ce maintained between the rows of beads, by several slips of wood,
bone, ivory, porcelain, or terra-cotta, pierced with holes, through
which ran the threads.

** The burying-places of Abydos, especially the most
ancient, have furnished us with millions of shells, pierced
and threaded as necklaces; they all belong to the species of
cowries used as money in Africa at the present day.

*** Necklaces of seeds have been found in the tombs of
Abydos, Thebes, and Gebelen. Of these Schweinfurth
has identified, among others, the _Cassia absus_, "a
weed of the Soudan whose seeds are sold in the drug bazaar
at Cairo and Alexandria under the name of _shishn_, as a
remedy, which is in great request among the natives, for
ophthalmia." For the necklaces of pebbles, cf. Maspeeo,
Guide du visiteur, pp. 270, 271, No. 4129. A considerable
number of these pebbles, particularly those of strange
shape, or presenting a curious combination of colours, must
have been regarded as amulets or fetishes by their Egyptian
owners; analogous cases, among other peoples, have been
pointed out by E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p.
189.

[Illustration: 073.jpg MAN WEARING WIG AND NECKLACES.1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I.
of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has
been completed.

Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of
costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs,
lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers
of flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed
or rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,--inoffensive enough
to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm,
crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**]
The plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at
a distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the
javelin, and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have
no proof however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with
the skill of the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to
bring it back to its point of departure.[v]

* In several museums, notably at Leyden, we find Egyptian
axes of stone, particularly of serpentine, both rough a