ing the age of the
Palaeolithic Egyptian weapons, as we have for the Neolithic period.
The historical (dynastic) period of Egyptian annals began with the
unification of the kingdom under one head somewhere about 4500 B.C. At
that time copper as well as stone weapons were used, so that we may say
that at the beginning of the historical age the Egyptians were living
in the "Chalcolithic" period. We can trace the use of copper back for
a considerable period anterior to the beginning of the Ist Dynasty,
so that we shall probably not be far wrong if we do not bring down the
close of the purely Neolithic Age in Egypt--the close of the Age of
Stone, properly so called--later than +5000 B.C. How far back in the
remote ages the transition period between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic
Ages should be placed, it is utterly impossible to say. The use of stone
for weapons and implements continued in Egypt as late as the time of
the XIIth Dynasty, about 2500-2000 B.C. But these XIIth Dynasty stone
implements show by their forms how late they are in the history of the
Stone Age. The axe heads, for instance, are in form imitations of
the copper and bronze axe heads usual at that period; they are stone
imitations of metal, instead of the originals on whose model the metal
weapons were formed. The flint implements of the XIIth Dynasty were
a curious survival from long past ages. After the time of the XIIth
Dynasty stone was no longer used for tools or weapons, except for the
sacred rite of making the first incision in the dead bodies before
beginning the operations of embalming; for this purpose, as Herodotus
tells us, an "Ethiopian stone" was used. This was no doubt a knife of
flint or chert, like those of the Neolithic ancestors of the Egyptians,
and the continued use of a stone knife for this one purpose only is a
very interesting instance of a ceremonial survival. We may compare the
wigs of British judges.

[Illustration: 014.jpg FLINT KNIFE]

We have no specimen of a flint knife which can definitely be asserted to
have belonged to an embalmer, but of the archaistic flint weapons of the
XIIth Dynasty we have several specimens. They were found by Prof. Petrie
at the place named by him "Kahun," the site of a XIIth Dynasty town
built near the pyramid of King Usertsen (or Senusret) II at Illahun,
at the mouth of the canal leading from the Nile valley into the
oasis-province of the Payyum. These Kahun flints, and others of probably
the s