm.

1940.12.729.69

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 46x20x9 mm. Refits with 1940.12.729.70.

1940.12.729.70

Dual platform core. 58x36x14 mm. Refits with 1940.12.729.69.

1940.12.729.71

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 21x38x4 mm.

1940.12.729.72

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 38x10x7 mm.

1940.12.729.73

Distal part of a tertiary flake which refits with 1940.12.729.74.

1940.12.729.74

Proximal part of a tertiary flake with a flat platform which refits with 1940.12.729.73. At the moment of impact the flake broke in two. Combined measurement 33x24x5 mm.

1940.12.729.75

Lateral fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform which broke in two at the moment of impact. Refits with 1940.12.729.76. Combined measurement 56x47x10.

1940.12.729.76

Lateral fragment of a secondary flake which refits with 1940.12.729.75.

1940.12.729.77

Secondary flake with a cortex platform which refits with 1940.12.729.78. 63x46x16 mm.

1940.12.729.78

Secondary flake with a cortex platform which refits with 1940.12.729.77.

1940.12.729.79

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform. 27x36x11 mm.

1940.12.729.80

Distal fragment of a tertiary flake. 29x23x5 mm.

1940.12.729.81

Distal fragment of a secondary blade. 42x20x5 mm.

1940.12.729.82

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform. 33x45x11 mm.

1940.12.729.83

Fragment of a core rejuvenation flake. 38x25x7 mm.

1940.12.729.84

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform. 16x27x3 mm.

1940.12.729.85

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 32x31x10 mm.

1940.12.729.86

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform. 20x19x5 mm.

1940.12.729.87

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 24x34x6 mm.

1940.12.729.88

Distal fragment. 22x24x5 mm.

1940.12.729.89

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 31x29x10 mm.

1940.12.729.90

Distal fragment of a core rejuvenation flake. 29x17x7 mm.

1940.12.729.91

Secondary flake with a flat platform and a hinge termination. 21x31x9 mm.

1940.12.729.92

Core rejuvenation flake. 45x33x11 mm.

1940.12.729.93

Core rejuvenation flake. 31x42x9 mm.

1940.12.729.94

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform. 42x28x11 mm.

103

1940.12.729.95

Proximal fragment of a Levallois blade with a facetted platform. 49x30x7 mm.

1940.12.729.96

Distal fragment. 18x32x6 mm.

1940.12.729.97

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 29x33x8 mm.

1940.12.729.98

Mesial fragment of a blade. 50x20x6 mm.

1940.12.729.99

Proximal fragment of a Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 40x42x6 mm.

1940.12.729.100

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform. 35x28x7 mm.

1940.12.729.101

Core rejuvenation flake. 61x40x10 mm.

1940.12.729.102

Core rejuvenation flake. 28x52x10 mm.

1940.12.729.103

Levallois blade with a facetted platform. 90x37x9 mm.

1940.12.729.104

Levallois blade with a facetted platform. 68x33x11 mm.

1940.12.729.105

Proximal fragment of a Levallois blade with a facetted platform. 50x40x9 mm.

1940.12.729.106

Proximal fragment of a Levallois blade with a facetted platform. 50x44x9 mm.

1940.12.729.107

Levallois point with a facetted platform. 68x44x10 mm.

1940.12.729.108

Distal fragment of a Levallois blade. 47x32x5 mm.

1940.12.729.109

Core rejuvenation flake. 47x57x13 mm.

1940.12.729.110

Distal fragment. 43x31x8 mm.

1940.12.729.111

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 56x40x8 mm.

1940.12.729.112

Tertiary blade with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 101x41x10 mm.

1940.12.729.113

Secondary blade with a facetted platform. 105x40x14 mm.

1940.12.729.114

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary blade with lateral retouch. 75x33x18 mm.

1940.12.729.115

Tertiary blade with a facetted platform. 58x20x6 mm.

1940.12.729.116

Mesial fragment. 47x42x10 mm.

1940.12.729.117

Retouched tertiary flake with a cortex platform. 68x47x13 mm.

1940.12.729.118

Tip of a handaxe. 34x54x21 mm.

1940.12.729.119

Mesial fragment of a bladelet marked 'A alpha outside theta I.' 35x16x3 mm.

(3) One artefact found near Abydos camp. 1940.12.730

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 119x78x23 mm (Figure 7.3). 104

Figure 7.3 Seligman Collection: handaxe from Abydos

(4) Twenty-one flakes and cores from Abydos marked 'A alpha' and 'Ao' in ink, denoting the different terraces on which they were found. Of note are the three truncated-facetted pieces. 1940.12.861.1

Orthogonal core, marked 'A alpha'. 105x98x34 mm.

1940.12.861.2

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 55x36x14 mm.

1940.12.861.3

Classic Levallois core, marked 'A alpha'. 66x56x22 mm.

1940.12.861.4

Classic Levallois core, marked 'A alpha'. 54x64x29 mm.

1940.12.861.5

Single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 54x50x17 mm.

1940.12.861.6

Distal fragment of a retouched tertiary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 51x29x8 mm.

1940.12.861.7

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 37x37x15 mm.

105

1940.12.861.8

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a discoidal core, marked 'A alpha'. 55x62x12 mm.

1940.12.861.9

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 55x39x10 mm.

1940.12.861.10

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 50x19x7 mm.

1940.12.861.11

Secondary flake with a flat platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 41x81x17 mm.

1940.12.861.12

Proximal fragment of a tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 40x27x9 mm.

1940.12.861.13

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 29x28x7 mm.

1940.12.861.14

Orthogonal core. 68x69x18 mm.

1940.12.861.15

Classic Levallois core. 62x53x20 mm.

1940.12.861.16

Orthogonal core marked 'Ao'. 63x52x24 mm.

1940.12.861.17

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Ao'. 30x25x11 mm.

1940.12.861.18

Retouched flake with a flat platform. 60x33x10 mm.

1940.12.861.19

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 72x46x11 mm.

1940.12.861.20

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from a multi platform core. 34x16x6 mm.

1940.12.861.21

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, weathered. 41x20x15 mm.

Thebes (25°42'N 32°41'E) As at Abydos, Seligman made a note of the terrace on which each artefact was found. Each group or 'assemblage' therefore consists of artefacts collected from different terraces. As discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5, Thebes has long been a magnet for collectors of Palaeolithic artefacts, and consequently the integrity of the collections which Seligman made there have doubtless been compromised to a greater extent than they were at Abydos. The 'assemblages' from Thebes seem to represent a mixture of Local Complex and Nubian Complex Middle Palaeolithic, and Upper Palaeolithic. There are no Late Palaeolithic or Epipalaeolithic artefacts. (1) Thirty-two flakes and cores marked 'T300', 'T400', 'T500', 'T1200' and 'Tt' in ink, denoting the different terraces on which they were found. Of note are three Nubian type-1 Levallois cores, and the two truncated-facetted pieces. 1940.12.713.1

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'T400'. 115x55x11 mm.

1940.12.713.2

Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'T500'. 97x47x13 mm.

1940.12.713.3

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'Tt'. 79x50x20 mm.

1940.12.713.4

Nubian type-1 Levallois core, marked 'T500'. 97x75x59 mm.

1940.12.713.5

Distal fragment of a Levallois blade, marked 'T300'. 92x31x7 mm.

106

1940.12.713.6

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Tt'. 86x46x14 mm.

1940.12.713.7

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'T400'. 85x47x24 mm.

1940.12.713.8

Nubian type-1 Levallois core, marked 'T1200'. 71x53x23 mm.

1940.12.713.9

Crested blade, marked 'T1200'. 107x44x14 mm.

1940.12.713.10

Nubian type-1 Levallois core, marked 'T500'. 76x64x27 mm.

1940.12.713.11

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a multi platform core, marked 'T500'. 111x59x19 mm.

1940.12.713.12

Multi platform core, marked 'T500'. 94x84x52 mm.

1940.12.713.13

Multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 117x82x45 mm.

1940.12.713.14

Multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 71x48x24 mm.

1940.12.713.15

Flake core, marked 'Tt'. 58x36x21 mm.

1940.12.713.16

Multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 46x41x16 mm.

1940.12.713.17

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake, marked 'Tt'. 58x43x15 mm.

1940.12.713.18

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 60x31x13 mm.

1940.12.713.19

Retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Tt'. 64x29x8 mm.

1940.12.713.20

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 54x39x8 mm.

1940.12.713.21

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'Tt'. 69x39x15 mm.

1940.12.713.22

Mesial fragment of a retouched flake, marked 'Tt'. 68x38x12 mm.

1940.12.713.23

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'Tt'. 56x33x11 mm.

1940.12.713.24

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 58x46x14 mm.

1940.12.713.25

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 52x46x14 mm.

1940.12.713.26

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Tt'. 40x26x6 mm.

1940.12.713.27

Mesial and lateral fragment of a retouched flake, marked 'Tt'. 38x20x6 mm.

1940.12.713.28

Fragment, weathered, marked 'Tt'. 34x20x20 mm.

1940.12.713.29

Mesial fragment of a retouched blade, marked 'Tt'. 49x58x15 mm.

1940.12.713.30

Mesial fragment of a retouched blade struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Tt'. 102x52x16 mm.

107

1940.12.713.31

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 68x30x8 mm.

1940.12.713.32

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 86x53x14 mm.

(2) One artefact from Elwa ed Dibban, Thebes. 1940.12.717.1

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 89x43x16 mm.

(3) Twenty-two cores and flakes from Qamuleh, Thebes. Of note are the two refitting flakes. 1940.12.716

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 67x53x12 mm.

1940.12.724.1

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. Refits with 1940.12.724.2. 84x52x12 mm.

1940.12.724.2

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. Refits with 1940.12.724.1. 67x51x10 mm.

1940.12.724.3

Single platform blade core. A flake has been removed from the base, thereby truncating the blade scars. Five blade scars measuring between 11 and 27 mm in width. 73x55x50 mm.

1940.12.724.4

Crested blade. 93x50x20 mm.

1940.12.724.5

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 73x26x9 mm.

1940.12.724.6

Distal fragment of a retouched blade. 67x24x12 mm.

1940.12.724.7

Distal fragment of a secondary flake struck from dual platform flake/blade core. 54x70x21 mm.

1940.12.724.8

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 93x49x18 mm.

1940.12.724.9

Retouched secondary flake with a cortex platform, weathered. 60x40x14 mm.

1940.12.724.10

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 76x52x14 mm.

1940.12.724.11

Single platform core made on a flat cobble. 99x77x26 mm.

1940.12.724.12

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 71x62x22 mm.

1940.12.724.13

Multi platform core. 126x71x53 mm.

1940.12.724.14

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from dual platform core. 116x63x9 mm.

1940.12.724.15

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 70x37x11 mm.

108

1940.12.724.16

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 49x35x7 mm.

1940.12.724.17

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 81x60x20 mm.

1940.12.724.18

Dual platform core. 88x44x25 mm.

1940.12.724.19

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 74x71x33 mm.

1940.12.724.20

Dual platform core. 81x71x29 mm.

1940.12.724.21

Multi platform core. 75x57x25 mm.

(4) Thirteen artefacts from Qurna Sheikh Moussa [Sheikh'Abd el-Qurna] graveyard floor, Thebes. 1940.12.722.1

Retouched tertiary with a flat platform. 44x40x8 mm.

1940.12.722.2

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 58x34x10 mm.

1940.12.722.3

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary blade. 57x24x10 mm.

1940.12.722.4

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 65x40x13 mm.

1940.12.723.1

Multi platform core. 125x79x49 mm.

1940.12.723.2

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 53x34x10 mm.

1940.12.723.3

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a dual platform core. 68x45x19 mm.

1940.12.723.4

Single platform blade core. 61x47x19 mm.

1940.12.723.5

Multi platform core, weathered. 111x74x35 mm.

1940.12.723.6

Retouched flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 55x33x13 mm.

1940.12.723.7

Distal fragment of a retouched blade struck from a single platform core. 73x24x9 mm.

1940.12.723.8

Fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'typical flint from gravel'. 52x52x22 mm.

1940.12.723.9

Core rejuvenation flake, weathered. 62x38x14 mm.

(5) Seven artefacts found south of the Tombs of the Queens. 1940.12.714.1

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake with a flat platform. 71x43x24 mm (Figure 7.4).

1940.12.714.2

Tertiary blade with a flat platform, weathered. 116x41x19 mm.

1940.12.714.3

Crested blade. 86x30x14 mm.

109

Figure 7.4 Seligman Collection: retouched flakes from Thebes

1940.12.714.4

Retouched secondary blade with a cortex platform struck from a single platform core. 92x45x17 mm.

1940.12.863.1

Tertiary blade with a facetted platform. 64x28x14 mm.

1940.12.863.2

Classic Levallois core. 56x59x21 mm.

1940.12.863.3

Multi platform core. 142x71x45 mm.

110

111

(6) Five crescents, one marked 'Above Tomb of Queens', Thebes. 1940.12.715.1

Crescent marked 'above Tomb of Queens'. 61x75x28 mm (Figure 7.5).

1940.12.715.2

Crescent. 55x73x23 mm (Figure 7.5).

1940.12.715.3

Crescent, weathered. 60x90x25 mm.

1940.12.715.4

Crescent. 62x93x25 mm (Figure 7.5).

1940.12.715.5

Crescent. 83x93x35 mm.

(7) Group of eighty-seven flakes and cores labelled 'loose stones are from Thebes. Unpatinated. Good second class flakes'. Of note are the six crested blades. 1940.12.726.1

Dual platform core marked 'Thebes floor of Wadi'. 71x60x32 mm.

1940.12.726.2

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Thebes Wadi floor'. 83x43x15 mm.

1940.12.726.3

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'Wadi floor'. 95x51x17 mm.

1940.12.726.4

Secondary flake, weathered, marked 'Cirque A, in gravel in situ'. 56x52x16 mm.

1940.12.726.5

Small pointed handaxe, marked 'Thebes older gravel terrace', 80x55x33 mm (Figure 7.6).

1940.12.726.6

Distal fragment of a secondary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'Thebes Wadi floor'. 60x36x11 mm.

1940.12.726.7

Proximal fragment of a blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 82x40x14 mm.

1940.12.726.8

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 61x49x10 mm.

1940.12.726.9

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 78x45x12 mm.

1940.12.726.10

Crested blade. 70x86x20 mm.

1940.12.726.11

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 103x61x16 mm.

1940.12.726.12

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 62x25x13 mm (Figure 7.7).

1940.12.726.13

Mesial fragment of a secondary blade. 49x24x6 mm.

1940.12.726.14

Proximal fragment of a secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 90x49x17 mm.

1940.12.726.15

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Thebes Wadi floor'. 81x22x8 mm.

1940.12.726.16

Proximal fragment of a blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 58x28x11 mm.

112

Figure 7.6 Seligman Collection: handaxe from Thebes

1940.12.726.17

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 55x29x8 mm.

1940.12.726.18

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Wadi Khalifa'. 90x55x25 mm.

1940.12.726.19

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 57x33x12 mm.

1940.12.726.20

Proximal fragment with a dihedral platform. 40x37x8 mm.

1940.12.726.21

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 45x26x5 mm.

1940.12.726.22

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 72x30x11 mm.

1940.12.726.23

Secondary flake with a flat platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 72x35x12 mm.

1940.12.726.24

Distal fragment of a bladelet, marked 'Wadi floor'. 41x15x5 mm.

1940.12.726.25

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 74x32x10 mm.

1940.12.726.26

Primary blade with a flat platform, marked 'Wadi floor'. 85x38x7 mm.

1940.12.726.27

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 65x19x8 mm.

113

Figure 7.7 Seligman Collection: Upper Palaeolithic blades from Thebes

1940.12.726.28

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 70x27x7 mm.

1940.12.726.29

Core rejuvenation flake, weathered, marked 'Cirque A, in situ in gravel'. 55x20x11 mm.

1940.12.726.30

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 33x35x8 mm.

1940.12.726.31

Orthogonal core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 70x77x29 mm.

1940.12.726.32

Multi platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 94x73x30 mm.

1940.12.726.33

Fragment of a blade core, marked 'Cirque B, floor of Wadi, west end of gravel'. 64x69x42 mm.

1940.12.726.34

Tertiary flake with a flat platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi Khalifa, surface'. 115x63x21 mm.

1940.12.726.35

Crested blade. 100x40x22 mm.

1940.12.726.36

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 116x33x12 mm.

1940.12.726.37

Crested blade. 70x24x13 mm.

1940.12.726.38

Distal fragment of a retouched blade struck from a multi platform core, marked 'above Wadi'. 52x29x6 mm.

114

1940.12.726.39

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 70x41x10 mm (Figure 7.4).

1940.12.726.40

Fragment, weathered.

1940.12.726.41

Mesial fragment of a secondary blade, weathered, marked 'Wadi at foot of 100 ft cliff'. 53x28x13 mm.

1940.12.726.42

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 44x33x12 mm.

1940.12.726.43

Proximal fragment of a retouched secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 75x32x12 mm.

1940.12.726.44

Endscraper on a secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 38x29x7 mm.

1940.12.726.45

Crested blade, marked 'Wadi floor'. 51x51x22 mm.

1940.12.726.46

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Cirque B, in situ in gravel'. 60x36x16 mm.

1940.12.726.47

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 103x44x18 mm.

1940.12.726.48

Tertiary blade with a flat platform. 67x27x9 mm (Figure 7.7).

1940.12.726.49

Fragment, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 63x53x20 mm.

1940.12.726.50

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'Wadi at foot of 100 ft cliff'. 54x40x15 mm.

1940.12.726.51

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 83x34x14 mm.

1940.12.726.52

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 86x35x18 mm.

1940.12.726.53

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 72x43x17 mm.

1940.12.726.54

Distal fragment of a weathered primary flake. 114x72x25 mm.

1940.12.726.55

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, weathered, marked 'Wadi at foot of 100 ft cliff'. 84x34x17 mm.

1940.12.726.56

Proximal fragment of a weathered secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'Wadi at foot of 100 ft cliff'. 66x30x15 mm.

1940.12.726.57

Secondary blade with a cortex platform struck from a single platform core, weathered, marked 'floor of Wadi'. 90x30x15 mm (Figure 7.7).

1940.12.726.58

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 75x44x14 mm.

1940.12.726.59

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 80x29x16 mm (Figure 7.7).

1940.12.726.60

Fragment, weathered. 28x21x11 mm.

115

1940.12.726.61

Tertiary flake with a cortex platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 47x49x15 mm.

1940.12.726.62

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, weathered, marked 'Cirque A, in gravel in situ'. 71x41x17 mm.

1940.12.726.63

Tertiary blade with a flat platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 98x41x23 mm.

1940.12.726.64

Crested blade, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 89x24x15 mm.

1940.12.726.65

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi at base of 100 ft cliff'. 71x34x14 mm.

1940.12.726.66

Primary flake with a cortex platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 169x109x41 mm.

1940.12.726.67

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 62x90x30 mm.

1940.12.726.68

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform and hinge termination struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 90x51x13 mm.

1940.12.726.69

Secondary flake, weathered, marked 'Cirque B, Wadi floor'. 37x44x13 mm.

1940.12.726.70

Retouched flake, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 41x39x13 mm.

1940.12.726.71

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Wadi floor'. 46x89x19 mm.

1940.12.726.72

Secondary flake, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 45x94x26 mm.

1940.12.726.73

Retouched flake with a flat platform, weathered, marked 'Wadi floor'. 87x45x19 mm.

1940.12.726.74

Truncated secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Wadi floor'. 79x27x7 mm.

1940.12.726.75

Truncated-facetted piece made on a primary blade, marked 'Cirque B floor at 300 of Wadi at west end of gravel'. 152x71x39 mm.

1940.12.726.76

Tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 77x31x9 mm.

1940.12.726.77

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core, weathered, marked 'at foot of 100 ft cliff'. 60x54x21 mm.

1940.12.726.78

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'Wadi floor'. 81x31x15 mm.

1940.12.726.79

Multi platform core marked 'Thebes older gravel terrace'. 82x64x27 mm (Figure 7.8).

1940.12.726.80

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 85x42x19 mm.

1940.12.726.81

Tertiary flake with a flat platform marked 'Thebes older gravel terrace'. 81x47x18 mm.

1940.12.726.82

Crested blade marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 103x36x30 mm.

1940.12.726.83

Secondary flake with a flat platform marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 53x45x16 mm.

116

1940.12.726.84

Multi platform core marked 'Thebes wadi floor'. 96x88x30 mm.

1940.12.726.85

Multi platform core marked 'Thebes wadi floor'. 85x84x31 mm.

1940.12.726.86

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core marked 'Thebes, wadi at base of 200 foot cliff'. 90x48x18 mm.

1940.12.726.87

Proximal fragment of a secondary blade with a facetted platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 54x29x10 mm.

(8) Twenty-eight flakes from Thoth Hill, Thebes, found in 1908. The artefacts are marked 'TH400', 'TH700', 'TH800', 'TH900', 'TH1400', 'TH1500' and 'TH lair 3 900' in ink, denoting the different terraces on which they were found. 1940.12.727.1

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'TH lair 3 900'. 122x65x25 mm.

1940.12.727.2

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'TH800'. 91x47x17 mm.

1940.12.727.3

Distal fragment of a Levallois blade, marked 'TH800'. 82x35x10 mm.

1940.12.727.4

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'TH800'. 68x29x7 mm.

1940.12.727.5

Secondary blade with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH1400'. 118x43x15 mm.

1940.12.727.6

Distal fragment of a secondary blade struck from a dual platform core, marked 'TH1400'. 85x28x9 mm.

1940.12.727.7

Butt of a broken handaxe, marked 'TH1400'. 60x70x39 mm.

1940.12.727.8

Dual platform core, marked 'TH1500'. 96x59x29 mm.

1940.12.727.9

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'TH1500'. 56x50x9 mm.

1940.12.727.10

Proximal fragment of a Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'TH1500'. 108x44x10 mm.

1940.12.727.11

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'TH1500'. 97x42x10 mm.

1940.12.727.12

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'TH1500'. 72x48x10 mm.

1940.12.727.13

Proximal fragment of a retouched secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'TH1500'. 71x41x17 mm.

1940.12.727.14

Orthogonal core, marked 'TH1500'. 64x62x22 mm.

1940.12.727.15

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH700'. 101x39x20 mm.

1940.12.727.16

Classic Levallois core, marked 'TH700'. 106x69x39 mm.

1940.12.727.17

Multi platform core, marked 'TH700'. 65x51x22 mm.

1940.12.727.18

Flake core, marked 'TH700'. 60x47x16 mm.

1940.12.727.19

Flake core, marked 'TH700'. 74x50x19 mm.

117

1940.12.727.20

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH700'. 93x46x21 mm.

1940.12.727.21

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary blade struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH700'. 110x40x12 mm.

1940.12.727.22

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH400'. 80x51x17 mm.

1940.12.727.23

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform and a hinge termination struck from a dual platform core, marked 'TH400'. 71x48x15 mm.

1940.12.727.24

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'TH700'. 98x46x16 mm.

1940.12.727.25

Retouched secondary flake with a cortex platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'TH700'. 65x103x24 mm.

1940.12.727.26

Multi platform core, marked 'TH900'. 98x59x34 mm.

1940.12.727.27

Pointed handaxe, marked 'TH700' and 'O' in ink. 118x53x23 mm.

1940.12.727.28

Secondary blade with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'TH 700'. 92x45x20 mm.

(9) Two flakes marked 'picked put of cliff, Wadi' and 'Thebes Wadi floor'. 1940.12.749.1

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'picked put of cliff, Wadi'. 71x51x18 mm.

1940.12.749.2

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a discoidal core, marked 'Thebes Wadi floor'. 49x35x11 mm.

(10) Three flakes, one marked 'Desert near Thebes', the other two marked 'Egypt, desert, bought in Luxor'. 1940.12.816.1

Retouched Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'Desert near Thebes'. 78x35x10 mm.

1940.12.816.2

Retouched Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'Egypt, desert, bought in Luxor'. 93x45x11 mm.

1940.12.816.3

Distal fragment of a tertiary blade struck from a single platform core marked 'Egypt, desert, bought in Luxor'. 95x24x6 mm.

(11) One artefact from Waddyen, Thebes, found on top of gravels forming the northern side at 200 feet. 1940.12.718

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 95x73x37 mm.

118

(12) Twenty artefacts labelled 'Wadi Mernies surface gravel (location unknown)', and 5 cores from a box labelled 'Mousterian nuclei (small) - new point type'. 1940.12.725.1

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 109x75x33 mm.

1940.12.725.2

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 61x36x12 mm.

1940.12.725.3

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 56x38x8 mm.

1940.12.725.4

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from a single platform core. 50x32x9 mm.

1940.12.725.5

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 88x43x13 mm.

1940.12.725.6

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 63x32x13 mm.

1940.12.725.7

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 86x32x14 mm.

1940.12.725.8

Distal fragment of a tertiary flake with a plunging termination struck from a single platform core. 84x37x18 mm.

1940.12.725.9

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 57x50x17 mm.

1940.12.725.10

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 78x35x11 mm.

1940.12.725.11

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 92x42x13 mm.

1940.12.725.12

Crested blade. 106x36x32 mm.

1940.12.725.13

Ovate handaxe. 127x79x46 mm.

1940.12.725.14

Handaxe preform. 150x107x52 mm.

1940.12.725.15

Ovate handaxe. 74x56x19 mm.

1940.12.725.16

Flake core, weathered. 75x64x30 mm.

1940.12.750.1

Discoidal core. 57x53x28 mm.

1940.12.750.2

Discoidal core marked 'Wadi Mernies surface gravel SW floor'. 65x59x30 mm.

1940.12.750.3

Discoidal core marked 'A alpha'. 39x38x19 mm.

1940.12.750.4

Distal fragment of a Levallois flake with a plunging termination. 40x43x17 mm.

(13) Two Upper Palaeolithic blades from Thebes. 1940.12.833.1

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 72x29x12 mm.

1940.12.833.2

Proximal fragment of a blade with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 54x21x6 mm (Figure 7.7).

119

120

Abydos/Thebes (1) 160 artefacts marked 'Thebes and Abydos, rough flakes and rejects packed April 1926'. Some of the artefacts retain their paper labels marked 'A alpha', 'Am alpha', 'A650', 'Ao', 'Am', 'Amo' (from Abydos), 'T1200', 'To', 'Tt', 'T400', 'T500' and 'T1200' (from Thebes), denoting the different terraces on which they were found. 1940.12.712.1

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, broken at the distal end, marked 'A alpha'. 58x39x8 mm.

1940.12.712.2

Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 87x41x11 mm.

1940.12.712.3

Dual platform core. 65x32x21 mm.

1940.12.712.4

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A650'. 48x26x7 mm.

1940.12.712.5

Primary flake with a cortex platform, weathered, marked 'T1200'. 30x32x7 mm.

1940.12.712.6

Multi platform core, marked 'Am'. 86x68x18 mm.

1940.12.712.7

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'To'. 35x30x15 mm.

1940.12.712.8

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'To'. 33x23x5 mm.

1940.12.712.9

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'To'. 33x28x5 mm.

1940.12.712.10

Multi platform core, marked 'To'. 61x49x22 mm.

1940.12.712.11

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Amo'. 32x21x6 mm.

1940.12.712.12

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform and a step termination, marked 'Amo'. 42x35x8 mm.

1940.12.712.13

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a discoidal core, marked 'Amo'. 48x33x9 mm.

1940.12.712.14

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary flake, marked 'Am alpha'. 50x27x8 mm.

1940.12.712.15

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake, marked 'Am alpha'. 74x36x13 mm.

1940.12.712.16

Dual platform core, marked 'Ao'. 73x56x19 mm.

1940.12.712.17

Dual platform core, marked 'Ao'. 55x52x22 mm.

1940.12.712.18

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'Ao'. 41x46x17 mm.

1940.12.712.19

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Ao'. 35x41x6 mm.

1940.12.712.20

Flake core, marked 'Ao'. 83x41x23 mm.

1940.12.712.21

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'Ao'. 58x51x22 mm.

1940.12.712.22

Orthogonal core, weathered, marked 'Ao'. 55x55x22 mm.

1940.12.712.23

Secondary blade with a facetted platform, marked 'T500'. 80x37x8 mm. 121

1940.12.712.24

Secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'T500'. 75x32x11 mm.

1940.12.712.25

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'T500'. 74x48x20 mm.

1940.12.712.26

Flake core, marked 'T500'. 81x56x25 mm.

1940.12.712.27

Classic Levallois core, marked 'Tt'. 84x58x24 mm.

1940.12.712.28

Classic Levallois core, marked 'Tt'. 57x37x20 mm.

1940.12.712.29

Multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 46x40x16 mm.

1940.12.712.30

Flake core, marked 'Tt'. 55x42x18 mm.

1940.12.712.31

Flake core, marked 'Tt'. 58x50x14 mm.

1940.12.712.32

Secondary flake with a flat platform and a step termination, marked 'Tt'. 43x46x10 mm.

1940.12.712.33

Secondary blade with a flat platform and hinge termination, marked 'Tt'. 63x25x13 mm.

1940.12.712.34

Distal fragment of a tertiary blade struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 76x27x7 mm.

1940.12.712.35

Proximal fragment of a retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 74x36x9 mm.

1940.12.712.36

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt.' 84x52x12 mm.

1940.12.712.37

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 58x62x13 mm.

1940.12.712.38

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 73x56x15 mm.

1940.12.712.39

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Tt'. 81x62x15 mm.

1940.12.712.40

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 54x32x9 mm.

1940.12.712.41

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 48x32x8 mm.

1940.12.712.42

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 57x26x9 mm.

1940.12.712.43

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 48x29x10 mm.

1940.12.712.44

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core, marked 'Tt'. 63x45x9 mm.

1940.12.712.45

Mesial fragment of a retouched blade struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Tt'. 39x22x6 mm.

1940.12.712.46

Mesial fragment of a retouched blade struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 42x21x6 mm.

122

1940.12.712.47

Mesial fragment of a retouched blade, marked 'Tt'. 56x27x14 mm.

1940.12.712.48

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 74x41x17 mm.

1940.12.712.49

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 43x40x8 mm.

1940.12.712.50

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 63x34x12 mm.

1940.12.712.51

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 42x53x9 mm.

1940.12.712.52

Retouched tertiary flake with a cortex platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'Tt'. 48x44x12 mm.

1940.12.712.53

Retouched tertiary flake with a cortex platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'T400'. 72x43x14 mm.

1940.12.712.54

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'T400'. 86x67x16 mm.

1940.12.712.55

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'T400'. 88x42x12 mm.

1940.12.712.56

Single platform core, marked 'T400'. 48x57x33 mm.

1940.12.712.57

Orthogonal core, marked 'T400'. 100x79x49 mm (Figure 7.8).

1940.12.712.58

Multi platform core. 80x87x25 mm.

1940.12.712.59

Single platform core. 58x48x17 mm.

1940.12.712.60

Flake core. 42x38x16 mm.

1940.12.712.61

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 77x75x16 mm.

1940.12.712.62

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform. 36x36x6 mm.

1940.12.712.63

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 33x29x8 mm.

1940.12.712.64

Distal fragment. 21x30x4 mm.

1940.12.712.65

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 32x22x7 mm.

1940.12.712.66

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 24x13x5 mm.

1940.12.712.67

Secondary blade with a facetted platform. 67x32x7 mm.

1940.12.712.68

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform. 80x49x19 mm.

1940.12.712.69

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 27x22x6 mm.

1940.12.712.70

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 65x43x14 mm.

1940.12.712.71

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 81x23x11 mm.

1940.12.712.72

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform. 52x33x8 mm.

1940.12.712.73

Tertiary flake with a flat platform and a step termination. 40x30x12 mm.

123

1940.12.712.74

Multi platform core marked 'Thebes south of Tomb of the Queens'. 77x53x21 mm.

1940.12.712.75

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 67x39x10 mm.

1940.12.712.76

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary blade. 76x40x15 mm.

1940.12.712.77

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'Thebes south of Tomb of the Queens'. 55x25x10 mm.

1940.12.712.78

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform. 30x27x8 mm.

1940.12.712.79

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary blade. 80x34x14 mm.

1940.12.712.80

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake. 125x55x17 mm.

1940.12.712.81

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform and a hinge termination. 77x43x12 mm.

1940.12.712.82

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform and a step termination struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Thebes above Wadi'. 51x23x9 mm.

1940.12.712.83

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform. 47x33x10 mm.

1940.12.712.84

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 46x34x10 mm.

1940.12.712.85

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 58x42x13 mm.

1940.12.712.86

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform. 68x37x16 mm.

1940.12.712.87

Dual platform core. 60x47x30 mm.

1940.12.712.88

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 58x31x7 mm.

1940.12.712.89

Distal fragment of a tertiary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 50x44x18 mm.

1940.12.712.90

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 39x28x5 mm.

1940.12.712.91

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 78x40x12 mm.

1940.12.712.92

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'A alpha'. 44x14x7 mm.

1940.12.712.93

Distal fragment of a tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 50x28x7 mm.

1940.12.712.94

Secondary blade with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 77x27x15 mm.

1940.12.712.95

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 48x41x11 mm.

1940.12.712.96

Proximal fragment of a blade with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 44x36x7 mm.

1940.12.712.97

Distal fragment of a tertiary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 38x16x9 mm.

1940.12.712.98

Distal and lateral fragment of a flake, marked 'A alpha'. 52x19x8 mm.

1940.12.712.99

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 58x26x11 mm.

1940.12.712.100

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 45x64x11 mm.

124

1940.12.712.101

Tertiary blade with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 70x22x10 mm.

1940.12.712.102

Proximal fragment of a flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 40x31x6 mm.

1940.12.712.103

Mesial and lateral fragment of a flake, marked 'A alpha'. 32x19x3 mm.

1940.12.712.104

Mesial fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 59x21x6 mm.

1940.12.712.105

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 17x29x5 mm.

1940.12.712.106

Secondary flake with a cortex platform, marked 'A alpha'. 36x28x12 mm.

1940.12.712.107

Distal fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 19x24x4 mm.

1940.12.712.108

Mesial fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 65x25x16 mm.

1940.12.712.109

Distal fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 58x29x9 mm.

1940.12.712.110

Secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 75x26x7 mm.

1940.12.712.111

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'A alpha'. 52x28x7 mm.

1940.12.712.112

Core rejuvenation flake, marked 'A alpha'. 70x28x11 mm.

1940.12.712.113

Proximal fragment of a secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 42x29x11 mm.

1940.12.712.114

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 31x28x5 mm.

1940.12.712.115

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 26x29x6 mm.

1940.12.712.116

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 21x23x5 mm.

1940.12.712.117

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 41x24x7 mm.

1940.12.712.118

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform, marked 'A alpha'. 27x60x12 mm.

1940.12.712.119

Secondary flake with a cortex platform, marked 'A alpha'. 41x47x10 mm.

1940.12.712.120

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 65x32x11 mm.

1940.12.712.121

Distal fragment of a secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 46x38x11 mm.

1940.12.712.122

Distal fragment, marked 'A alpha'. 40x22x7 mm.

1940.12.712.123

Secondary blade with a dihedral platform, marked 'A alpha'. 67x20x10 mm.

1940.12.712.124

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 45x36x9 mm.

1940.12.712.125

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 56x31x6 mm.

1940.12.712.126

Proximal fragment with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 40x22x8 mm.

1940.12.712.127

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 38x40x12 mm.

1940.12.712.128

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 54x34x7 mm.

1940.12.712.129

Secondary blade with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 124x34x18 mm.

125

1940.12.712.130

Dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 73x57x21 mm.

1940.12.712.131

Multi platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 74x52x24 mm.

1940.12.712.132

Classic Levallois core, marked 'A alpha'. 49x45x23 mm.

1940.12.712.133

Dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 77x57x18 mm.

1940.12.712.134

Multi platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 52x45x18 mm.

1940.12.712.135

Broken core, marked 'A alpha'. 68x45x23 mm.

1940.12.712.136

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 63x37x5 mm.

1940.12.712.137

Levallois point with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 50x32x8 mm.

1940.12.712.138

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 58x29x7 mm.

1940.12.712.139

Retouched primary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 66x32x7 mm.

1940.12.712.140

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 70x46x10 mm.

1940.12.712.141

Dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 37x32x17 mm.

1940.12.712.142

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 62x31x10 mm.

1940.12.712.143

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 75x48x8 mm.

1940.12.712.144

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 44x35x8 mm.

1940.12.712.145

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 62x45x11 mm.

1940.12.712.146

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform, marked 'A alpha'. 30x47x9 mm.

1940.12.712.147

Retouched secondary flake with a cortex platform, marked 'A alpha'. 45x22x7 mm.

1940.12.712.148

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 72x47x15 mm.

1940.12.712.149

Distal fragment of a retouched tertiary flake struck from a multi platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 69x39x10 mm.

1940.12.712.150

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 53x24x7 mm.

1940.12.712.151

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 46x28x15 mm.

1940.12.712.152

Retouched tertiary flake struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 35x22x8 mm.

1940.12.712.153

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 44x34x12 mm.

126

1940.12.712.154

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 48x39x15 mm.

1940.12.712.155

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 71x34x16 mm.

1940.12.712.156

Retouched primary flake with a flat platform and a step termination, marked 'A alpha'. 35x30x10 mm.

1940.12.712.157

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary flake, marked 'A alpha'. 22x46x11 mm.

1940.12.712.158

Proximal fragment of a flake with a flat platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'A alpha'. 24x24x6 mm.

1940.12.712.159

Retouched weathered split pebble, marked 'A alpha'. 27x45x19 mm.

1940.12.712.160

Secondary flake with a flat platform, marked 'A alpha'. 50x40x17 mm.

(2) Twenty-four artefacts from Abydos/Thebes, some of them still with their paper labels showing the different terraces on which they were found: 'A alpha' (Abydos), 'T', 'Tt' and 'T500' (Thebes). 1940.12.862.1

Classic Levallois core. 65x82x26 mm.

1940.12.862.2

Classic Levallois core. 78x81x25 mm.

1940.12.862.3

Multi platform core. 68x61x15 mm.

1940.12.862.4

Orthogonal core, marked 'T500'. 142x70x40.

1940.12.862.5

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary flake struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Tt'. 64x39x13 mm.

1940.12.862.6

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake struck from a dual platform core. 55x26x13 mm.

1940.12.862.7

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 55x28x15 mm.

1940.12.862.8

Distal fragment of a Levallois flake. 67x37x6 mm.

1940.12.862.9

Dual platform core. 72x46x14 mm.

1940.12.862.10

Dual platform core. 78x51x18 mm.

1940.12.862.11

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 45x22x7 mm.

1940.12.862.12

Precore made on a split pebble. 85x66x33 mm.

1940.12.862.13

Split pebble. 71x70x36 mm.

1940.12.862.14

Core rejuvenation flake. 123x44x25 mm.

1940.12.862.15

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 45x34x10 mm.

1940.12.862.16

Levallois blade with a facetted platform, marked 'Tt'. 89x40x10 mm.

127

1940.12.862.17

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary blade struck from a dual platform core, marked 'Tt'. 54x18x5 mm.

1940.12.862.18

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from an orthogonal core, marked 'Tt'. 50x27x9 mm.

1940.12.862.19

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary blade. 85x38x15 mm.

1940.12.862.20

Proximal fragment of a large tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'T'. 133x69x24 mm.

1940.12.862.21

Single platform core, marked 'A alpha'. 82x58x40 mm.

1940.12.862.22

Distal fragment of a retouched secondary flake. 106x50x20 mm.

1940.12.862.23

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 58x33x16 mm.

1940.12.862.24

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 27x28x9 mm.

Maiyana (29°04'N 30°53'E) Maiyana lies on the left bank of the Bahr Yusuf Canal in Middle Egypt. One artefact found on the side of the hill fifty feet above the floodplain. 1940.12.721

Upper Palaeolithic blade core made on an elongated nodule. 79x35x39 mm.

Meir (27°27'N 30°45'E) Meir lies on the left bank of the Sohagiya Canal in Middle Egypt. Eleven artefacts marked 'M alpha' and 'Mo'. 1940.12.733.1

Discoidal core, weathered, marked 'M alpha'. 34x33x17 mm.

1940.12.733.2

Proximal fragment with a facetted platform struck from an orthogonal core, weathered, marked 'M alpha'. 46x52x9 mm.

1940.12.733.3

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a discoidal core, weathered, marked 'M alpha'. 42x31x12 mm.

1940.12.733.4

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, weathered, marked 'Mo'. 45x31x8 mm.

1940.12.733.5

Proximal fragment of a retouched flake with a facetted platform, weathered, marked 'Mo'. 39x43x8 mm.

1940.12.733.6

Proximal fragment with a dihedral platform, weathered, marked 'M alpha'. 47x40x11 mm.

1940.12.734.1

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a discoidal core, marked 'M alpha'. 41x36x15 mm.

1940.12.734.2

Secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core, marked 'M alpha'. 60x41x12 mm.

1940.12.734.3

Secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core, marked 'M alpha'. 52x41x10 mm.

1940.12.734.4

Classic Levallois core, weathered, marked 'Mo'. 43x50x25 mm.

128

1940.12.734.5

Pointed handaxe, marked 'M alpha'. 72x40x20 mm.

Mesaid (26°23'N 31°52'E) Mesaid lies on the right bank of the Nile, just north of Abydos. Seligman's 1913-14 diary does not mention that they visited Mesaid (see Chapter 2), so it is likely that he was given these two artefacts by someone else. 1940.12.739.1

Secondary blade with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 88x38x14 mm.

1940.12.739.2

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 60x25x5 mm.

Sedment [Sidmant] (29°08'N 30°54'E) Sidmant lies on the left bank of the Bahr Yusuf Canal in Middle Egypt, just south of the Faiyum. Two artefacts. 1940.12.719

Classic Levallois core marked 'Wadi close to Sedment camp about 40 ft above cultivation'. 80x78x27 mm.

1940.12.720

Nubian type-1 Levallois core marked 'High gebel between Sedment and Qalamsha about 150 feet above cultivation'. 98x56x30 mm.

The Eastern Desert The GEOnet names server (http://gnswww.nima.mil/geonames/GNS/index.jsp) was used to search for the coordinates of the sites in the Eastern Desert, but anglicised spellings of Egyptian place names tend to vary, and it was not always possible to find a match. Schweinfurth's 1878 map of the Eastern Desert shows some of them, but his coordinates are unlikely to be reliable. Others are marked on Stern's map in his publication of Murray's Eastern Desert artefacts in the Peabody Museum (1917), but with the same proviso attached. Those marked on Montenat's map (1986) are probably more reliable. Arras Arras does not appear on the GEOnet names server. A map of Roman roads in the Eastern Desert in Murray's posthumously published autobiography, Dare Me to the Desert (1968), shows El-Aras, a Roman way-station sited along the Roman road which ran from Qena to the Mons Porphyrites; the same place is marked Ain el-Arradh in Schweinfurth's 1878 map of the Eastern Desert, at 26°20'N 32°43'E. 1940.12.738

Ovate handaxe. 82x65x30 mm.

Heita Heita also does not appear on the GEOnet names server. Murray's shows El-Heita, another Roman way-station sited along the same Roman road leading to the Mons Porphyrites; this place is marked el Kheta in Schweinfurth's 1878 map of the Eastern Desert, at 26°38'N 32°44'N.

129

130

1940.12.735.1

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 80x55x23 mm (Figure 7.9).

1940.12.735.2

Dual platform blade core. 64x55x27 mm.

1940.12.735.3

Dual platform blade core. 112x70x37 mm (Figure 7.9).

1940.12.735.4

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 68x38x12 mm.

1940.12.735.5

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 53x27x14 mm.

1940.12.735.6

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 60x34x10 mm.

1940.12.735.7

Secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 73x57x10 mm.

1940.12.735.8

Secondary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 65x44x15 mm.

Taxiba Taxiba does not appear in the GEOnet names server. However, the artefact has 'Taxiba' written on it in Murray's handwriting, so it definitely comes from the Eastern Desert. 1940.12.737

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform, weathered. 57x32x7 mm.

Wadi Abu Had (27°46'E 33°30'E) See Chapter 5 for other Palaeolithic discoveries made in Wadi Abu Had. 1940.12.742.1

Ovate handaxe, weathered. 118x85x37 mm (Figure 7.10).

1940.12.742.2

Ovate handaxe, weathered. 127x95x34 mm.

Wadi Abu Marua Wadi Abu Marua does not appear on the GEOnet names server. Schweinfurth's map gives coordinates of 27°29'N 33°23'E. 1940.12.736.1

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 74x37x14 mm.

1940.12.736.2

Retouched blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 108x38x11 mm.

Wadi Belih (27°27'N 33°39'E) 1940.12.740.1

Retouched primary flake with a dihedral platform, weathered. 70x48x16 mm.

1940.12.740.2

Levallois flake with a facetted platform and a step termination. 35x43x9 mm.

1940.12.740.3

Core rejuvenation flake. 65x20x18 mm. 131

1940.12.740.4

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, 66x22x18 mm.

1940.12.740.5

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 104x43x19 mm.

1940.12.745

Ovate handaxe, weathered. 75x54x20 mm.

Figure 7.10 Seligman Collection: handaxe from Wadi Abu Had

Wadi Dib (33°08'N 27°50'N) See Chapter 5 for other Palaeolithic discoveries made in Wadi Dib. 1940.12.743.1

Multi platform core. 75x67x32 mm.

1940.12.743.2

Ovate handaxe. 86x59x28 mm.

1940.12.747.1

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform. 105x45x22 mm.

132

Figure 7.11 Handaxe from Wadi Dib

1940.12.747.2

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform. 59x22x7 mm.

1940.12.747.3

Distal fragment of a tertiary blade struck from a single platform core. 60x28x10 mm.

1940.12.747.4

Secondary blade with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 57x25x8 mm.

1940.12.747.5

Retouched tertiary blade with a dihedral platform and a step termination struck from a single platform core, weathered. 65x39x12 mm.

1940.12.747.6

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core, weathered. 58x30x9 mm.

1940.12.747.7

Distal fragment of a retouched blade struck from a dual platform core. 89x39x10 mm.

1940.12.747.8

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt, weathered. 84x70x41 mm (Figure 7.11).

1940.12.747.9

Handaxe preform. 128x68x31 mm.

1940.12.747.10

Nubian type-1 core. 92x71x40 mm.

1940.12.747.11

Handaxe preform. 90x79x32 mm.

1940.12.747.12

Ovate handaxe. 96x86x31 mm.

133

134

1940.12.747.13

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 125x49x24 mm.

1940.12.747.14

Ovate handaxe, weathered. 120x81x56 mm.

1940.12.747.15

Classic Levallois core. 132x120x49 mm (Figure 7.12).

Wadi Hammama (26°21'N 33°03'E) Some of the Palaeolithic artefacts found by Murray at Hammama were published by Sterns (1917), while others are in the Petrie Museum (see Appendix). Of note are the two truncated-facetted pieces. 1940.12.748.1

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core. 55x49x14 mm.

1940.12.748.2

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform and hinge termination struck from dual platform core. 63x32x14 mm.

1940.12.748.3

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform and step termination struck from a single platform core. 65x44x11 mm.

1940.12.748.4

Distal fragment of retouched tertiary flake struck from dual platform core. 76x41x8 mm.

1940.12.748.5

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from an orthogonal core. 68x41x12 mm.

1940.12.748.6

Distal fragment of retouched tertiary blade with a step termination struck from a single platform core. 58x25x9 mm.

1940.12.748.7

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 67x39x8 mm.

1940.12.748.8

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from dual platform core. The flake ends in a plunging termination which retains part of the opposite striking platform. 84x45x9 mm.

1940.12.748.9

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform and step termination struck from a single platform core. 58x49x12 mm.

1940.12.748.10

Retouched secondary blade with a flat platform and hinge termination struck from a dual platform core. 94x37x16 mm.

1940.12.748.11

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 85x45x19 mm.

1940.12.748.12

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 38x57x11 mm.

1940.12.748.13

Retouched primary flake with a flat platform. 45x69x19 mm.

1940.12.748.14

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a multi platform core. 62x48x14 mm.

1940.12.748.15

Large tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core. 88x78x19 mm.

1940.12.748.16

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform and plunging termination struck from a dual platform core. 77x55x21 mm. 135

1940.12.748.17

Secondary flake with a facetted platform and plunging termination struck from a dual platform core. 83x47x22 mm.

1940.12.748.18

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. Pseudoretouch. 55x45x11 mm.

1940.12.748.19

Proximal fragment of a retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 62x47x15 mm.

1940.12.748.20

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform and hinge termination struck from a single platform core. 67x65x18 mm.

1940.12.748.21

Distal fragment of a secondary flake with a plunging termination struck from a dual platform core. 76x50x19 mm.

1940.12.748.22

Dual platform core. 83x79x32 mm.

1940.12.748.23

Multi platform core. 76x62x26 mm.

1940.12.748.24

Multi platform core. 45x61x24 mm (Figure 7.13).

1940.12.748.25

Multi platform core. 77x95x28 mm.

1940.12.748.26

Multi platform core. 58x63x23 mm.

1940.12.748.27

Dual platform core. 103x64x38 mm.

1940.12.748.28

Ovate handaxe with a cortex butt. 81x78x37 mm.

1940.12.748.29

Ovate handaxe. 107x80x31 mm.

1940.12.748.30

Ovate handaxe. 84x68x30 mm (Figure 7.14).

1940.12.748.31

Ovate handaxe. 85x61x17 mm.

1940.12.748.32

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 82x48x26 mm.

1940.12.748.33

Multi platform core. 59x62x23 mm (Figure 7.15).

1940.12.748.34

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 101x76x35 mm.

1940.12.748.35

Ovate handaxe. 92x76x28 mm (Figure 7.16).

1940.12.748.36

Ovate handaxe. 70x58x22 mm.

1940.12.748.37

Ovate handaxe. 82x74x30 mm (Figure 7.14).

1940.12.748.38

Classic Levallois core. 69x77x25 mm (Figure 7.13).

1940.12.748.39

Ovate handaxe with a cortex butt. 94x72x28 mm.

1940.12.748.40

Ovate handaxe. 100x82x26 mm.

1940.12.748.41

Ovate handaxe. 90x70x28 mm (Figure 7.16).

1940.12.748.42

Classic Levallois core. 75x75x22 mm (Figure 7.13).

1940.12.748.43

Proximal fragment of a handaxe. 59x63x23 mm.

1940.12.748.44

Ovate handaxe missing part of the butt, weathered. 104x71x37 mm.

1940.12.748.45

Proximal fragment of a handaxe. 88x88x30 mm.

136

137

Figure 7.14 Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wadi Hammama

138

139

Figure 7.16 Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wadi Hammama

140

1940.12.748.46

Ovate handaxe. 115x76x28 mm.

1940.12.748.47

Fragment of a flake core. 63x52x15 mm.

1940.12.748.48

Flake core. 80x70x34 mm.

1940.12.748.49

Multi platform core. 69x49x37 mm.

1940.12.748.50

Ovate handaxe. 63x46x21 mm.

1940.12.748.51

Ovate handaxe. 76x54x23 mm.

1940.12.748.52

Pointed handaxe, broken on one edge. 117x85x28 mm.

1940.12.748.53

Ovate handaxe. 77x70x27 mm.

1940.12.748.54

Ovate handaxe. 94x73x25 mm.

1940.12.748.55

Ovate handaxe. 83x81x31 mm.

1940.12.748.56

Handaxe preform. 87x73x29 mm.

1940.12.748.57

Multi platform core. 89x79x27 mm (Figure 7.15).

1940.12.748.58

Dual platform core. 70x58x23 mm (Figure 7.15).

1940.12.748.59

Lateral fragment of a dual platform core. 74x37x21 mm.

1940.12.748.60

Truncated-facetted piece made on a large secondary flake. 97x75x25 mm.

1940.12.748.61

Ovate handaxe. 81x66x27 mm.

1940.12.748.62

Ovate handaxe. 78x62x31 mm.

1940.12.748.63

Ovate handaxe. 89x66x26 mm.

1940.12.748.64

Ovate handaxe. 94x82x28 mm.

1940.12.748.65

Multi platform core. 83x73x32 mm.

1940.12.748.66

Ovate handaxe. 96x80x36 mm.

1940.12.748.67

Pointed handaxe. 130x81x33 mm.

1940.12.748.68

Mesial fragment of a secondary flake. 78x47x19 mm.

1940.12.748.69

Multi platform core. 102x76x27 mm.

1940.12.748.70

Levallois point with a facetted platform. 103x51x10 mm.

1940.12.748.71

Dual platform core. 67x51x18 mm.

1940.12.748.72

Orthogonal core. 81x54x30 mm.

1940.12.748.73

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 87x55x11 mm.

1940.12.748.74

Dual platform core. 94x94x25 mm.

141

Wadi Mellaha Wadi Mellaha does not appear on the GEOnet names server. The coordinates for Gebel Mellaha on Montenat's map are 27°36'N 33°14'E. 1940.12.744

Ovate handaxe. 89x77x30 mm (Figure 7.17).

Figure 7.17 Seligman Collection: handaxe from Wadi Mellaha

Wadi Umm Selimat Wadi Umm Selimat does not appear on the GEOnet names server. The coordinates for Wadi Umm Selimat on Sterns' map are 26°15'N 32°42°N. 1940.12.741.1

Broken core. 119x79x42 mm.

1940.12.741.2

Lateral fragment of a handaxe. 92x62x32 mm.

1940.12.741.3

Ovate handaxe. 91x69x25 mm.

1940.12.741.4

Orthogonal core. 69x67x21

Wasif Neither Wasif nor Wassif appear on the GEOnet names server. Approximate coordinates from Sterns' map are 26°38'N 33°41'E. Gebel Wassif is marked on Montenat's map at 26°32'N 33°40'E. 1940.12.746.1

Multi platform core. 63x46x19 mm (Figure 7.18).

142

Figure 7.18 Seligman Collection: cores from Wasif

143

Figure 7.19 Seligman Collection: handaxes from Wasif

144

1940.12.746.2

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 65x37x17 mm.

1940.12.746.3

Single platform core. 60x62x26 mm (Figure 7.18).

1940.12.746.4

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary blade. 104x35x14 mm.

1940.12.746.5

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform. 82x52x22 mm.

1940.12.746.6

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake. 59x25x9 mm.

1940.12.746.7

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 74x54x12 mm.

1940.12.746.8

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake with a step termination. 78x46x14 mm.

1940.12.746.9

Multi platform core. 62x55x22 mm (Figure 7.18).

1940.12.746.10

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 61x44x20 mm.

1940.12.746.11

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 58x47x17 mm.

1940.12.746.12

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 83x38x15 mm.

1940.12.746.13

Multi platform core. 96x83x38 mm.

1940.12.746.14

Retouched tertiary flake struck from a dual platform core. 85x65x28 mm.

1940.12.746.15

Retouched primary blade with a flat platform and hinge termination. 155x51x24 mm.

1940.12.746.16

Pointed handaxe. 102x80x41 mm (Figure 7.19).

1940.12.746.17

Ovate handaxe. 97x84x44 mm (Figure 7.19).

1940.12.746.18

Ovate handaxe. 132x108x44 mm.

The Western Desert Kharga Oasis (25°26'N 30°33'E) Marked 'Lot 5, Kharga', from a box marked 'Kharga (bought at Grenfell's auction)'; enclosed in the box was a page from a 'Catalogue of 'Egyptian and other antiquities, the property of Field Marshal Lord Grenfell' (see Figure 3.2). 1940.12.753.1

Bifacial foliate. 129x64x19 mm (Figure 7.20).

1940.12.753.2

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform. 86x58x18 mm.

1940.12.753.3

Tertiary flake with a dihedral platform. 62x38x12 mm.

145

Figure 7.20 Seligman Collection: bifacial foliate from Kharga Oasis

Unlocated Thirty-eight artefacts for which the provenance is unknown. 1940.12.752.35, however, undoubtedly comes from Thebes, since this artefact type is not known to occur elsewhere. 1940.12.732.1

Classic Levallois core from a box marked 'Egypt 1914, new tool (tortoise point). Three finest specimens for reference other than those published in JAI. CGS'. 92x71x35 (Figure 7.21).

1940.12.732.2

Handaxe preform from a box marked 'Egypt 1914, new tool (tortoise point). Three finest specimens for reference other than those published in JAI. CGS'. TH 700. 114x73x50 mm (Figure 7.21).

1940.12.752.1

Ovate handaxe. 144x88x45 mm.

1940.12.752.2

Ovate handaxe with a cortex butt. 104x74x43 mm.

1940.12.752.3

Handaxe preform with a cortex butt marked 'foreign axe Egypt'. 152x90x36 mm.

146

1940.12.752.4

Dual platform core. 108x68x35 mm.

1940.12.752.5

Multi platform core. 72x59x21 mm.

1940.12.752.6

Precore made on a rounded cobble. 72x66x34 mm.

1940.12.752.7

Multi platform core. 100x73x19 mm.

1940.12.752.8

Single platform core. 86x85x33 mm.

1940.12.752.9

Dual platform core. 35x54x30 mm.

1940.12.752.10

Pointed handaxe. 142x63x32 mm.

1940.12.752.11

Multi platform core. 62x53x28 mm.

1940.12.752.12

Levallois point with a facetted platform and a step termination. 90x51x12 mm.

1940.12.752.13

Retouched secondary flake with a dihedral platform. 62x43x12 mm.

1940.12.752.14

Proximal fragment of a retouched blade with a flat platform. 62x40x15 mm.

1940.12.752.15

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake, weathered. 43x63x17 mm.

1940.12.752.16

Proximal fragment of a Levallois flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 56x58x12 mm.

1940.12.752.17

Retouched secondary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a dual platform core. 62x41x13 mm.

1940.12.752.18

Retouched tertiary flake. 44x66x14 mm.

1940.12.752.19

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake struck from an orthogonal core. 64x38x9 mm.

1940.12.752.20

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 93x42x16 mm.

1940.12.752.21

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform struck from a single platform core. 71x45x19 mm.

1940.12.752.22

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 53x51x11 mm.

1940.12.752.23

Truncated-facetted piece made on a tertiary flake. 54x42x14 mm.

1940.12.752.24

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 75x32x14 mm.

1940.12.752.25

Secondary flake with a flat platform. 45x35x14 mm.

1940.12.752.26

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 70x83x17 mm.

1940.12.752.27

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 65x60x17 mm.

1940.12.752.28

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 115x44x18 mm.

1940.12.752.29

Discoidal core. 82x81x39 mm.

147

1940.12.752.30

Crescent. 86x97x30 mm.

1940.12.752.31

Ovate handaxe. 112x84x30 mm.

1940.12.752.35

Crescent. 110x116x33 mm.

1940.12.756

Discoidal core, marked 'Egypt bought in Luxor'. 40x54x21 mm.

148

Figure 7.21 Seligman Collection: unlocated cores 149

8 Catalogue of the Other Collections of Egyptian Palaeolithic Artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum In addition to the Seligman Collection, the Pitt Rivers Museum houses sixteen other collections of Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts, comprising 224 objects. The founding collection of the Museum, which arrived in 1884, included only a handful of such artefacts, but the numbers dramatically increased during the forty-eight years that Henry Balfour served as Curator (1891-1939). The earliest donations made during this period came from two Oxford graduates, James Quibell (1896) and David Randall MacIver (1899-1901). These were followed by the collections of Forbes (1900), Garstang (1901), Mace (1904), Hall (1905), the Egypt Exploration Fund (1910), Ruffer (1919), Bell (1921), Currelly (1924), Balfour's own small collection (1926), Davies (1926), Evans (1928) and Evans-Pritchard (1934). Henry Balfour died in 1939 and was succeeded by Tom Penniman, and the only Egyptian Palaeolithic collection accessioned during Penniman's term of office was the Seligman Collection. No Egyptian Palaeolithic collections were acquired during the terms of Bernard Fagg and Bryan Cranstone, and the last collection, that of Bishop, arrived into the care of the fifth Curator, Schuyler Jones in 1988. With the exception of the Mace Collection and the Evans-Pritchard Collection, both of which derive from the Western Desert, the remaining collections dealt with in this chapter come from the Nile Valley, and predominantly from Thebes. Many of the field collectors figured prominently in the early history of Palaeolithic research in Egypt as outlined in Chapter 3: Lubbock, Haynes, Pitt Rivers, Petrie, Porch, Hall and Currelly. Others were Egyptologists who were working on excavations located in the two hundred-or-so kilometre stretch of the Nile in northern Upper Egypt between Beit Khallaf and Thebes. As was discussed in Chapter 3, this was the heart of ancient Egypt, the cradle and forge of her earliest dynasties, and therefore acted as a magnet for Egyptologists who, in the course of their work, would have made chance discoveries of Palaeolithic stone artefacts lying on the surface. In the majority of cases, documentation regarding how and why each collection was given to the Pitt Rivers Museum rather than, say, the British Museum, or any repository of Egyptian and/or Palaeolithic collections, is sadly lacking. Nevertheless, for most collectors there is some Oxford connection: many had had, at some point in their careers, a formal connection with the University, or they were living near Oxford at the time of their death. In this chapter the collections are arranged in alphabetical order. Biographical details that are deemed relevant to the scope of this study are provided for each collector and, in the case where the collector was not actually the field collector, biographical details are provided for these people also. The spelling of the provenance is that given by the collector and, in those cases where this has subsequently changed, the modern spelling is indicated in square brackets, in accordance with the Gazetteer of the Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Baines & Málek 1980); for example, 'Pyramid of Mycerinus [Menkaure'], Gizeh [Giza]'. In such cases, only the modern spelling is used in the index. The date when the artefacts were collected is indicated when known; otherwise it is recorded as being by the date of accession. Details of each collection's registration are as given in The Catalogue of the Object Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Each artefact is numbered showing the year in which the collection was acquired, the number of the collection, and the number of the artefact. For example, the details '1926.13.5' in the Balfour Collection indicate that it was accessioned in 1926, that it was the 13th collection accessioned in that year, and that it is the 5th artefact in that collection. The only exception to this is the part of the MacIver Collection that was accessioned in 1901. Due to the quantity of material that had to be accessioned, numbers were 151

Figure 8.1 Sites referred to in Chapter 8

initially given to groups of material, rather than to individual artefacts; individual artefact numbers have now been assigned. Therefore, as an example, '1901.29.115.1' indicates that it was accessioned in 1901, that it was the 29th collection accessioned that year, that it is the 115th group in the collection, and that it is the 1st artefact in that group. The complete Collections can be found in the Pitt Rivers Museum On Line Database at http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases/ 152

General information is given for each site concerning its location and, if applicable, cross-reference is made with the geographical and archaeological context provided in Chapter 5. Each artefact is individually described, giving the artefact identification followed by a description of any salient features, including its condition if it is other than fresh. The measurements given are maximum length parallel to the axis of percussion, maximum width perpendicular to the axis of percussion, and maximum thickness. The illustrations show the artefacts at a 1:1 scale. Balfour Collection Henry Balfour (1863-1939), anthropologist, was Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum for forty-eight years from 1891 until his death. As a student of Edward B. Tylor at Oxford University, he became interested in the study of material culture both comparatively and in evolution, and even before he took his degree in 1885 he was helping Tylor to arrange the ethnological and archaeological collections which General Pitt Rivers had given to the University in 1883. When the University of Oxford established a diploma course in anthropology in 1907, Balfour undertook all the teaching of technology and prehistoric archaeology. He served on the General Committee of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt and the Egyptian Research Account. Balfour travelled widely, and in South Africa he was probably the first to detect Palaeolithic artefacts in the gravels of the Zambezi River and to correlate them with prehistoric European types (D.N.B. 1931-1940: 35-37; Who Was Who 1929-1940: 58). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Old land surface above Deir el-Bahari, Thebes (25°44'N 31°36'E) 1926

1926.13.5

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 125x83x41 mm.

1926.13.6

Ovate handaxe. 172x78x44 mm.

1926.13.7

Bifacially worked piece, possibly a handaxe preform. 100x60x34 mm.

1926.13.11

Transversal scraper made on a large primary flake with a flat platform. 50x102x12 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

High gebel Wadi el-Ain, Thebes 1926

1926.13.8

Multi platform core made on a nodule. 122x62x33 mm.

1926.13.9

Classic Levallois core. 55x60x15 mm (Figure 8.2).

1926.13.10

Multi platform core. 70x66x19 mm (Figure 8.2).

1926.13.12

Retouched secondary blade with a dihedral platform. 77x26x14 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Surface near Pyramid of Mycerinus [Menkaure'], Gizeh [Giza] in the Nile Delta (29°59'N 31°08'E) 1926

1926.13.13

Classic Levallois core. 56x54x20 mm (Figure 8.2).

153

Figure 8.2 Balfour Collection: cores from Giza (1926.13.13) and Thebes 154

Figure 8.3 Bell Collection: crescent from Thebes

155

Bell Collection The Bell Collection was purchased by the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1920 from LieutenantCommander Archibald Colquhoun Bell (-1958), who had inherited the Palaeolithic artefacts from his father, Alexander Montgomerie Bell, a geologist who had collected Palaeolithic artefacts at Wolvercote in Oxfordshire, among other places. Alexander Montgomerie Bell had in turn acquired the artefacts from Montague Porch, a figure who appears in both Petrie's biography (Drower 1985) and Currelly's autobiography (1956) as being a friend of Petrie who was collecting Palaeolithic implements in the Eastern Desert and Nile valley (see also Chapter 3). There is no mention of Montague Porch in either the Dictionary of National Biography or Who Was Who. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

El Wadi Yen, Gourneh [Qurna] Thebes (25°44'N 32°38'E) 1905

1921.91.96

Pointed handaxe. 140x89x32 mm.

1921.91.97

Pointed handaxe. 112x83x33 mm.

1921.91.98

Pointed handaxe. 74x65x25 mm.

1921.91.99

Large Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 119x76x23 mm.

1921.91.100

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 79x52x12 mm.

1921.91.499

Retouched tertiary blade with a flat platform. 94x32x9 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Qabbanet el Qurud [Gabanet el Giroud], Thebes 1905

1921.91.101

Crescent. 81x105x34 mm (Figure 8.3).

1921.91.102

Ovate handaxe. 100x75x30 mm.

Bishop Collection Walter William (Bill) Bishop (1931-1977), geologist, was Professor of Geology at Queen Mary College, London University. He carried out research in East Africa, where he collaborated with Palaeolithic archaeologists, and edited or co-edited a number of volumes including Background to Evolution in Africa (1967; co-editor J.D. Clark) and Geological Background to Fossil Man (1978). The Bishop Collection of Palaeolithic artefacts was acquired via an unknown intermediary who purchased it from the Luxor Trading Company in 1910 (see Figure 3.10), and was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1988 following the closure of the Earth Sciences Department and Museum at Queen Mary College. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Thebes (25°42'N 32°41'E) Unknown, by 1910

1988.39.24

Ovate handaxe. 115x70x23 mm.

1988.39.25

Classic Levallois core. 105x85x33 mm (Figure 8.4).

1988.39.26

Ovate handaxe. 117x78x29 mm. 156

157

Figure 8.5 Bishop Collection: crescent from Thebes

158

1988.39.27

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 147x77x15 mm.

1988.39.86

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 108x82x42 mm (Figure 8.4).

1988.39.87

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 121x61x14 mm.

1988.39.88

Handaxe preform. 149x70x38 mm.

1988.39.89

Large retouched secondary flake with a cortex platform. 158x64x35 mm.

1988.39.90

Crescent. 67x102x31 mm (Figure 8.5).

Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund Collection The Egypt Exploration Fund was founded in 1882. The two men who dominated the Fund's fieldwork programme for many years were the Swiss scholar, Edouard Naville, and the young British archaeologist, William Matthew Flinders Petrie, who had very different methods of excavation and recording techniques. Naville, who preferred sites with well-preserved stone monuments and paid little attention to small objects and sherds, excavated various sites in the Delta before moving in 1893 to Upper Egypt, to the temples of Deir el-Bahari on the west bank at Thebes. Petrie, meanwhile, continued to work in the Delta until 1899, after which he began work at Abydos where he excavated the tombs of the earliest kings of Egypt and the main temple of the god of the dead, Osiris, from 1900-1902. Following this excavation Petrie's relationship with the Officers of the Committee broke down, and his subsequent archaeological work in Egypt was carried out for other sponsors. At the end of the First World War the Fund was renamed the Egypt Exploration Society, and work was resumed at Abydos in the 1920s (James 1982). The single artefact in the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund Collection, which was donated in 1910, was most likely collected by Petrie, or one of his team, during his period of activity at Abydos at the turn of the twentieth century. Provenance of collection: Date of collection: 1910.21.1

Disturbed sand amid a Predynastic cemetery at Abydos (26°11'N 31°55'E), with no evidence of its having come from one of the tombs Unknown, by 1910 Large pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 261x107x40 mm (Figures 8.6 and 8.7).

Currelly Collection Charles Trick Currelly (1876-1957) was educated at Victoria College in Canada. Though he was initially headed for the ministry, he became interested in political science and went to England to gather material for a thesis on anarchism. By chance he met Flinders Petrie at the University of London; Petrie was about to return to Egypt to continue his excavations, and he invited Currelly to join him at his excavations at Abydos in 1902, and in the Egypt Exploration Fund survey of the Delta in 1904. In 1913 Currelly published the first catalogue of flint implements for the Cairo Museum (see Chapter 3). His own fieldwork in Egypt, particularly at Tell al-Maskhuta, and later in Crete and Asia Minor, was mainly for the purpose of collecting artefacts, and these formed the core of the small museum he established at Victoria College, which became the Royal Ontario Museum 159

in 1907, with Currelly its first curator. From 1914 until 1946, when he retired, Currelly served as the Museum's Director. The story of the development of this collection is recounted in Currelly's autobiography, I Brought the Ages Home (1956). Currelly often exchanged artefact types of which he had an abundance, in return for artefact types which he was lacking. It is possible that this is how such a large collection of handaxes and cores was acquired by the Pitt Rivers Museum, though there is no documentation. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

West of Thebes Unknown, by 1924

1924.40.1

Discoidal core, weathered. 67x67x38 mm.

1924.40.2

Discoidal core. 85x84x25 mm.

1924.40.3

Discoidal core. 68x65x29 mm.

1924.40.4

Large classic Levallois core. 138x136x42 mm.

1924.40.5

Disc core. 90x88x28 mm.

1924.40.6

Disc core. 86x78x21 mm.

1924.40.7

Disc core. 110x94x30 mm.

1924.40.8

Disc core. 87x82x38 mm.

1924.40.9

Crescent. 83x101x33 mm.

1924.40.12

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 118x76x31 mm (Figure 8.8).

1924.40.13

Unstruck classic Levallois core. 99x88x29 mm.

1924.40.14

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 124x77x35 mm (Figure 8.8).

1924.40.15

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 127x67x30 mm.

1924.40.16

Ovate handaxe with a cortex butt. 118x82x42 mm.

1924.40.17

Pointed handaxe. 172x85x58 mm.

1924.40.18

Ovate handaxe. 141x102x29 mm.

1924.40.19

Pointed handaxe made on a flake, weathered. 100x67x26 mm.

1924.40.20

Large ovate handaxe. 148x111x36 mm.

1924.40.21

Pointed handaxe. 183x92x48 mm.

1924.40.22

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 180x91x45 mm.

1924.40.23

Crescent. 116x121x31 mm.

1924.40.24

Pointed handaxe. 122x79x41 mm (Figure 8.9).

1924.40.25

Pointed handaxe made on a flake. 147x93x35 mm.

1924.40.26

Pointed handaxe, weathered. 145x92x27 mm.

1924.40.27

Pointed handaxe. 132x92x24 mm.

162

Figure 8.11 Currelly Collection: crescent from Thebes

166

Figure 8.12 Currelly Collection: crescent from Thebes

167

1924.40.28

Pointed handaxe. 128x76x34 mm (Figure 8.10).

1924.40.29

Pointed handaxe. 111x83x24 mm (Figure 8.10).

1924.40.30

Ovate handaxe. 135x99x39 mm.

1924.40.31

Pointed handaxe. 127x83x38 mm (Figure 8.9).

1924.40.32

Pointed handaxe. 153x92x52 mm.

1924.40.33

Pointed handaxe broken at the tip. 153x91x41 mm.

1924.40.34

Pointed handaxe made on a cortical flake. 96x70x20 mm.

1924.40.35

Pointed handaxe. 158x97x40 mm.

1924.40.36

Pointed handaxe. 120x83x25 mm.

1924.40.37

Classic Levallois core. 105x80x39 mm.

1924.40.38

Pointed handaxe. 144x92x35 mm.

1924.40.39

Crescent. 65x63x33 mm (Figure 8.11).

1924.40.40

Crescent. 80x89x32 mm (Figure 8.12).

1924.40.41

Large flake with a facetted platform, possibly a handaxe blank. 155x130x38 mm.

1924.40.43

Multi platform core. 103x79x34 mm.

1924.40.44

Multi platform core made on a flat pebble. 86x89x22 mm.

1924.40.45

Large Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 156x113x37 mm.

Davies Collection Norman de Garis Davies (1865-1941) was a British congregational minister who stopped on his way home from Australia, where he had been serving as a Unitarian Minister, in order to participate in Petries's excavations at Dendara in 1897. In 1898 he was appointed Surveyor of the Archaeological Survey of the Egypt Exploration Fund, and he worked for the Fund for eight years, producing numerous volumes as its draughtsman on sites such as the pyramid at Saqqara and the tombs at El-Sheikh Said, Deir el-Gabrawi, and el-Amarna. Following his departure from the Fund, in 1907 he was appointed to run a new enterprise started by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to make a record of the principal painted tombs at Thebes through copies, drawings and photos (Aldred 1982; James 1982, 1997). Davies was living near Oxford when he donated the artefact to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1926. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Deir el-Bahari, Thebes (25°44'N 31°36'E) Unknown, by 1926

1926.38.1

Pointed handaxe. 114x77x29 mm (Figure 8.13).

168

Figure 8.13 Davies Collection: handaxe from Deir el-Bahari, Thebes

Evans Collection Objects from the collection of Sir John Evans, donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum by his son, Sir Arthur Evans, in 1928. Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Evans Desert near Thebes 1899

Sir John Evans (1823-1908) was an archaeologist and numismatist who shaped much of the landscape of British archaeological collecting in the last decades of the nineteenth century. He was entered for matriculation at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made an honorary fellow towards the end of his life, in 1903. He did not, however, study at Oxford, and at the age of seventeen he went to work in the paper manufacturing business. In 1859 Evans accompanied Sir Joseph Prestwich, the geologist, to France as his assistant in an examination of flint implements found in the river gravels of the Somme valley. Prestwich and Evans confirmed the opinion of the discoverer, Boucher de Perthes, that these flint implements were human handiwork and that they helped to prove the antiquity of humans in western Europe. Evans subsequently published a paper in 1860 on Flint implements in the Drift, being an account of their discovery on the Continent and in England, which formed an important landmark in Pleistocene studies. He devoted much attention in Britain to searching for traces of early humans in river gravels and cave deposits, and he developed a remarkable collection of stone and bronze implements, partly by the purchase of representative examples and partly by his own keenness in the discovery of specimens. Evans 169

gathered together all the evidence as to the provenance, types and distributions of primitive implements in two books which were recognised as standard treatises: the first, The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain was published in 1872, followed in 1881 by The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland (DNB Supplement 1901-1911: 634-637; MacGregor 1997; Who Was Who 1897-1916: 232). He acted as president of the Egypt Exploration Fund from 1899 until 1906 and, with his third wife, Maria, he fell into the habit of spending the winter in Egypt; twice they made a trip up the Nile as far as Khartoum. In Time and Chance: The Story of Arthur Evans and his Forebears, Joan Evans writes that on these trips ... the years of discovery were past, and he travelled as an intelligent tourist rather than as an archaeologist (Evans 1943: 326).

Yet the fact is that Evans brought home from Egypt a Palaeolithic artefact in 1899, when the debate over the existence of an Egyptian Palaeolithic was still raging, and the artefact comes from Thebes, which had become the hotbed of the debate (see Chapter 3); this suggests that, at the age of seventy-six, Evans was more than just an 'intelligent tourist'. 1928.68.479

Orthogonal core. 84x74x21 mm.

Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Haynes Abydos (26°11'N 31°55'E) and Thebes (25°42'N 32°41'E) 1878

Henry Williamson Haynes (1831-1912) graduated from Harvard University in 1851. He was made Professor of Latin at the University of Vermont, and subsequently Professor of Greek in the same institution, but he resigned in 1873 to devote his time to archaeology. He then sailed to Europe, where he spent six years in the systematic study of the antiquities of various countries. In the winter of 1877-78 he began a very thorough investigation of the Egyptian Palaeolithic (see Chapter 3), and the results of his investigations were presented at the International Congress of Anthropological Sciences in Paris in 1878, where he was rewarded with a medal and a diploma. On his return to the United States he resided in Boston, and continued to devote much of his time to archaeology. 1928.68.472

Mesial fragment of a handaxe. 76x62x30 mm.

1928.68.474

Classic Levallois core. 70x80x20 mm (Figure 8.14).

1928.68.475

Dual platform core. 61x68x30 mm (Figure 8.14).

Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Lubbock Egypt 1873

Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913), 1st Baron of Avebury, was a banker, a man of science, and an author. He is best known to archaeologists for his book Pre-Historic Times which was published in 1865, and for his advocacy in the passing of the Preservation of Ancient Monuments Act in 1882. However, he was a man of varied interests: he was a pioneer in the experimental study of animal behaviour, and he published prolifically on a range of different subjects including entomology, botany, geology and anthropology. In 1884 he married Alice, daughter of General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (D.N.B. 1912-1921: 345-347; Who Was Who 1897-1916: 29-30). In 1873 170

Figure 8.14 Evans Collection: cores from Abydos and Thebes collected by Haynes 171

Lubbock travelled to Egypt in order to form an independent judgement on the question of the Egyptian Palaeolithic (see Chapter 3). The artefact collected by Lubbock which forms part of the Evans Collection is not one of those which he illustrated in his 1875 publication Notes on the Discovery of Stone Implements in Egypt. 1928.68.477

Plunged blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 87x41x15 mm.

Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Ouvry Libyan hills above Thebes (Western Desert) 1872

Frederic Ouvry (1814-1881), antiquary, was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1848, and for twenty years (1854-74) he filled the office of treasurer. On his resignation he was made vice-president, and in 1876 he was unanimously elected president in grateful recognition of his administrative services. He retired in 1878 (D.N.B. vol. XIV: 1268-1269). 1928.68.471

Ovate handaxe. 133x65x26 mm.

Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Seton-Karr Esna (25°18'N 32°33'E) Unknown, by 1928

Captain Heywood Walter Seton-Karr (1859-1938) was educated at Oxford and Florence Universities. After serving in the British Army in Egypt, he went on to explore Africa, India and the Arctic. These travels resulted in the publication of books such as Shores and Alps of Alaska (1887), Bear-hunting in the White Mountains, or Alaska and British Columbia Revisited (1891), and Ten Years of Travel and Sports in Foreign Lands, or Travel in the Eighties (1890). He collected prehistoric artefacts in many of the areas that he visited, including Egypt, Somalia, India and South Africa, and presented these to over two hundred museums and institutions worldwide (Who Was Who 1929-1940: 1218). Other Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum which were collected by Seton-Karr form part of the Forbes Collection (see below). 1928.68.470

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 125x72x28 mm.

Field Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Unknown Medines-Abou [Medinet Habu], Thebes (25°43'N 32°36'E) 1905

1928.68.473

Miniature pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 66x38x17 mm (Figure 8.15).

Evans-Pritchard Collection Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973), anthropologist, graduated from Exeter College, Oxford University, with a degree in modern history. While a student he read works on primitive cultures by Sir Edward B. Tylor and Sir James G. Frazer and, having become interested in the immense variety 172

Figure 8.15 Evans Collection: miniature handaxe from Thebes

of social forms they described, he decided to choose an anthropological career. Since no teacher in Oxford had experience of anthropological field research, in 1923 he moved to the London School of Economics where Charles Seligman and Bronislaw Malinowski were gathering around them young anthropologists with aspirations similar to his own. Seligman arranged with the Sudan government for him to undertake intensive research there, and he chose eventually to study the Azande of the southern Sudan among whom he lived on and off between 1926 and 1930. He was appointed Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University in 1946, and died at his home in Oxford in 1973 (D.N.B. 1971-1980: 297-299). Between 1932 and 1934 Evans-Pritchard was Professor of Sociology at the King Faud University of Cairo, and it was during this period that he made two collections of Palaeolithic implements in the Western Desert, from Kharga Oasis and Dungul Oasis, and one collection from Gebel Qatrani in the Faiyum. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Dunes of the southernmost part of Kharga Oasis (29°26'N 30°33'E). Unknown, between 1932 and 1934

1934.57.1

Pointed handaxe, weathered. 115x78x39 mm.

1934.57.2.

Small pointed handaxe, weathered. 63x50x21 mm.

1934.57.3

Retouched Mousterian point with a flat platform. 75x40x13 mm (Figure 8.16).

1934.57.4

Levallois point with a facetted platform. 77x46x13 mm (Figure 8.16).

1934.57.5

Retouched Levallois point with a facetted platform. 90x37x13 mm (Figure 8.16).

1934.57.6

Retouched Mousterian point, weathered. 61x37x12 mm.

1934.57.7

Retouched Mousterian point with a flat platform. 50x26x11 mm.

1934.57.8

Retouched Mousterian point with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core. 57x42x14 mm. 173

Figure 8.16 Evans-Pritchard Collection: points from Kharga Oasis

1934.57.9

Retouched Mousterian point with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 65x43x10 mm.

1934.57.10

Retouched Mousterian point with a facetted platform struck from a multi platform core, weathered. 63x37x13 mm.

1934.57.11

Retouched Mousterian point with a facetted platform, distal tip missing. 90x62x17 mm.

174

Figure 8.17 Evans-Pritchard Collection: cores from Kharga Oasis

175

1934.57.12

Distal fragment of a Mousterian point, weathered. 49x28x10 mm.

1934.57.13

Mousterian point with a flat platform struck from a discoidal core. 76x45x15 mm.

1934.57.14

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake struck from a discoidal core. 36x73x13 mm.

1934.57.15

Classic Levallois core. 79x69x30 mm.

1934.57.16

Discoidal core. 62x58x26 mm.

1934.57.17

Classic Levallois core. 60x45x15 mm (Figure 8.17).

1934.57.18

Classic Levallois core. 58x47x17 mm (Figure 8.17).

1934.57.19

Classic Levallois core. 43x37x11 mm (Figure 8.17).

1934.57.20

Discoidal core. 51x36x20.

1934.57.21

Discoidal core. 51x41x17 mm.

1934.57.22

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 76x49x16 mm.

1934.57.23

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 91x52x12 mm.

1934.57.24

Proximal fragment of a weathered flake with a facetted platform. 92x43x14 mm.

1934.57.25

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 80x36x12 mm.

1934.57.26

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 62x59x14 mm.

1934.57.27

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 73x40x16 mm.

1934.57.28

Tertiary flake, weathered. 89x47x16 mm.

1934.57.29

Tertiary flake, weathered. 67x51x21 m.

1934.57.30

Tertiary flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 68x45x13 mm.

1934.57.31

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 59x36x7 mm.

1934.57.32

Proximal fragment of a Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 38x45x6 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Gebel Qatrani, Faiyum (29°30'N 30°24'E) Unknown, between 1932 and 1934

1934.57.116

Levallois flake with a facetted platform, weathered. 58x46x13 mm.

Evans-Pritchard kept a diary of his trip to Dungul Oasis in 1934, which he published in the same year. The diary consists of a day-by-day account of the journey, which was made by camel, describing the scenery and the length of time that he and his companions travelled each day. On January 17th 1934 he recorded: 176

Southern Dungul is on a sort of shelf on the escarpment which leads from the limestone plateau to the sandstone plain lying between it and the Nile ... A few, rather poor artifacts were collected on the shelf and were found sparsely between Kurkur and Dungul. They probably belong to the Upper Paleolithic (Evans-Pritchard 1934: 43-44).

The majority of these artefacts in fact date to the Predynastic period; however, there is one Middle Palaeolithic implement among them. Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Southern Dungul 1934

1934.57.121

Mousterian point with a flat platform, weathered. 46x33x10 mm.

Forbes Collection Henry Ogg Forbes (1851-1932) was Director of the Mayer Museum in Liverpool. The Forbes Collection of Palaeolithic artefacts housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum consists of a number of artefacts which were collected by Seton-Karr (see Evans Collection for biographical details), and which were donated by Forbes in 1900. These may include some of the artefacts which Forbes purchased from Seton-Karr in 1897, some of which he published three years later in a paper entitled On a Collection of Stone Implements in the Mayer Museum, made by Mr H.W. Seton-Karr, in Mines of the Ancient Egyptians Discovered by him on the Plateaux of the Nile Valley (see Chapter 3). Collector: Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Seton-Karr Thebes (25°42'N 32°38'E) Unknown, by 1900

1900.45.14

Classic Levallois core. 107x94x34 mm.

1900.45.15

Ovate handaxe broken at the butt. 106x83x26 mm.

1900.45.16

Bifacially worked piece. 85x40x25 mm.

1900.45.17

Multi platform core. 104x68x41 mm.

1900.45.18

Ovate handaxe. 138x81x29 mm.

1900.45.19

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 101x47x11 m.

Garstang Collection John Garstang (1876-1956) began his academic career in mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford University, but while still an undergraduate he turned his attention to archaeology. His first fieldwork was done in Egypt where, at the age of twenty-three, he joined Petrie in his excavations at Beit Khallaf and el-Mahasna near Abydos. It was during this period that he collected some Palaeolithic artefacts which are now housed by the Pitt Rivers Museum. He subsequently directed his own excavations at Beni Hasan, Naqada, Hierakonopolis, Edfu and Abydos. At the age of twenty-six he was appointed Honorary Reader in Egyptian Archaeology at Liverpool University. Five years later he was appointed to the John Rankin Chair of the Methods and Practice in Archaeology, a post he held until his retirement in 1941. During this period he worked in Anatolia, 177

the Sudan and Palestine. Garstang was the founding Director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in 1920. In that same year he made what is probably his most lasting contribution to archaeology by becoming the founding Director of the British Mandatory Department of Antiquities of Palestine, a post he held until 1926. In that capacity he drafted the country's antiquities laws, which were notably liberal, enlightened and practical. In 1922, at a historic meeting with W.F. Albright of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem and L.-H. Vincent of the Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Française, Garstang formulated the terminology still used for the classification of the archaeological material of the southern Levant. Following World War II, Garstang returned to Anatolia, where he became the founding Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara in 1948 (James 1982). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Low desert near Tomb of Neterknet [Netjerykhet] near Beit Khallaf (26°19'N 31°47'E) 1900-1901

1901.42.67

Classic Levallois core. 91x80x43 mm (Figure 8.18).

1901.42.68

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 113x74x35 mm (Figure 8.18).

1901.42.69

Ovate handaxe. 110x83x42 mm.

1901.42.70

Multi platform core. 60x65x39 mm.

1901.42.71

Pointed handaxe. 119x72x49 mm.

1901.42.72

Multi platform core. 77x54x22 mm.

1901.42.73

Pointed handaxe. 83x68x21 mm.

1901.42.74

Pointed handaxe. 99x55x28 mm.

1901.42.76

Plunged tertiary blade with a flat platform, weathered. 93x46x30 mm.

Hall Collection Harry Reginald Holland Hall (1873-1930) read Classical Studies at St John's College, Oxford University, and studied Egyptian language and literature under Francis Llewellyn Griffith. In 1896 he went to work as an assistant to Wallis Budge, Keeper from 1893-1924 of the Oriental Department at the British Museum. Hall was seconded from the Museum to work with the Swiss Egyptologist Henri Edouard Naville at Deir el-Bahari from 1903 onwards, and was later for a time Honorary Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Society and editor of its Journal (Davies 1982; Dawson & Uphill 1972; Drower 1982). Inspired by the debate raging in the literature over the date of the stone artefacts being found by, among others, General Pitt Rivers and Sir John Lubbock, Hall made several visits to the slopes and upper surface of the gebel-plateau of the Western Thebaïd in search of surface palaeoliths while he was engaged in the excavation of the Temple of Mentuhotpe III at Deir el-Bahari in 1905 (see Chapter 3). In an addendum to his paper, Hall notes that his collection was being exhibited in the Semitic Room (North Gallery) of the British Museum (Hall 1905 b). There is no record of how some of these artefacts were subsequently acquired by the Pitt Rivers Museum.

179

Figure 8.19 Hall Collection: crescent from Thebes

180

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Thebes (25°42'N 32°38'E) 1905

1905.3.1

Crescent. 82x84x26 mm (Figure 8.19).

1905.3.2

Ovate handaxe made on a flake, marked 'Man, March 1905 (19)'. 99x77x27 mm.

1905.3.3

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 92x70x33 mm.

Mace Collection Arthur Cruttenden Mace (1874-1928) was an Egyptologist. Educated at St Edward's School and Keble College, Oxford, he joined Petrie's excavations at Dendara in 1897-98, at Hiw in 1898-99, and at el-'Amra and Abydos in 1899-1901. In 1901 he was appointed Assistant Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and in the same year he joined the California University excavations at Giza and Naga ed-Der. From 1906 until 1908 he worked for the Metropolitan Museum at Lisht, and between 1922 and 1924 he helped Howard Carter clear the tomb of Tutankhamun before bad health prevented him from continuing (Dawson & Uphill 1972). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Kharga Oasis (25°26'N 30°33'E) Unknown, by 1904

1904.22.1

Secondary flake with a flat platform, weathered. 53x62x13 mm.

1904.22.2

Ovate handaxe, found between Kharga and the Nile. 119x82x35 mm (Figure 8.20).

1904.22.3

Pointed handaxe, weathered. 110x71x35 mm.

1904.22.4

Pointed handaxe, weathered. 97x69x24 mm (Figure 8.20).

1904.22.5

Pointed handaxe. 202x83x25 mm.

1904.22.6

Truncated-facetted piece made on a secondary flake. 67x56x19 mm.

1904.22.7

Tertiary flake with a flat platform, weathered. 42x84x25 mm.

MacIver Collection David Randall MacIver (1873-1945) was an Egyptologist and archaeologist. With a degree in literae humaniores from Queen's College, Oxford, he joined Petrie's team in 1898 and excavated at el-'Amra and Abydos with Mace for the Egypt Exploration Fund between 1899 and 1901. From 1900 to 1906 he was Laycock Student of Egyptology at Worcester College, Oxford, and subsequently (1907-1911) he directed an archaeological expedition for the University Museum of Philadelphia and also served as its curator of Egyptology. In Egypt MacIver included measuring skulls among the other duties of an excavator, and thus added a new and highly important item to the essential data to be compiled by a field-worker. His many excavations during these years, and his able and prompt publication of reports on these early works, were of invaluable use to his successors in the field, and indeed many of the major names in Egyptology in the first half of the

181

182

twentieth century owe much to the pioneering work of MacIver. He subsequently worked on the archaeology of Zimbabwe and Italy (D.N.B. 1941-1950: 709-710; Who Was Who 1941-1950: 953). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Low desert near Dendereh [Dendara] (26°10'N 32°39'E) 1898

1899.43.1

Ovate handaxe with a cortex butt. 90x75x23 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

High Desert between Dendereh [Dendara] and Hou [Hiw] (26°01'N 32°17'E) 1898

1899.43.15

Classic Levallois core. 66x58x19 mm (Figure 8.21).

1899.43.16

Discoidal core. 88x87x36 mm (Figure 8.21).

1899.43.17

Discoidal core. 54x63x17 mm (Figure 8.21).

1899.43.18

Retouched secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 60x50x11 mm.

1899.43.19

Distal fragment of a flake struck from a dual platform core. 73x45x13 mm.

1899.43.20

Secondary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 64x28x12 mm.

1899.43.21

Retouched fragment. 58x44x14 mm.

1899.43.22

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 90x58x11 mm.

1899.43.23

Multi platform core. 55x66x20 mm.

1899.43.24

Small pointed handaxe. 91x57x23 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Low desert at Umm Elgaab [Umm el-Qa'ab], Abydos (26°11'N 31°55'N) Unknown, by 1900

1900.38.127

Pointed handaxe. 146x103x58 mm.

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Low desert at El Amrah [el-'Amra], Abydos (26°08'N 31°59'E) Unknown, by 1901

1901.29.115.1

Pointed handaxe with a cortex butt. 170x98x49 mm (Figure 8.24).

1901.29.115.2

Multi platform core. 68x62x25 mm.

1901.29.115.3

Classic Levallois core. 58x52x15 mm.

1901.29.115.4

Pointed handaxe. 147x99x29 mm (Figures 8.22 and 8.23).

183

1901.29.115.5

Classic Levallois core. 124x114x49 mm.

1901.29.115.7

Multi platform core. 111x70x35 mm.

1901.29.115.8

Secondary flake with no platform, weathered. 67x61x20 mm.

1901.29.115.9

Multi platform core. 62x42x22 mm.

1901.29.115.10

Retouched tertiary flake with a cortex platform, weathered. 156x85x23 mm.

1901.29.115.11

Tip of a handaxe. 78x38x30 mm.

1901.29.115.12

Tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 107x55x18 mm.

1901.29.115.13

Secondary flake with a flat platform and distal cortex. 62x43x17 mm.

1901.29.115.14

Proximal fragment of a blade struck from a dual platform core. 58x32x8 mm.

1901.29.115.15

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 56x28x11 mm.

1901.29.115.16

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 83x32x12 mm.

1901.29.115.17

Crested blade. 75x32x8 mm.

1901.29.115.18

Tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core. 90x32x8 mm.

1901.29.115.19

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 63x36x10 mm.

1901.29.115.20

Tertiary blade with a flat platform. 65x24x10 mm.

1901.29.115.21

Distal fragment of a hinged retouched flake. 75x46x13 mm.

1901.29.115.22

Proximal fragment of a blade with a flat platform. 51x33x8 mm.

1901.29.115.23

Distal fragment of a secondary flake. 52x28x6 mm.

1901.29.115.24

Retouched tertiary flake with a dihedral platform, weathered. 65x30x11 mm.

1901.29.115.25

Tertiary flake with a flat platform. 43x29x10 mm.

1901.29.115.26

Retouched distal fragment of a tertiary blade. 53x24x13 mm.

1901.29.115.27

Multi platform core. 90x62x32 mm.

1901.29.116

Tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 74x26x7 mm.

1901.29.118.1

Dual platform core. 81x61x35 mm.

1901.29.118.2

Classic Levallois core. 70x72x27 mm (Figure 8.25).

1901.29.118.3

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 68x67x27 mm.

1901.29.118.4

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. 69x59x30 mm.

1901.29.118.5

Multi platform core. 74x55x22 mm (Figure 8.26). 185

Figure 8.22 MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at Abydos

186

Figure 8.23 MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at Abydos

187

Figure 8.24 MacIver Collection: handaxe from the low desert at el-'Amra

188

Figure 8.25 MacIver Collection: cores from the low desert at el-'Amra

189

Figure 8.26 MacIver Collection: cores from the low desert at el-'Amra

190

1901.29.118.6

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 59x57x23 mm (Figure 8.25).

1901.29.118.7

Classic Levallois core. 61x52x30 mm (Figure 8.25).

1901.29.118.8

Multi platform core. 59x41x22 mm.

1901.29.118.9

Multi platform core. 75x62x28 mm.

1901.29.118.10

Classic Levallois core. 66x46x24 mm.

1901.29.118.11

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 70x49x21 mm.

1901.29.118.12

Multi platform core. 67x52x27 mm.

1901.29.118.13

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 56x43x16 mm.

1901.29.118.14

Multi platform core. 63x43x25 mm.

1901.29.118.15

Classic Levallois core. 65x56x31 mm.

1901.29.118.16

Nubian-1 type Levallois core. 53x47x18 mm.

1901.29.118.17

Multi platform core. 71x79x28 mm.

1901.29.118.18

Multi platform core. 70x73x32 mm.

1901.29.118.19

Flake core. 51x35x17 mm.

1901.29.118.20

Classic Levallois core. 69x64x15 mm.

1901.29.118.21

Dual platform core. 73x61x29 mm.

1901.29.118.22

Dual platform core. 51x43x20 mm (Figure 8.26).

1901.29.118.23

Multi platform core. 72x64x25 mm (Figure 8.26).

1901.29.118.24

Levallois core. The predetermined flake overshot the end of the core. 45x36x11 mm.

1901.29.118.25

Multi platform core. 56x57x27 mm.

1901.29.118.26

Multi platform core. 50x38x18 mm.

1901.29.118.27

Classic Levallois core. 49x39x30 mm.

1901.29.118.28

Multi platform core. 80x53x33 mm.

1901.29.118.29

Multi platform core. 65x57x26 mm.

1901.29.118.30

Multi platform core. 62x42x25 mm.

1901.29.118.31

Multi platform core. 49x43x25 mm.

1901.29.118.32

Orthogonal core. 58x46x31 mm.

1901.29.118.33

Single platform core. 44x47x25 mm.

1901.29.118.34

Multi platform core. 50x40x25 mm. 191

1901.29.118.35

Multi platform core. 45x40x24 mm.

Pitt Rivers Founding Collection When Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827-1900) was an officer in the Grenadier Guards, he was given the task of investigating methods of improving the type of musket used by the British Army. This aroused his interest in the history and development of firearms, and he started to make a collection of them. It occurred to him that the evolutionary progress seen in firearms, from simpler to much more complex forms, often occurred as a result of a series of very slight changes, and he accordingly enlarged the scope of his private collection to investigate such an evolution in other industries, including prehistoric stone tools. When his collection became too large to be contained in his own house, it was exhibited in the Bethnal Green branch of the South Kensington Museum in 1874. By 1878 the Bethnal Green museum could no longer house the Pitt Rivers Collection, so it was transferred to the main Museum in South Kensington. However, Pitt Rivers was anxious to find a permanent home for it where it could be enlarged if the opportunity arose, so in 1883 he offered his entire collection to the University of Oxford (Blackwood 1970). It is very likely that the four Egyptian Palaeolithic artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Founding Collection, which arrived in Oxford in 1884, are some of those that he found at Thebes in March 1881 when he was trying to resolve the debate over the existence of an Egyptian Palaeolithic (see Chapter 3), though they are not among those illustrated in his publication On the Discovery of Flint Implements in Stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley (1882). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Probably Thebes Probably 1881

1884.132.39

Primary flake with a cortex platform. 59x54x17 mm.

1884.132.40

Retouched primary flake with a flat platform. 76x52x13 mm.

1884.132.91

Secondary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core. 88x30x15 mm.

1884.132.92

Retouched blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. 83x36x10 mm.

Quibell Collection James Edward Quibell (1867-1935) was an Egyptologist who studied at Christ Church, Oxford University, and then assisted Petrie on a number of excavations in Egypt, first at Coptos in 1894, and subsequently at Naqada, Ballas and Hierakonopolis, where he became a specialist in Egyptian prehistory. He was the first recipient of the Egyptian Research Account Studentship, and was one of Petrie's British School of Archaeology in Egypt students. Between 1899 and 1904 he served as Chief Inspector of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, responsible for the Delta and Middle Egypt. From 1914 until 1923 Quibell was Keeper of the Cairo Museum, and he served as director of excavations at the Step Pyramid of Saqqara from 1931 until his death in 1935 (Drower 1982; Janssen 1992; Kemp 1982). The Quibell Collection of Palaeolithic artefacts was collected on behalf of the Egyptian Research Account (W.F. Petrie, Manager).

192

Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

High desert gravels Unknown, by 1896

1896.53.3

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 112x76x11 mm.

1896.53.4

Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 81x57x10 mm.

1896.53.5

Retouched secondary flake with a flat platform. 122x56x20 mm (Figure 8.27).

1896.53.6

Ovate handaxe. 106x85x36 mm.

Figure 8.27 Quibell Collection: retouched flake from the high desert gravels

Ruffer Collection The Ruffer Collection was donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum by Miss Nina Ruffer, daughter of Sir Marc Armand Ruffer (1859-1917), Professor of Bacteriology at Cairo Medical School, who was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and University College, London. He is credited with being 193

the founder of palaeopathology, and his interests particularly lay in the identification of disease through the record contained in ancient mummies. Ruffer was well acquainted with both Petrie and Currelly, and once accompanied them on a camel trip to the Sinai Peninsula (Currelly 1956; Drower 1985). Provenance of collection: Date of collection:

Theban desert Unknown, by 1917

1919.63.45

Ovate handaxe. 115x80x34 mm.

1919.63.46

Multi platform core. 104x73x38 mm.

1919.63.47

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 86x43x8 mm.

1919.63.48

Retouched Levallois flake with a facetted platform. 95x46x11 mm.

1919.63.49

Crescent. 67x77x25 mm (Figure 8.28).

1919.63.50

Crescent. 67x77x22mm (Figure 8.28).

194

Figure 8.28 Ruffer Collection: crescents from Thebes

195

196

Appendix Catalogue of the Seligman Collections of Palaeolithic Artefacts in Other Museums Petrie Museum, London Number of objects: Accession numbers: How obtained: Sites represented:

43 UC.13524-UC.13568 and one unaccessioned Donated by Charles Seligman Thebes (Medinet Habu, Qamuleh, Sheikh Moussa, Wadi Mermis, Sebath), Abydos, Hammama, Wadi Abu Marua, Wasif, Mahamid (Figure A.1).

The Petrie Museum houses forty-two of the artefacts illustrated by Seligman in The Older Palaeolithic Age in Egypt (1921). Ten of the artefacts illustrated by Seligman were given accession numbers, even though these artefacts are not in the Museum (13529, 13537, 13538, 13548, 13551, 13558, 13559, 13562, 13565 and 13567). Each artefact is individually described, giving the artefact identification followed by a description of any salient features, including its condition if it is other than fresh. The measurements given are maximum length parallel to the axis of percussion, maximum width perpendicular to the axis of percussion, and maximum thickness. UC.13524

Nubian type-1 Levallois core from Thebes, Sheikh Moussa in situ in cemented gravel. 98x73x26 mm.

UC.13525

Large pointed handaxe with a white porcellanous surface, from Thebes, Medinet Habu 1908, 50 ft. above the Nile. 150x100x46 mm.

UC.13526

Ovate handaxe from Hammama. 103x73x22 mm.

UC.13527

Ovate handaxe from Mahamid. 75x54x22 mm.

UC.13528

Retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core from Thebes, 70 ft. above the Nile. 116x28x6 mm.

UC.13530

Retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core from Thebes, wady floor. 100x43x12 mm.

UC.13531

Retouched tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a dual platform core from Thebes, Qamuleh in situ gravel slope. 100x60x20 mm.

UC. 13532

Retouched point made on a tertiary flake with a flat platform struck from a single platform core from Thebes, older gravel terrace. 72x39x18 mm.

UC.13533

Retouched point made on a tertiary flake with a cortical platform from Thebes, Tt. 59x50x20 mm.

UC.13534

Endscraper made on a secondary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core from Thebes, south of the Tombs of the Queens. 72x55x20 mm.

197

Figure A.1 Sites referred to in the Appendix

UC.13535

Concave side scraper made on a secondary flake with a flat platform from Thebes. TH 400 written on the label, but TH 700 written in ink on the artefact, both in Seligman's handwriting. 118x50x22 mm.

UC.13536

Scraper made on a split nodule from Thebes, in situ in gravel, Sheikh Moussa. 78x84x36 mm.

198

UC.13539

Retouched flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core from Thebes, Qamuleh surface gravel. 82x44x14 mm.

UC.13540

Denticulate sidescraper made on a tertiary flake with a facetted platform from Thebes. 114x58x18 mm.

UC.13541

Truncated-facetted piece from Thebes, 'Tt'. 79x38x9 mm.

UC.13542

Distal fragment of a notched flake from Thebes, Sheikh Moussa gravel of floor. 52x53x9 mm.

UC.13543

Classic Levallois core from Thebes, Wadi Mermis surface gravel. 112x110x24 mm.

UC.13544

Nubian type-1 Levallois core from Thebes, 'TH (?) 900'. 100x79x19 mm.

UC.13545

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. According to Seligman's publication the artefact comes from Thebes, though the label marked 'A alpha' suggests that it comes from Abydos. 95x66x18 mm.

UC.13546

Single platform core made on a roughly bi-lobed pebble from Hammama. 124x58x50.

UC.13547

Nubian type-1 Levallois core. According to Seligman's publication the artefact comes from Thebes, though the label is marked Hammama. 115x80x22 mm.

UC.13549

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core from Thebes, Sheikh Moussa. 73x42x16 mm.

UC.13550

Retouched tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core. According to Seligman's publication the artefact comes from Thebes, though the label marked 'A.m. 700' suggests that it comes from Abydos. 66x30x4 mm.

UC.13552

Tanged point with the platform removed by retouch, struck from a single platform core, from Thebes, older surface gravel. 86x44x16 mm.

UC.13553

Retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core from Thebes, Wadi Mermis surface gravel. 112x36x12 mm.

UC.13554

Retouched tertiary blade with a facetted platform struck from a dual platform core from Thebes. 116x36x11 mm.

UC.13555

Distal fragment of an endscraper made on a tertiary blade struck from a single platform core from Thebes, wady floor. 98x42x16 mm.

UC.13556

Endscraper made on a tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core found near Wadi Abu Marua. 119x43x16 mm.

UC.13557

Endscraper made on a tertiary blade struck from a single platform core from Thebes, in situ in 5 foot edge of wady. 66x32x10 mm.

UC.13560

End-scraper made on a tertiary blade with a flat platform struck from a single platform core from Thebes, older gravel terrace from Sebath (?) digging. 72x26x18 mm.

UC.13561

Endscraper made on a secondary flake with a facetted platform from Thebes, 'Tt'. 56x29x14 mm.

UC.13563

Endscraper made on a tertiary flake with a facetted platform struck from a single platform core from Hammama. 51x54x8 mm. 199

UC.13564

Truncated-facetted piece from Thebes, cirque A in situ in gravel. 40x22x6 mm.

UC.13566

Retouched secondary blade from Wasif. 120x48x16 mm.

UC.13568

Truncated secondary blade with a cortex platform from Thebes, wady floor. 74x28x10 mm.

Unaccessioned

Broken and very rolled handaxe from Thebes, near camp, 50. 84x56x24mm.

Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Number of objects: Accession numbers: How obtained: Sites represented:

2 Z.38448.1 and Z.38448.2 Donated by Charles Seligman in 1921 Abydos and Thebes (Figure 9.1)

Z.38448.1

Abydos Levallois core

Z.38448.2

Thebes Levallois core

200

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Wendorf, F. 1999. Wadi Kubbaniya. In K.A. Bard (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, pp. 873-875. London and New York: Routledge. Wendorf, F. & C.H. Hill 1989. Report on Site E-83-2: a Ballanan-Silsilian site near the mouth of Wadi Kubbaniya. In F.W. Wendorf, R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya III: Late Palaeolithic Archaeology, pp. 679-696. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild 1975. The Paleolithic of the Lower Nile Valley. In F. Wendorf & A.E. Marks (eds.) Problems in Prehistory: North Africa and the Levant, pp. 127-169. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild (eds.) 1976. Prehistory of the Nile Valley. New York: Academic Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild (eds.) 1980. Prehistory of the Eastern Sahara. New York: Academic Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild 1989a. Summary and conclusions. In F.W. Wendorf, R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya III: Late Palaeolithic Archaeology, pp. 768-824. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild 1989b. Report on Site E-81-5. In F.W. Wendorf, R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) 1989. The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya III: Late Palaeolithic Archaeology, pp. 704-714. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F. & R. Schild 1992. The Middle Palaeolithic of North Africa: a status report. In F. Klees & R. Kuper (eds.) New Light on the Northeast African Past, pp. 39-80. Cologne: Heinrich Barth Institut. Wendorf, F., R. Said & R. Schild 1970. Late Palaeolithic sites in Upper Egypt. Archaeologia Polona 12: 19-42. Wendorf, F., R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) 1980. Loaves and Fishes: The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F.W., R. Schild & A.E. Close (eds.) 1984. Cattle-Keepers of the Eastern Sahara: The Neolithic of Bir Kiseiba. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F.W., A. Close & R. Schild 1987a. Recent work on the Middle Palaeolithic of the Eastern Sahara. African Archaeological Review 5: 49-63. Wendorf, F.W., A. Close & R. Schild 1987b. A survey of the Egyptian radar channels: an example of applied archaeology. Journal of Field Archaeology 14: 43-63. Wendorf, F., R. Said & R. Schild 1987c. Late Palaeolithic sites in Upper Egypt. Archaeologia Polona 12: 19-42. Wendorf, F.W., R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) 1989. The Prehistory of Wadi Kubbaniya III: Late Palaeolithic Archaeology. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press. Wendorf, F.W., R. Schild & A. Close 1993a. Middle Palaeolithic occupations at Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara east, Western Desert of Egypt. In L. Krzyzaniak, M. Kobusiewicz & J. Alexander (eds.) Environmental Change and Human Culture in the Nile Basin and Northern Africa until the Second Millennium BC, pp. 103-111. Poznan: Poznan Archaeological Museum. Wendorf, F.W., R. Schild & A. Close (eds.) 1993b. Egypt During the Last Interglacial: The Middle Palaeolithic of Bir Tarfawi and Bir Sahara. New York: Plenum Press. Wendorf, F., R. Schild, A.E. Close, H.P. Schwarcz, G.H. Miller, R. Grün, A. Bluszcz, S. Stokes, L. Morawski, J. Huxtable, C.L. Hill & C. McKinney 1994. A chronology for the middle and late Pleistocene wet episodes in the Eastern Sahara. In O. Bar-Yosef & R. Kra (eds.) Late Quaternary Chronology and Paleoclimates of the Eastern Mediterranean, pp. 147-168. Tucson: Radiocarbon. Wendorf, F., R. Schild, P. Baker, A. Gautier, L. Longo & A. Mohamed 1997. A Late Upper Paleolithic Kill-Butchery-Camp in Upper Egypt. Warsaw: Southern Methodist University and Polish Academy of Sciences. Wenke, R.J., P. Buck, J.R. Hanley, M.E. Iane, J. Long & R.R. Redding 1983. The Fayum Archaeological Project: preliminary report of the 1981 season. American Research Center in Egypt Newsletter 122: 25-40. 212

Winlock, H.E. 1936. El-Dakhleh Oasis: Journal of a Camel Trip made in 1908. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wiseman, M.F. 1999. Kharga Oasis, prehistoric sites. In K.A. Bard (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, p. 408-411. London and New York: Routledge. Wiseman, M.F. 2001. Problems in the prehistory of the Late Upper Pleistocene of the Dakhleh Oasis. In C.A. Marlow & A.J. Mills (eds.) The Oasis Papers 1: The Proceedings of the First Conference of the Dakhleh Oasis Project, pp. 15-25. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

213

214

Index of People Index of people represented in the collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum, and those involved in the history of Palaeolithic research in Egypt up to 1960. Lenormant, François Lepsius, Carl Lubbock, John

21 23-24, 76 3, 35, 50-53, 57, 67-69 77-78 1-2, 69, 151, 153-154 Balfour, Henry 34 Beadnell, Hugh 156 Bell, Alexander 1, 151, 155-156 Bell, Archibald 1, 35, 151, 156-159 Bishop, William 9 Blackman, Alyward 14, 35, 76 Blanckenhorn, Max 49, 51 Bovier-Lapierre, Paul 31, 37 Boyd Dawkins, William 50-51 Breasted, James 24 Brugsch, Heinrich 19, 21, 34, 179 Budge, Wallis 49-52, 57, 69, 83-85 Caton-Thompson, Gertrude 24 Chabas, François 1-2, 7, 35, 37-38, 40-41, 46 Currelly, Charles 151, 159, 162-168, 194 1-2, 151, 168-169 Davies, Norman de Garis 31 Dawson, William 54, 69, 76-77 Debono, Fernand 169 Evans, Arthur 1, 31, 33, 37, 151, 169-173 Evans, John 1-2, 71, 85, 151, 172-177 Evans-Pritchard, Edward 1, 33-34, 151, 172, 177 Forbes, Henry 49-50, 52 Gardner, Elinor 1-2, 74, 151, 177-179 Garstang, John 52 Grace, Lieutenant 19-20, 52 Grenfell, Francis 32, 179 Griffith, Francis 1, 34-35, 46, 76, 151 Hall, Harry 179-181 23-24, 76 Hamy, Théodore 1, 27, 46, 69, 76, 170-171 Haynes, Henry 52 Huzayyin, Suliman 19, 29 Lacau, Pierre 31 Lajard, Joseph Amer, Mustafa Arcelin, Adrien Arkell, William

Mace, Arthur MacIver, David Mariette, Auguste Maspero, Gaston Morgan, Jacques de Murray, George Naville, Edouard Ouvry, Frederic Petrie, Flinders

Pitt Rivers, Augustus Porch, Montague Quibell, James Read, Charles Richard, Abbé Ruffer, Marc Rustafjaell, Robert de Sandford, Kenneth Schweinfurth, Georg Seligman, Brenda Seligman, Charles Seton-Karr, Heywood Sterns, Frederic Sturge, Allen Vignard, Edmond

215

23-34, 69, 76 24 1, 24-27, 46, 76, 170, 172 179 1-2, 151, 181-182 1-2, 151-152, 181, 183-192 17, 23-24, 27 17, 19, 22 33, 46, 49 3, 40-42, 80-81, 95, 129 131 10, 34, 159, 179 172 2, 5, 7-9, 14-15, 31-35 38-40, 46, 49, 51-53, 69 156, 159, 168, 177, 181 192, 194 1, 27-32, 46, 76, 153, 170 179, 192 2, 39, 46, 156 1-2, 151, 192-193 34 24 1-2, 151, 193-195 35-36, 46, 76 3, 35, 50-53, 57, 67-69 71-72, 77-78 11-14, 35, 76-77, 129, 131 2, 5, 7-9, 15, 46 1-3, 5-15, 17, 19-20, 35 37-38, 40-46, 50, 71 95-149, 151, 173, 187-200 2, 33-34, 46, 52, 54, 76-77 79, 82, 172, 177 38, 40, 42, 80, 129, 135 141 37 46-49, 52-53

216

Index of Sites Index of Palaeolithic sites represented in the collections of Palaeolithic artefacts from Egypt in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Abydos

Beit Khallaf Deir el-Bahari Dendara Dungul Oasis Esna Faiyum Gebel Qatrani Giza Heita Hiw Kharga Oasis

Mahamid Maiyana Meir Mesaid Sidmant Taxiba Thebes

8, 10-11, 18, 24, 33, 40, 45, 57 70, 73-75, 95-106, 121-128, 152 159-161, 170-171, 183-192 197-200 18, 73-75, 152, 177-179 35, 59, 153, 168-169 18, 32, 152, 183-184 53-54, 59, 66, 85, 152, 173, 177 18, 32-33, 38-39, 60-62, 77, 152 172 14-15, 49-51, 63, 66, 69, 71, 152 173, 176-177 71, 152, 173, 176-177 18, 32, 69, 152-154 96, 129-131 152, 183-184 19, 52, 54-55, 57, 59, 63, 66 82-83, 96, 145-146, 152, 173-176 181-182

Wadi Abu Had Wadi Abu Marua Wadi Belih Wadi Dib Wadi Hammama Wadi Mellaha Wadi Umm Selimat Wasif

217

40, 197-198 71, 96, 128 8-10, 71, 96, 128-129 96, 129 71, 96, 129 131 5-8, 11-14, 18, 24, 27-31, 33-35 37-42, 45, 52, 57, 59, 76-77 95-96, 106-128, 146, 151 153-159, 162-170, 172-173, 177 180-181, 192, 194-195, 197-200 79-80, 96, 131-132 80, 96, 131, 197-199 80, 96, 131-132 40, 59, 79-80, 96, 132-135 40, 80, 96, 135-141, 197-199 80, 96, 141 80, 96, 141 40, 80, 96, 141-145, 197-198 200