its
vitality and finish always exceed those of contemporary works. The
limestone school was probably the next best, to judge from the reliefs,
but hardly any statues of this school have survived; it probably was
seated at Memphis. The quartzite work from Jebel Ahmar near Cairo stands
next, as often very fine design is found in this hard material. The red
granite school of Assuan comes lower, the work being usually clumsy and
with unfinished corners and details. And the lowest of all was the
sandstone school of Silsila, which is always the worst. Broadly
speaking, the Lower Egyptian was much better than the Upper Egyptian; a
conclusion also evident in the art of the tombs done on the spot. But
the secret of the black granite school, and its excellence, is the main
problem unsolved in the history of the art. (W. M. F. P.)

_Tools and Material Products._

_Tools_ (see Illustrations 1 to 111).--The history of tools is a very
large subject which needs to be studied for all countries; the various
details of form are too numerous to specify here, but the general
outline of tools used in Egypt may be briefly stated under _general_ and
_special_ types. The _general_ include tools for striking, slicing and
scraping; the _special_ tools are for fighting, hunting, agriculture,
building and thread-work.

_Striking Tools._--The wooden mallet of club form (1) was used in the
VIth and XIIth Dynasties; of the modern mason's form (2) in the XIIth
and XVIIIth. The stone mace head was a sharp-edged disk (3), in the
prehistoric from 31-40 sequence date; of the pear shape (4) from S.D.
42, which was actually in use till the IVth Dynasty, and represented
down to Roman time. The metal or stone hammer with a long handle was
unknown till Greek or Roman times; but, for beating out metal,
hemispherical stones (5) were held in the hand, and swung at arm's
length overhead. Spherical hard stone hammers (6) were held in the hand
for dressing down granite. The axe was at the close of the prehistoric
age a square slab of copper (7) with one sharp edge; small projecting
tails then appeared at each end of the back (8), and increased until the
long tail for lashing on to the handle is more than half the length of
the axe in an iron one of Roman (?) age (13). Flint axes were made in
imitation of metal in the XIIth Dynasty (9). Battle-axes with rounded
outline started as merely a sharp edge of metal (10) inserted along a
stick (10, 11); they become