ABSTRACT
A BIlIEF consideration of the descriptions of 1'l'edynastic objects given in the preceding pages, and of the deductions which may be fairly made from them, will convince the reader that it is impossible to formulate any system of predynastic chronology, or even to assign any dates to the objects themselves, which shall be other than approximately correct. The antiquities referred to fall into two great classes, namely, those which are declared to be Palaeolithic and those which we may rightly assume to be Neolithic. The remains declared to be palaeolithic consist of flint implements, i.e., borers and the like, which have been found on high plateaux in the Nile Valley, and flakes of flint which General Pitt-Rivers discovered in Sit7t in the gravel stratum at the mouth of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. The great antiquity of the flint borers, etc., has been doubted, and they have been declared to belong to the period of the VIth or XIIth Dynasty,l but the archaeologist will have
112 THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD IN EGYPT
considerable difficulty in believing that in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, when the Egyptians were well acquainted with the art of working in metal, and when they possessed beautifully worked and finely-shaped flint knives for ceremonial purposes, there were people living on or near the plateaux close to their towns who were using in daily life flint borers and axe-heads of the types which are the result in other countries of man's earliest attempts to work flint, aml which represent his tirst step on the ladder of ci vilizatioll. In the matter of the flakes of flint which General PittRiven; found ,in sitn at Thebes there can be no reasonable ground for doubt as to their very great antiquity, for the knowledge and experience in such matters possessed by this eminent man were so great that his views must be accepted. AlIa to this the opinion of Sir .Tohn Evans on the extreme probability of the existence of a Palaeolithic Period in Egypt, and that of l\L .J. de Morgan, both of whom base their statements upon personal observation of Egypt and the remains of her ancient peoples, and the case for the extreme antiquity of the flints declared by them to be IJalaeolithic is complete. The neolithic remains are of' a much more varied character, and they reveal to us man under conditions which must be quite different from those under which he liyed in the Palaeolithic Period. nut although the remains of neolithic man in Egypt are so many and of such various kinds, we cannot group them chronologically, except in the vaguest
116 SEYFFARTH'S " RESTORATION" UNTRUSTWORTHY
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