r Egypt.

(1) Cf. _Sumer and Akkad_, pp. 322 ff.; and for a full
discussion of the points of resemblance between the early
Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, see Sayce, _The
Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_, chap. iv, pp.
101 ff.

The latter line of contact is suggested by an interesting piece of
evidence that has recently been obtained. A prehistoric flint knife,
with a handle carved from the tooth of a hippopotamus, has been
purchased lately by the Louvre,(1) and is said to have been found at
Gebel el-'Arak near Naga' Hamadi, which lies on the Nile not far below
Koptos, where an ancient caravan-track leads by Wadi Hammamat to the
Red Sea. On one side of the handle is a battle-scene including some
remarkable representations of ancient boats. All the warriors are nude
with the exception of a loin girdle, but, while one set of combatants
have shaven heads or short hair, the others have abundant locks falling
in a thick mass upon the shoulder. On the other face of the handle is
carved a hunting scene, two hunters with dogs and desert animals
being arranged around a central boss. But in the upper field is a very
remarkable group, consisting of a personage struggling with two lions
arranged symmetrically. The rest of the composition is not very unlike
other examples of prehistoric Egyptian carving in low relief, but here
attitude, figure, and clothing are quite un-Egyptian. The hero wears
a sort of turban on his abundant hair, and a full and rounded beard
descends upon his breast. A long garment clothes him from the waist and
falls below the knees, his muscular calves ending in the claws of a bird
of prey. There is nothing like this in prehistoric Egyptian art.

(1) See Benedite, "Le couteau de Gebel al-'Arak", in
_Foundation Eugene Piot, Mon. et. Mem._, XXII. i. (1916).

Perhaps Monsieur Benedite is pressing his theme too far when he compares
the close-cropped warriors on the handle with the shaven Sumerians and
Elamites upon steles from Telloh and Susa, for their loin-girdles are
African and quite foreign to the Euphrates Valley. And his suggestion
that two of the boats, flat-bottomed and with high curved ends, seem
only to have navigated the Tigris and Euphrates,(1) will hardly command
acceptance. But there is no doubt that the heroic personage upon the
other face is represented in the familiar attitude of the Babylonian
hero Gilgamesh struggling with lions, which form