The Production, Use

and Importance of Flint

Tools in the Archaic
Period and the Old
Kingdom of Egypt

Michał Kobusiewicz

Archaeopress Egyptology 12
A
B
 The Production, Use
and Importance of
Flint Tools in the
Archaic Period and the
Old Kingdom of Egypt

Michał Kobusiewicz

Archaeopress Egyptology 12
 Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Gordon House
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Oxford OX2 7ED
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ISBN 978 1 78491 249 9

ISBN 978 1 78491 250 5 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and M Kobusiewicz 2015

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 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� v
Chapter 1
Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1
1.1. The scope of the study...................................................................................................................................................................1
1.2. History of research.........................................................................................................................................................................2
Chapter 2
Production of Tools�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 6
2.1. Types of splintery rocks.................................................................................................................................................................6
2.2. Sources of raw materials...............................................................................................................................................................7
2.3. Lithic technology............................................................................................................................................................................7
2.4. Typology.........................................................................................................................................................................................9
2.5. Organisation of lithic production.................................................................................................................................................10
Chapter 3
Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom��������������������������������������������������������������������������13
Chapter 4
Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites�����������������������������������������������������������������������������26
4.1. The Dakhla Oasis..........................................................................................................................................................................26
4.1.1. Ain el-Gazzareen (Site 32/390/K2-2)..................................................................................................................................26
4.1.2. List of types for the site of Ain el-Gazzareen......................................................................................................................30
4.1.3. Watch-posts........................................................................................................................................................................33
4.1.4. The temple of Mut el-Khorab (Site 31/405 – G9 – 1).........................................................................................................38
4.1.5. Ain Asil................................................................................................................................................................................39
4.1.6. Comparison of sites from the Dakhla Oasis.......................................................................................................................40
4.2. Kom el-Hisn, the western Nile Delta............................................................................................................................................43
4.3. Elephantine..................................................................................................................................................................................48
Chapter 5
Comparison of Flint Assemblages Dated to the Old Kingdom:
Sites from Dakhla Oasis, Kom el Hisn and Elephantine����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������53
Chapter 6
El Kharafish�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56
Chapter 7
Three Lithic Complexes�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������58
Chapter 8
The Importance of Flint Tools in the Culture of Early Dynasties of Egypt������������������������������������������������������������������59
8.1. Economic importance..................................................................................................................................................................59
8.2. Ritual importance........................................................................................................................................................................59
8.3. Prestige........................................................................................................................................................................................60
Chapter 9
The Cognitive Potential of Flint Materials�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������61
9.1. Centralised rule............................................................................................................................................................................61
9.2. Acculturation...............................................................................................................................................................................62
9.3. External contacts.........................................................................................................................................................................64
Chapter 10
Continued Interest in Flint��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������66
Chapter 11
Conclusions�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������67
Figures���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������69
References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 141
Appendix
Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools used during the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
A Case Study of Kom el Hisn and Ain el Gazzareen��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147
Małgorzata Winiarska-Kabacińska

i
 List of Figures

Appendix: Figure 1. Kom el-Hisn. Blade for smoothing non-organic material (a – microscopic photo,
magnification 12x) and for plant cutting (b – microscopic photo, magnification 100x) ........................................... 152
Appendix: Figure 2. Kom el-Hisn. Blade with edge polish (a – microscopic photo, magnification 12x) used for
cereal cutting (b, c – microscopic photos, magnification 100x)................................................................................... 153
Appendix: Figure 3. Kom el-Hisn. Blade used for cereal cutting (a - microscopic photo, magnification 12x, b -
microscopic photo, magnification 100x) ..................................................................................................................... 154
Appendix: Figure 4. Kom El-Hisn. Blade used for plant cutting (a - microscopic photo, magnification 12x, b -
microscopic photo, magnification 100x)...................................................................................................................... 155
Appendix: Figure 5. Kom el-Hisn. Blade used for cereal cutting (a, b – microscopic photos, magnification 100x) ......... 156
Appendix: Figure 6. Kom el-Hisn. Blade with modified edges caused by hard material processing (microscopic
photo, magnification 12x). ..................................................................................................................................... 157
Appendix: Figure 7. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knife with modified edges caused by hard material processing
(microscopic photo, magnification 12x) ................................................................................................................. 157
Appendix: Figure 8. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 6 heavy duty scrapers...................................................................................... 158
Appendix: Figure 9. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 7 heavy duty scrapers; 8 - 11 nosed scrapers.................................................. 159
Appendix: Figure 10. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 7 end scrapers; 8 - 9 bifacial knifes................................................................ 160
Appendix: Figure 11. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 5 bifacial knifes; 6 - 9 flat scrapers ................................................................ 161
Appendix: Figure 12. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 4 flat scrapers; 5 - 11 massive rectangular sickle inserts; 12 bifacial knife... 162
Appendix: Figure 13. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 10 massive rectangular sickle inserts; 11 - 17 massive triangular sickle
inserts........................................................................................................................................................................... 163
Appendix: Figure 14. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 4 massive triangular sickle inserts; 5 - 12 lamellar sickle inserts; 13 - 14
half-products of lamellar sickle inserts........................................................................................................................ 164
Appendix: Figure 15. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 bifacially retouched projectile point; 2 - 4 groovers; 5 - 6 double backed
perforators; 7 perforator; 8 - 9 scaled pieces............................................................................................................... 165
Appendix: Figure 16. Ain el-Gazareen. Massive triangular sickle inserts with traces of use-polish (a, b –
microscopic photos, magnification 12x)...................................................................................................................... 166
Appendix: Figure 17. Ain el- Gazareen. Massive rectangular sickle inserts with traces of use-polish (a, b –
microscopic photos, magnification 12x, c- microscopic photo of plant processing photo, magnification, pow.
200x)............................................................................................................................................................................. 167
Appendix: Figure 18. Ain el-Gazareen, Lamellar sickle insert (microscopic photo, magnification 200x).......................... 168
Appendix: Figure 19. Ain El-Gazzareen. Groovers and perforator with traces of boring hard material .......................... 168
Figure 1. Metrical data on rectangular sickle blades from Kom el-Hisn, Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil and Elephantine
(measurements in mm). Measurements for Ain Asil are given for the most numerous group of sickle blades
at the site, made of auburn and black-coloured (silex marron et noir) flint (according to Midant-Reynes 1998,
fig. 7; for Elephantine according to Hikade 2013)..........................................................................................................16
Figure 2. Comparison of measurements and proportions of rectangular sickle blades of the Predynastic period
and the Old Kingdom (Nagada, Hamemieh, Badari according to Holmes 1989, Ain Asil according to Midant-
Reynes 1998, Elephantine according to Hikade 2013)...................................................................................................17
Figure 3. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Absolute and percentage frequencies of types of cores...........................27
Figure 4. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Metrical data on cores (measurements in mm).......................................28
Figure 5. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types.........................29
Figure 6. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Metrical data on debitage (measurements in mm)..................................30
Figure 7. Ain el-Gazzareen. Absolute and percentage frequencies of particular types of retouched tools along
with the absolute and percentage frequencies of burnt pieces calculated within particular types ............................31
Figure 8. Ain el-Gazzareen. Type and location of retouch on sickle blades.........................................................................33
Figure 9. Ain el-Gazzareen. Absolute and percentage frequencies of particular types of raw materials counted for
each type of retouched tools.........................................................................................................................................34
Figure 10. Seth Hill. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types....................................................................35
Figure 11. Seth Hill. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools..................................................................36
Figure 12. Bee’s Lookout. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types...........................................................37
Figure 13. Bee’s Lookout. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools.........................................................38
Figure 14. Ain Asil. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools (according to Midant-Reynes 1998)..........41
Figure 15. Comparison of flint inventories recovered from the late Old Kingdom sites in the Dakhla Oasis. XXX –
very frequent, XX – frequent, X – scarce........................................................................................................................42
Figure 16. Kom el-Hisn. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types..............................................................44
Figure 17. Kom el-Hisn. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types.....................................................................44

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Figure 18. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knifes. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different raw materials.........................45
Figure 19. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knifes. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different types of blanks......................45
Figure 20. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of the location of retouch..........................45
Figure 21. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different raw materials..........................46
Figure 22. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different types of blanks........................46
Figure 23. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Different sections for blades used for sickle production........................................46
Figure 24. Comparison of percentages of different tool types from selected sites. Percentages based on the total
number of tools (Helwan, Elephantine, Giza, Ibrahim Awad and Ain Asil according to Hikade 2005. For Ain el-
Gazzareen and Kom el-Hisn see this volume.................................................................................................................48
Figure 25. Elephantine. Northern Group. Types of raw material (according to Hikade 2013)............................................48
Figure 26. Elephantine. Northern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types (according to
Hikade 2013)..................................................................................................................................................................49
Figure 27. Elephantine. Northern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types (according to Hikade
2013)..............................................................................................................................................................................50
Figure 28. Elephantine. Southern Group. Types of raw material (according to Hikade 2013)............................................50
Figure 29. Elephantine. Southern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types (according to
Hikade 2013)..................................................................................................................................................................51
Figure 30. Elephantine. Southern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types (according to Hikade
2013)..............................................................................................................................................................................52
Figure 31. Comparison of flint inventories from Kom el-Hisn, the Dakhla Oasis and Elephantine. XXX – very
frequent, XX – frequent, X – scarce. (Elephantine according to Hikade 2013)..............................................................54
Figure 32. The percentage frequencies of major types of flint tool from watch-posts Seth Hill and Bee’s Lookout.
Compare to Figure 25.....................................................................................................................................................55
Figure 33. El Kharafish 02/5-1. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types. (according to Riemer 2011b)..........57
Figure 34. Similarities and differences between flint inventories from the sites of Ain el-Gazzareen and El
Kharafish (according to H. Riemer 2011a).....................................................................................................................64
Figure 35. Map of sites mentioned in the text. 1 Tell el Fara’in/Buto; 2 Kom el Hisn; 3 Tell el Iswid; 4 Tell Ibrahim
Awad; 5 Tell el Farkha; 6 Abu Rawash; 7 Giza; 8 Abusir; 9 Heluan; 10 Dahshur; 11 Fayum; 12 Wadi Sheikh;
13 Beni Hassan; 14 Abydos; 15 Umm el Qaab; 16 Elefantyna; 17 Ain el Gazzareen; 18 Ain Asil; 19 Mut el
Khorab; 20 Dakhla, strażnice w oazie; 21 Dakhla, strażnice poza oazą; 22 El Kharafish; 23 Gilf el Kebir.....................69
Figure 36. Bifacial knife type 2 (Abydos, according to Hikade 1997). .................................................................................70
Figure 37. Bifacial knife type „fish teil” type 1 (Abydos, tomb U-127, according to Hikade 1996). ...................................71
Figure 38. 1- Bifacial knife type 3 (Saqqara, according to Macramallah 1940); 2- bifacial knife type 4 (according to
Kromer 1978); 3-4 bifacial knifes worn by grainding (Abydos, according to Svoboda 2006)........................................72
Figure 39. Bifacial knife type 5 (Ain Asil VI dynasty, according to Midant-Reynes 1998)....................................................73
Figure 40. Scene of dividing a cow’s carcass using bifacial knife. (Saqqara, mastaba of Ptahetep, V dynasty,
according to Davies 1901)..............................................................................................................................................73
Figure 41.1-9 Rectangular sickle blades 1-4 Kom el Hisn; 5-7 Ain el Gazzareen; 8-9 Ain Asil (according to Midant-
Reynes 1998)..................................................................................................................................................................74
Figure 42. 1-3 half-finished sickle blades, 4 wooden sickle with visible row of sickle blades.............................................75
Figure 43. 1 Scene of harvesting by sickle with flint inserts (Tomb of Sennediem, XIX dynasty, according to
Tristant 2009); 2 reconstruction of hafting sickle inserts based on traces of bitumite (Middle east, according
to Cauvin 1973)..............................................................................................................................................................76
Figure 44. 1-5 masive rectangular sickle blades; 6-7 massive triangular sickle blades.......................................................77
Figure 45. 1-5,9 bitruncated regular blade tools („rasor blades”) older phase (Saqqara, according to Macramallah
1940); 6-8, 10 bitruncated regular blade tools („rasor blades”) younger phase (Elephantine, according to
Hikade 2002); ................................................................................................................................................................78
Figure 46. 1 massive scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 2 flat scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 3 scraper with denticulated
edge (Ain Asil, according to Midant-Reynes 1998)........................................................................................................79
Figure 47. 1 flat scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 2 triangular scraper (Tell el Fara’in/Buto, according to Schmidt 1992b;
3-5 end-scrapers (3-4 Ain el Gazzareen, 5 Ain Asil (according to Midant-Reynes 1998)...............................................80
Figure 48. 1 crescent shaped drill (Tell el Fara’in/Buto (according to Schmidt 1986); 2-5 microperforators (Ain el
Gazzareen); 6-8 notches (Ain el Gazzareen)..................................................................................................................81
Figure 49. 1-2 nosed scrapers (Ain el Gazzareen); 3-5 tanged arrow heads (3,5 Ain el Gazzareen); 6-7 bifacially
retouched arrow heads (6 – Abydos, tomb of Djer, according to Hikade 2003; 7 – Ain el Gazzareen); 8
trapezoidal arrow head (Elephantine, according to Katthagen 1985)...........................................................................82
Figure 50. 1-5 borers (Ain el Gazzareen); 6-7 denticulates (6 – Ain Asil, according to Midant-Reynes 1998, 7 – Ain
el Gazzareen)..................................................................................................................................................................83
Figure 51. 1,3 strangled pieces (1 – Ain Asil, according to Midant-Reynes 1998, 3 – Ain el Gazzareen); 2,4 scaled

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 pieces (Ain el Gazzareen); 5-6 retouched flakes (Ain el Gazzareen); ...........................................................................84
Figure 52. 1-4 burins (Elephantine, according to Katthagen 1985); 5 backed piece (Helwan, according to Hikade
2005); 6-7 bracelets of flint (6 – Tell el Fara’in/Buto, according to Schmidt 1992b), 7 – Elephantine (according
to Katthagen 1985).........................................................................................................................................................85
Figure 53. Axe (Giza, afer Kromer 1978)..............................................................................................................................86
Figure 54. Hoe (Ain el Gazzareen)........................................................................................................................................87
Figure 55. Pebble tool (Dahshur).........................................................................................................................................88
Figure 56. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 cores.................................................................................................................................89
Figure 57. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 cores.................................................................................................................................90
Figure 58. Type list. 1 - bifacial knife; 2 – rectangular sickle blade; 3 – triangular sickle blade; 4 – half-finished
sickle blade; 5 – massive rectangular sickle insert; 6 – massive triangular sickle insert; 7 – massive scraper; 8
– flat scraper; 9 – end-scraper; 10 – nosed scraper; 11 – rabot; 12 – crescent shaped drill; 13 – tanged arrow
head; 14 – bifacially retouched arrow head; 15 – micro-perforator; 16 – borer; 17 – notch; 18 – denticulate
tool; 19 – strangled piece; 20 – scaled piece; 21 – axe; 22 – hoe; 23 retouched blade; 24 – retouched flake.............91
Figure 59. Ain el Gazzareen, bifacial knife...........................................................................................................................92
Figure 60. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 bifacial knifes....................................................................................................................93
Figure 61. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 worn bifacial knifes..........................................................................................................94
Figure 62. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 fragments of bifacial knifes..............................................................................................95
Figure 63. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 worn bifacial knifes..........................................................................................................96
Figure 64. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-9 rectanglar sickle blades....................................................................................................97
Figure 65. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 triangular sickle blades; 4-6 half-finished sickle blades; 7-8 massive rectangular
sickle blades...................................................................................................................................................................98
Figure 66. Ain el Gazzarn, 1-8 massive rectangular sickle blades........................................................................................99
Figure 67. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 massive triangular sickle blades..................................................................................... 100
Figure 68. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 masive scrapers.............................................................................................................. 101
Figure 69. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 flat scrapers.................................................................................................................... 102
Figure 70. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 flat scrapers.................................................................................................................... 103
Figure 71. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 end-scrapers................................................................................................................... 104
Figure 72. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 nosed scrapers............................................................................................................... 105
Figure 73. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 rabots............................................................................................................................. 106
Figure 74. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,4 crescent shaped drills; 2,5 tanged arrow heads; 3,6 bifacially retouched arrow
heads, 7 retouched flake.............................................................................................................................................. 107
Figure 75. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-9 micro-perforators; 10-12 noches................................................................................... 108
Figure 76. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-8 borers............................................................................................................................. 109
Figure 77. Ain el Gazareen, 1-6 denticulate tools.............................................................................................................. 110
Figure 78. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,3 strangled pieces; 2,4-6 scaled pieces............................................................................. 111
Figure 79. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,4 retouched blades; 2,3,5 retouched flakes...................................................................... 112
Figure 80. Dakhla Oasis. Location of watch-posts. 1- Seth Hill; 2 – Bee’s Lookout; 3 – Nephtys Hill; 4 – Trigpoint
Hill; 5 – Meidum Hill; 6 – Darb el Tawil; 7 – E-99/38, E-99/39; 8- El Kharafish............................................................ 113
Figure 81. Seth Hill. 1-2 cores; 3 Double patinated Middle Palaeolithic levallois core..................................................... 114
Figure 82. Seth hill. 1 sickle blade; 2 massive triangular sickle blade; 3 flat scraper, 4 massive scraper ........................ 115
Figure 83. Seth Hill. 1 end scraper; 2-3 tanged arrow heads; 4 retouched flake; 5 microperforator; 6 borer ; 7
denticulated tool; 8 notch; 9 scaled piece. 1,6-7 and 9 are double patinated Midlle Palaeolithic tools.................... 116
Figure 84. Bee’s Lookout. Core of chalcedony................................................................................................................... 117
Figure 85. Bee’s Lookout. 1-2 cores; 3,5 flat scrapers; 4 massive scraper; 6 mikroperforator; 7 borer. Number 4 is
double patinated Middle Palaeolithic tool................................................................................................................... 118
Figure 86. Bee’s Lookout. 1-2 borers; 3 crescent shaped drill; 5 denticulated tool; 6 scaled piece; 4,7 retouched
flakes............................................................................................................................................................................. 119
Figure 87. Kom el Hisn. 1 core; 2 obsidian core; 3 notch; 4 borer; 5-6 truncations.......................................................... 120
Figure 88. Kom el Hisn. 1,3 fragments of bifacial knife; 2 – burin; 4 flat scraper.............................................................. 121
Figure 89. Kom el Hisn. 1-9 rectangular sickle blades........................................................................................................ 122
Figure 90. Kom el Hisn. 1-3 rectangular sickle blades; 4-6 triangular sickle blades, 7-10 half- finished sickle blades...... 123
Figure 91. Kom el Hisn. 1 end scraper; 2 retouched flake; 3 retouched blade.................................................................. 124
Figure 92. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-4 cores (according to Riemer 2011a)................................................................................ 125
Figure 93. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-3 scrapers with flat retouch; 4-7 scrapers with steep retouch (according to Riemer
2011a)........................................................................................................................................................................... 126
Figure 94. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-2 scrapers made on Middle Palaeolithic double patinated flakes; 3-9 borers
(according to Riemer 2011a)........................................................................................................................................ 127
Figure 95. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-3 perforators; 4-5 denticulated tools; 6-7 noches (according to Riemer 2011a)............. 128
Figure 96. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-2 bifacially retouched arrow heads; 3 Ounan point; 4-6 fragments of knifes; 7

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 retouched blade; 8 truncation (according to Riemer 2011a). 4,7 and 8 seem to be rather sickle blades.................. 129
Figure 97. Beni Hasan. XII dynasty Manufacture of flint knifes: a Tomb 2; b Tomb 15, (according to Griffith 1896)....... 130
Figure 98. Eastern Desert. 1-2 heavy duty tools (according to Seton Karr 1905).............................................................. 131
Figure 99. Nodular flint...................................................................................................................................................... 131
Figure 100. Tabular flint..................................................................................................................................................... 131
Figure 101. Dahshur. Surface concentration of pebble flint.............................................................................................. 132
Figure 102. Naqlun. Layer containing pebble flints........................................................................................................... 132
Figure 103. Ain el Gazzareen. Hammerstone of quartz..................................................................................................... 133
Figure 104. Ain el Gazzareen. Cores................................................................................................................................... 133
Figure 105. Ain el Gazzareen. Bifacial knife....................................................................................................................... 133
Figure 106. Dakhla Oasis. Rite of bifacial knife on sandstone rock. .................................................................................. 134
Figure 107. Ain el Gazzareen. Rectangular and triangular sickle blades........................................................................... 134
Figure 108. Ain el Gazzareen. Half-products of sickle blades............................................................................................ 134
Figure 109. Ain el Gazzaren. Massive rectangular sickle inserts........................................................................................ 135
Figure 110. Ain el Gazzareen. Massive triangular sickle inserts........................................................................................ 135
Figure 111. Ain el Gazzareen. Massive scrapers................................................................................................................ 136
Figure 112. Ain el Gazzareen. Flat scrapers....................................................................................................................... 136
Figure 113. Ain el Gazzareen. Nosed scrapers................................................................................................................... 137
Figure 114. Ain el Gazzareen. Crescent shaped drill.......................................................................................................... 137
Figure 115. Ain el Gazzareen. Tanged arrow heads........................................................................................................... 137
Figure 116. Ain el Gazzareen. Bifacially retouched arrow heads....................................................................................... 138
Figure 117. Ain el Gazzareen. Microperforators................................................................................................................ 138
Figure 118. Ain el Gazzareen. Borers................................................................................................................................. 138
Figure 119. Ain el Gazzaren. Denticulated pieces.............................................................................................................. 138
Figure 120. Ain el Gazzareen. Scaled pieces...................................................................................................................... 138
Figure 121. Ain el Gazzareen. Strangled pieces................................................................................................................. 139
Figure 122. Dahshur. Pebble tool....................................................................................................................................... 139
Figure 123. Stone construction on the wathpost.............................................................................................................. 140

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to people and institutions that largely contributed to this book. Grateful thanks are due
to Anthony Mills, the director of the Dakhla Oasis Project, who kindly allowed me to analyse the rich Ain el-Gazzareen
materials; and Robert Wenke, the then director of the American Research Center in Cairo, who invited me to cooperate
in investigations at the site of Kom el-Hisn. I am most grateful to Olaf Kaper for trusting me with the materials from the
watch-posts located in the Dakhla Oasis, and to Colin Hope for permitting me to study the lithic inventory from the Mut
el-Khorab temple.

Thanks are also due to Clara Juthe for the possibility to examine the archaeological record from Ain Asil. Lesley and
Anthony Mills always created a nice and very friendly atmosphere and excellent working conditions in the Dakhla
Oasis. I am much obliged to Zbigniew Szafrański, the director of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the
University of Warsaw in Cairo, and to Katarzyna Szafrańska, for their hospitality in the Centre, which much facilitated my
study visits to Egypt. I am deeply indebted to the staff of the library of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, the library
of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale in Cairo, the library of the Nubian Museum in Aswan and the library of
the Collège de France in Paris for their assistance in exploring their book collections. I should also like to thank Andrzej
Ćwiek for reading and commenting the text with his Egyptological expertise. Last, but not least, thanks are due to Joanna
Sawicka for preparing tables, figures and her help in editing the text.

The book has been written as a project Nr NN 109 202538, financed by the Ministry of Science and Tertiary Education.
Owing to its financial support, I could conduct in-depth analyses of materials and explore the libraries of various
institutions in Egypt and Paris.

v
 Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1. The scope of the study
This book seeks to explore the issues of production, use
and importance of flint tools in the Archaic Period and the
Old Kingdom of Egypt, the epoch immediately following
the unification of pre-state organisms of Upper and Lower
Egypt into one political body; the early days of the long
reign of the pharaohs, the rulers of the Lower Nile valley,
eventually also of oases scattered over extensive areas of
deserts to the east and west of the valley and of Sinai.
The study encompasses the Archaic Period, known also as
the Early Dynastic Period, and the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
Their precise chronological frameworks, notably of the
former one, have been widely discussed in the subject
literature, albeit there is no space here to do this debate
justice. When exactly the Archaic Period dawned remains
a particularly contentious issue. The Egyptian state is
most frequently defined as starting c. 3100 BC, when
Aha, the first pharaoh of Dynasty I, acceded to the throne
and established the capital at Memphis. This moment
marks the commencement of the historical era of Egypt.
The Archaic Period comprises the reign of dynasties I
and II, the end of which falls at 2686 BC (Wenke 2009).
Some Egyptologists include Dynasty III in the Archaic
Period (Wilkinson 2000), a possibly misguided opinion
considering that the dynasty displays features typical
of the Old Kingdom (Wenke 2009). It is consequently
assumed in this work that the Old Kingdom stretched from
the establishment of Dynasty III to the end of Dynasty
VI, that is to say from 2686 BC to 2181 BC. R. J. Wenke
(2009) includes here the Old Kingdom dynasties VII and
VIII as well. Having lasted for merely 21 years in total and
least known in our present state of knowledge, they are
generally taken to have been part of the First Intermediate
Period. This book therefore presumes that the Archaic
Period and the Old Kingdom spanned 414 and 505 years
respectively, thus accordingly the chronological scope of
this study covers 919 years.
The monograph explores and concentrates on rich flint
inventories attributable to the late dynasties of the Old
Kingdom especially thoroughly, and presents hitherto
unpublished materials from rich archaeological sites such
as Kom el-Hisn in the Western Delta, Ain el-Gazzareen
in the Dakhla Oasis and watch-posts set up in the Oasis
and in its vicinity. The analysis of the assemblages,
which also refer to the well-studied materials yielded by
contemporary archaeological sites such as Ain Asil from
the Dakhla Oasis and Elephantine in northern Nubia, was
1
conducted in accordance with the exhaustive list of types
compiled for the materials recovered from the settlement
site of Ain el- Gazzareen.
At the beginning of this period, the vast majority of
Egyptians dwelt in small settlements and lived by cultivating
wheat and barley as well as by breeding cattle, sheep, goat
and pig. Some hunting, fishing and gathering were done
but played a minor role in this agriculture-based economy.
Each village constituted a confined, self-contained world.
Remarkably, by the end of the Old Kingdom, Egypt had
burgeoned into a well organised, centralised state with an
efficient administration, a powerful army, its own writing
system and a developed economy; a state that was able to
erect its own, splendid architecture and prominent towns
(Wenke 2009). It is remarkable that in this advanced
civilisation, flint nonetheless retained its essential function.
Owing to the natural conditions, the boundaries of
the formation that came to be known as the Egyptian
state from its early days remained virtually unchanged.
Following the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Ancient Egypt spanned the Nile Delta and Valley upriver
to the 1st Cataract – today’s Aswan, then Abu, the Sinai
Peninsula and the Faiyum Oasis. Starting from Dynasty
IV, Egypt also ruled over two deserts, i.e. the Eastern and
the Western Deserts, or, to be exact, over large oases,
e.g. Faiyum, Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga, later
also the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert, and over large
wadis such as Wadi Hammamat and Wadi el-Sheikh in the
Eastern Desert. Egypt’s intermittent sway in the area of
Palestine or Nubia was too short-lived and weak for these
states to be included into the territory of the Egyptian state.
This book is an in-depth study of tools made of flint, which
unceasingly fulfilled a major role in the period under study.
Flint, occurring in a number of varieties, substantially
outnumbers other raw materials used for manufacturing
tools: chalcedony, obsidian, quartzite, carnelian or rock
crystal, all found in small or even minute amounts, which
attests to their minor role in the first periods of Egyptian
history. Notwithstanding a growing number of implements
made of copper, then bronze, flint tools constituted an
essential element of a broad-based culture, and not only
material culture, in the Archaic Period, the Old Kingdom
and beyond.
Initially in the form of beads, cooper has a history of
use in Egypt at least since the Neolithic Badari culture
(Krzyżaniak 1977). It is also found in the Naquada culture
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
(Ciałowicz 1999; Needler 1984). Copper ore was mined
from the pre-Cambrian formations on the coast of the Red
Sea, west of Gebel Zeit, from the early dynasties through
to the beginning of the Old Kingdom (Wilkonson 2000).
Requiring considerable expertise and marked by high fuel
consumption, copper metallurgy was very expensive, as
opposed to cheap and effective flintworking. Therefore, it
was not before the twilight of the Old Kingdom that flint
was gradually superseded by copper and bronze. Sickles
with flint inserts came to be replaced by metal equivalents
only by the end of the Late Iron Age, when iron became
inexpensive (Müller 1983). Flint nonetheless persisted and
there is an abundant archaeological record and a variety
of extant iconographic and written sources to evidence its
exploitation in the Middle and New Kingdom, and even
later, at least until the 1st millennium BC (Hikade 2000).
B. Midant-Reynes (1981) noted that flint, along with gold,
turquoise and lapis lazuli held a prominent position in
mythology as well as in beliefs and customs of Ancient
Egypt. The paramount importance of flint in the life of the
ancient Egyptians is brilliantly attested to by the grandeur
of flint mines at Wadi el-Sheikh, exploited at least down to
the end of the Middle Kingdom (Negro, Cammelli 2010).
B. Adams and K. Ciałowicz (1997) claim that the quantity
of flint artefacts in the Archaic Period decreases roughly
to ten per cent compared to the Predynastic period. I am
of the opinion that while the discrepancy between the
representation of this category of finds in the archaeological
record from both periods is undeniable, it was decidedly
far less extensive that the one suggested by Adams and
Ciałowicz. The authors’ statement supposedly refers to the
inventories from royal tombs or tombs of high officials
employed in the then capital towns. However, the analysis
of tool assemblages yielded by important, yet provincial
settlement sites dated to dynasties V and VI, such as Ain
Asil, Ain el-Gazzareen, both in the Western Dakhla Oasis,
Kom el-Hisn from the western Delta or Elephantine,
showed that copper objects were scarce, whilst flints
accounted for virtually 100 per cent of the raw materials
used for making tools.
In the past, archaeologists investigating the Archaic Period
and particularly the Old Kingdom had largely neglected
the problem of the production and use of flint implements.
It is only in the recent years that, together with the
growing realisation of flint’s significance in Egyptians’
life, economy, religion and even armed conflicts, an
increasing interest in the issue has been apparent in the
subject literature. The topic has nevertheless remained
largely unexplored and definitely needs to be further
elaborated upon. This book is therefore intended to be
the first comprehensive account of toolmaking and use
in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt. It
was based on published materials from a variety of sites,
both from investigations carried out at the turn of the 20th
century and subsequent excavations, specifically those
conducted in the last two decades of the 20th century and
the early 21st century. Flint inventories were recovered
from settlement sites and burial sites alike.
2
Recent advanced excavations at a few Old Kingdom
settlement sites have produced assorted, rich flint
inventories. As well as permitting more comprehensive
analyses of the typology of flint artefacts and the
manufacturing technologies than those from burial
assemblages, finds from settlement contexts shed some
light on the organisation of toolmaking. Furthermore,
lithic analyses evidence even such issues as centralisation
of administration and external relations throughout the
period of the first dynasties, and can be used to draw
an understanding of the processes of acculturation of
communities occupying the areas beyond the Nile valley,
ensuing from the colonisation by the State of the Pharaohs.
The analysed sites include Ain Asil and Ain el-Gazzareen
from the Dakhla Oasis, watch-posts located in the oasis and
in its vicinity, a nearby pastoral nomadic settlement site of
El Kharafish, a large settlement of Kom el-Hisn from the
western Delta, and Elephantine in Egyptian Nubia. The
foregoing sites largely provide a basis for exploring the
Old Kingdom flint industry.
Below I outline the history of field research at major
Archaic Period and Old Kingdom sites which yielded lithic
materials under study. It is worth noting that flint artefacts
held various research value for archaeologists, hence the
scarcity of such sites to be analysed. In earlier studies flint
materials were either completely disregarded or merely
hinted upon, site reports mentioning only specimens of great
aesthetic appeal, e.g., beautiful Predynastic bifacial knives
of the ripple-flaked type. Sadly, debitage went entirely
unnoticed in the course of investigations. While artefacts
from burial contexts were generally acknowledged, flint
finds from settlement sites were habitually overlooked
(Ciałowicz 1999; Conard 2000; Holmes 1989; Tillmann,
1999). This applies also to some extent to the area of
Palestine (Rosen 2014). Predynastic flint inventories
were typically so rich and constituted such a considerable
share of the archaeological record that they could not be
simply ignored (Buchez, Midant-Reynes 2007; Hendricks,
Midant-Reynes 1988; Holmes 1989, 1992;) as such they
stand in marked contrast to flint materials dated to the
Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom, overshadowed by
finds of other elaborate objects of high aesthetic value.
1.2. History of research
There is a widely held consensus that the research of the
antiquities of Egypt was inaugurated with the activity of
a group of scholars who travelled alongside Napoleon’s
army in the early 19th century. The first to take notice
of flint artefacts was A. Arcelin, in 1869. Once intensive
investigations of Egyptian antiquities began in the late
19th/early 20th centuries, the first to study flint finds fairly
thoroughly was J. J. M. de Morgan (1896). Interestingly,
in the last one hundred and twenty years there have been
two clearly marked peaks of research, which resulted in
recovering a considerable amount of ancient Egyptian flint
materials. The first one covers the period from c. 1890
to the mid-second decade of the 20th century, while the
second has lasted roughly from the early 1970s until now.

The publication of flint artefacts attributable to various
periods was pioneered by such scholars of the closing
two decades of the 19th century as J. J. M. de Morgan,
G. Ebers or F. Delanoue. An Egyptian scholar, S. A.
Huzayyn (1939), was the first on the territory of Egypt
to seriously, albeit timidly, investigate flint assemblages.
In the 1960s, some advancement in flint studies occurred
with the publication of the first synthesis of Predynastic
flint materials by E. Baumgartel (1960).
According T. A. H. Wilkinson (1999), serious exploration
of flintwork and flint implements’ usage can be said to
commence in Egyptology along with publications of
Polish researchers, mostly prehistoric archaeologists,
such as B. Ginter, A. Dagnan-Ginter, J. K. Kozłowski and
J. Śliwa (Dagnan-Ginter et al. 1984; Ginter et al. 1980;
Ginter, Kozłowski 1994).
There is no doubt whatsoever that the enhancement of the
quality of studies on flint inventories has largely ensued
from establishing professional relations between some
Egyptologists and prehistorians, whose expertise, methods
of investigation and analysis of flint inventories had
already been marked by excellence, and from the warmly
welcomed participation of the latter in Egyptological
research.
Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in the number of
published studies in the field, both comprehensive analysis
of particular flint assemblages (Briois, Midant-Reynes
2008; Hikade 1990b, 2000b, 2003a, 2003b, 2005, 2013;
Kobusiewicz 2007; Midant-Reynes 1998; Schmidt 1985,
1987,1992a, 1992b, 1996); works that seek to examine
lithic technology (Hikade 1997, 2008; Midant-Reynes
1983, 1984, 1985, 1987; Midant-Reynes, Tixier 1981); and
monographs of particular types of tools (Clark et al. 1974;
Hikade 2001, 2004). Last, but not least, a monograph on
the Predynastic lithic industry in the Upper Egypt has been
published by D. L. Holmes (1989).
A brief history of research at the most important sites to
yield flint materials attributable to the Archaic Period and
the Old Kingdom is outlined below. Principal investigators
of particular sites are mentioned, along with archaeologists
concerned with lithic production. Sites are given in
alphabetical order and their location is shown on the map
(Figure 35).
Abusir
Discovered in 1842 by K. R. Lepsius, the site is located
on the west bank of the Nile, ca. 2.5km north of Saqqara,
17km south of Giza. From 1898 to 1901, it was excavated
by a German Egyptologist L. Borchardt and in the years
1902–6 by other German researchers, i.e., G. Möller, H.
Ricke and F. von Bissing. Between 1976 and 1986, Czech
archaeologists supervised by M. Verner investigated
the Pyramid Complex of Raneferef in Abusir, dating to
Dynasty V, and then explored the Old Kingdom burial sites
of dynasties III-IV under M. Barta.
3
Production of Tools
Abu Rawash
The site is located north of Saqqara, at the north end of
Memphis and its Necropolis. In the years 1880–2, an
English Egyptologist, W. M. F. Petrie, conducted the
first investigation of the site, followed by L. Borchardt;
in the years 1898–1901 the site was excavated by É. G.
Chassinat, in 1912–13 by P. Lacau and, in 1922, by J.
P Montet. From 1957 to 1959, the latter’s research was
continued by A. Klassens, who discovered even more
mastabas and excavated a burial site dating back to
dynasties 0 and I. Between 1995 and 2007, a French-Swiss
expedition conducted excavations under the direction
of M. Valloggio, and in 2007, Y. Tristant unearthed a
Protodynastic necropolis; both worked on behalf of the
Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
Abydos
One of the longest-known and well-researched sites in
Egypt, notably its necropolises of the earliest dynasties, the
site is situated on the west bank of the Nile, on the edge of
the desert, 40km southeast of Sohag. In the 1860s, the site
was excavated by A. Mariette. The Abydos sites enjoyed
particular research interest in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. The site was investigated successively by É.
Amélineau, W. M. F. Petrie, E. R. Ayrton, J. Garstang ,
T. E. Peet, W. Kaiser and G. Dreyer, the last two from
the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Cairo. Engaged
in research at the site are also S. Harvey and J. Wagner.
Abydos has been recently investigated by American
researchers, namely D. O’Connor and M. Adams.
Ain Asil
The seat of the governor of the Dakhla Oasis at the times
of Dynasty VI, the site, discovered by A. Fakhry, lies in
the centre of the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert. The
site has been under excavation since 1977, research on
behalf of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale
directed by J. Vercoutter, then L. Giddy and presently by
G. Soukiassian and M. Wuttmann.
Ain el-Gazzareen
Located in the central-western part of the Dakhla Oasis,
the site was discovered by R. Fray in 1975. Since 1995,
the site has been investigated by the Director of the Dakhla
Oasis Project, A. Mills.
Dahshur
The site lies about 40km south of Giza. In 1843, K. R.
Lepsius drew a map of the area. In the years 1894-5,
research at the site was conducted by J. J. M. de Morgan.
In 1925, G. Jequier explored the Bent Pyramid. Between
1951 and 1955, A. Fakhry continued the investigations. In
1975, the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut launched its
research activity in the area, directed first by D. Arnold,
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
then, since 1980, by R. Stadelmann and now by S.
Seidelmeyer and N. Alexanian.
Elephantine
Elephantine is an island in the Nile, on the First Cataract,
located between Egypt and Nubia. The first investigations
were commenced in 1917 by P. Bovier Lapierre. Further
research on the island was carried out on behalf of the
Egyptian Antiquity Service in the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1968, W. Kaiser and G. Dreyer started years-long
excavations of structures of varying chronology on behalf
of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, in collaboration
with the Swiss Institute of Architectural and Archaeological
Research in Egypt. M. Ziermann and D. Raue participated
in the research.
Faiyum
Faiyum is an oasis located to the west of the Nile, 70km
south of Cairo. The area was first investigated in the early
20th century by H. W. Seton-Karr. In the years 1924–6,
the area was under extensive prospecting by English
researchers G. Caton-Thompson and E. Gardner, who
worked on behalf of the Royal Anthropological Institute;
they identified a number of sites with flint inventories
attributable to the Early Pharaonic periods. In 1978–86,
B. Ginter, A. Dagnan-Ginter, J. K. Kozłowski and J.
Śliwa from Jagiellonian University, Kraków, investigated
Protodynastic and Middle Kingdom sites in cooperation
with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. In 1999, T.
Herbich from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology,
Polish Academy of Sciences, conducted archaeomagnetic
surveys near the temple of Qasr el Sagha. Numerous
prehistoric sites in the depression were explored by
Italians, Americans and Poles.
Gilf el Kebir
It is a plateau in south-western Egypt. In 1980, E. Cziesla
at the University of Cologne investigated a camp of desert
pastoral nomads dated to the end of Dynasty VI.
Giza
Giza is another of most intensively researched locations
in Egypt. Most prominent researchers from across the
globe include G. B. Belzoni, who worked there in 1819;
H. Vyse and J. Perring (1837); K. R. Lepsius (1842–3); F.
A. Mariette (1859); W. M. F. Petrie (1880–81, 1907); G.
Ch. Maspero (1880–86); E. (1903–20); H. Junker (1912–
14, 1926–8); K. Kromer (1971–5); N. Conard (1988–9);
Egyptian archaeologists include Selim Hassan, Abu Bakr,
Ahmed Fakhry and W. S. Smith, who worked at the site in
the years 1946–7. Since the early 1990s, M. Lehner and
Z. Hawass directed the American and Egyptian missions,
respectively. Furthermore, G. A. Gaballa, E. Brovarski, P.
Der Manuelian, A. M. Roth and P. Janosi have recently
explored the area.
4
Helwan
The site, located ca. 25km southeast of Cairo, was
excavated from 1942 to 1954 by Z. Y. Saad. Since 1997,
investigations have been conducted by Ch. Köhler from
Macquarie University, Australia, at present in Vienna.
El Kharafish
The camp occupied by the community of the Sheikh
Muftah culture, located ca. 25km north of the Dakhla Oasis,
was excavated in 2002 by H. Riemer at the University of
Cologne.
Kom el-Hisn
It is a settlement site of a considerable size functioning in
Dynasty VI, located in the western Delta and investigated
in the seasons 1984, 1986 and 1988 under R. Wenke, the
then director of the American Research Center in Egypt.
Mut el Khorab
Research at the temple of Mut el Khorab, in the city of
Mut, the capital of the Dakhla Oasis, has been carried out
by C. Hope from the Monash University, Australia.
Saqqara
Saqqara is another of the richest and most widely excavated
sites. It is located ca. 30km south of Cairo. F. A. Mariette
is known to have been the first to work there, exploring
Serapeum in 1850. Saqqara was further excavated by G.
C. Ch. Maspero in 1886 and J. J. M. de Morgan in 1899.
W. B. Emery excavated Early Dynastic tombs during three
periods: 1935-8 (alongside Z. Y. Saad and A. Klassens),
1952–6 and in 1964; M. Z. Goneim worked there in 1952
and J. P. Lauer and J. Leclant since 1960. Currently Saqqara
has been investigated by a number of archaeologists,
to wit: K. Myśliwiec, at the Centre of Mediterranean
Archaeology, Warsaw University, who has been exploring
the area in the vicinity of the Pyramid of Djoser, including
the Old Kingdom tomb of the Merefnebef since 1997;
M. J. Raven from the Netherlands and Ch. Ziegler from
France. Among the Egyptian researchers, I should mention
S. Hassan, Abu Bakr, M. Z. Goneim and A. Fakhry.
Watch-posts at Dakhla
Remains of several watch-posts were found in the Dakhla
Oasis. ‘Seth Hill’ was excavated by O. Kaper in 2000
and 2004, and ‘Bee’s Lookout’ in 1999. O. Kaper worked
also at watch-posts named ‘Meidum Hill’, ‘Venus Hill’
and ‘Trigpoint Hill’. ‘Nephthys Hill’ was discovered by
M. Kleindienst in 1997. Watch-posts codenamed 99/38
and 99/39, located in the present-day desert about 25km
south of the village of Ain el-Gazzareen in the central-
western part of the Dakhla Oasis, were identified in 1999
by C. Bergman and unearthed in 2000 by R. Kuper and H.
Riemer at the University of Cologne.

Tell el Fara’in (Buto)
The site is located in the north-western Delta, about
40km south of today’s sea coast. In the 1960s, English
archaeologists V. Seton-Williams and D. Charlesworth
registered the archaeological record attributable to later
periods. In 1983-2007, the Predynastic to early Dynasty III
levels were examined by the Deutsches Archäologisches
Institut expedition, supervised by T. von der Way and then
D. Faltings. From 2001 to 2006, the area was explored by
French researchers.
Tell Ibrahim Awad
The site is located in the middle of the eastern Delta, ca.
130km to the north east of Cairo. Since 1986, research at
the site has been conducted by the Dutch expedition led by
E. K. M. Van den Brink and W. van Haarlem. Excavations
produced remains from the Predynastic period to the
Middle Kingdom inclusive, together with a burial site
from the time of the Dynasty I-II.
Tell el Iswid
Located in the western Delta, 40km to the north west of
the town Zagazig, the site was excavated between 1984
and 1987 by a Dutch researcher E. K. M. Van den Brink.
5
Production of Tools
Since 2006, the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale
has continued research at the site. In 2009, T. Herbich
conducted an archaeomagnetic survey in the area.
Tell el Farkha
Tell el Farkha is located in the central western Delta. In
the years 1987-9, research at the site was carried out by
Italians, under R. Fattovich and S. Salvatori. Since 1998,
this rich site dating to the Predynastic and Early Archaic
Period has been excavated by Poles from Jagiellonian
University, Kraków, and Archaeological Museum in
Poznań, under the supervision of K. Ciałowicz and M.
Chłodnicki.
Wadi el-Sheikh
The site is located east of the Nile, 160km south of Cairo. A
huge quarry, it was exploited virtually at least down to the
end of the Middle Kingdom. M. Blankenhorn prospected
Wadi el-Sheikh in 1898. H. W. Seton-Karr was the first
to explore the quarry in 1905. E. Baumgartel is known to
have been at the site in 1930. In 1981, G. Weisberger and
J. Kunkel investigated the area, and in 2009, G. Negro and
M. Cammelli conducted more extensive excavations at the
site.
 Chapter 2
Production of Tools
2.1. Types of splintery rocks
In the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom, rich varieties
of flint provided ancient Egyptians with the essential
raw materials for the production of chipped stone tools.
In the words of D. A. Stocks (2003), flint is a siliceous
rock; ranking 7 out of 10 on the Mohs’ hardness scale,
it is slightly harder than quartz. Flint occurs as nodules
in beds of Eocene limestone. Its eroded lumps, derived
from siliceous spicules of sponges, are often found on
the surface to be collected by people. Deeper-deposited,
larger and better-preserved flint nodules were quarried
from limestone rocks. The most suitable raw material for
making stone tools, flint nodules were knapped with a
hammerstone to detach flakes or blades with very sharp
edges.
Frequent in the subject literature is the term ‘chert’. Flint
is often referred to as chert and, likewise, chert repeatedly
goes by the name of flint. The denotative difference
between these two is difficult to explain. Nevertheless,
given that flint, in its various forms, stands as the most
common lithic raw material for manufacturing implements
throughout the periods under study, in this book a general
term ‘flint’ will designate both flints and cherts, irrespective
of terms used by other authors in their studies.
In ancient Egypt flint was represented by word kf
(pronounced kef or kaf) (Roth 1992) or ds (pronounced
def). Several words are believed to have denoted flint,
depending on the period and function of flint tools (Midant-
Reynes 1981). One word could have interchangeably
stood for flint and a flint knife. Flint is even noted in the
Pyramid Texts (Midant-Reynes 1985). Considering that
the word ‘flint’ is brought up by ritual texts down to the
Ptolemaic Period, it is no exaggeration to say that a king or
god would for two millennia stab their enemies with flint
(Midant-Reynes 1984).
In terms of quality and usefulness, flint raw material falls
into three varieties. The first one, nodular flint (Figure
99), comprises nodules collected from the surface,
typically spherical or irregularly oval, fairly small and
rarely exceeding 10cm in diameter. In accordance with the
Munsell Soil Color Card they can be described as mostly
brown in colour (10YR-5/3), but also pale brown (10YR-
6/3) or dark grey (10YR 4/1). Eroded from Palaeocene
limestone strata, nodules of raw flint are scattered in large
quantities on the surqfface of the plateau or at the foot
of the escarpments. They are also deposited on terraces
extending along the Nile valley and at the bottom of wadis
6
cutting through the terraces. In the process of natural
transport by wind and water, the surface of flint nodules
is smoothed and largely removed of cortex. This kind of
raw material was worked into small, simple tools for the
manufacture of which large blanks (blades and flakes)
were unnecessary.
The second type of raw material, occurring as few-
centimetre-thick flat sheets of still doubtful origin, is
commonly called tabular flint (Figure 100). Eminently
suitable for the manufacture of flat, oval or fan-shaped
scrapers, the so-called ‘tabular’ or ‘flat scrapers’ as
well as for the production of massive sickle inserts and
some larger tools, it was exploited on a massive scale in
the late Old Kingdom in the Dakhla Oasis. The Oasis is
bounded in the north by a high escarpment overlaid by the
Eocene limestone plateau; it is more than likely that it was
exploited as sources of tabular flint (Riemer 2011a). This
variety, sometimes caramel in colour, occasionally orange
or wine-coloured with a cherry shade (Kobusiewicz
2007; McDonald 1979-80), The surface of the slabs is
frequently covered with a smooth, whitish cortex with
sundry irregularities and small depressions. Most common
is a reddish yellow variety (5YR-6/6). Strong brown flint
(7.5YR-4/6) is fairly frequent, while reddish brown is
rare (2.5YR-3/4). Some researchers believe that the latter
colour resulted from flint being burnt in fire (McDonald
1993). Moreover, some scholars have purportedly located
its sources in Palestine and in the Negev (Rizkana, Seheer
1988).
Mined flint comprises the third type of raw material.
Identical in terms of physicochemical structure, this
variety was procured by quarrying to obtain better quality
raw material from deeper buried deposits. Flint-miners
exploited open-cast pits (Figure 102) or even dug shafts.
Mined flint nodules, covered with whitish stone cortex,
were characterised by a reduced amount of internal
cracks, and as such were a superior raw material for
the production of tools. Often larger-sized compared to
specimens collected from the surface, mined nodules were
accordingly better suited for the manufacture of larger
items. Such flint typically occurred in various shades of
brown in different hue variants: a light brown variety with
pink streaks (according to the Munsell Colour Chart 7.5
YR 5/3 brown) was used especially from the late Naqada
II to the mid- Dynasty II; medium brown of caramel hue
with whitish streaks (7.5YR 4/4 brown) was exploited in
Dynasty I; a very homogeneous dark brown variety of
chocolate hue (7.5 YR 4/3 brown) was in use since Dynasty
II. Procured from a wide range of sources, the foregoing

three colour variants of flint were exploited in different
periods, from the late Predynastic to the Archaic Period
inclusive (Hikade 2000a), and even later, throughout the
Old Kingdom, yet were never mutually exclusive. Such
flint was quarried from diverse types of mines and is
habitually called Egyptian; in this book, such flint, after
Hikade, is referred to as mined.
2.2. Sources of raw materials
Egypt is replete with flint-bearing locations. Flint nodules
eroded out of Eocene limestone, extending along the Nile
valley, were well-known and readily available. They are
found on the surface of limestone formations from Cairo
to Isna (Hikade 2000a) and on a high plateau near the
Faiyum Oasis, north of Lake Birket Qarun (Ginter 1985);
on the plateau near Abydos (Hikade 2000a); in the Eocene
formations near west Thebes (Debono 1971; Tillmann
1999); in an analogous formation Sin El Kaddab, about
80km south of Aswan (Kopp 2006) and in Dakhla and
Kharga oases in the Western Desert.
Raw flint was quarried from Eocene limestone for
example at Wadi el-Sheikh in the Eastern Desert, 160km
south of Cairo, where flint occurs in Eocene limestone
beds stretched along the wadi (Baumgartel 1960; Negro,
Cammelli 2010; Seton-Karr 1905; Weinberger 1987).
The Wadi el-Sheikh quarry is notable for the extensive
procurement of raw flint. Flint nodules were obtained both
from open-cast pits and shafts, the latter perhaps in later
periods. It is unsurprising considering that mine shafts had
been exploited in Nazlet Kater in Middle Egypt as early
as 33,000 years ago (Vermeersch et al. 1984). Wadi el-
Sheikh mine fields are estimated to be 8 x 2km in size;
huge piles of flint waste and hundreds of remains of mine
shafts revealingly attest to the massive scale of mining
works carried out on site. Raw material procurement has a
long tradition in the area; it started sometime in prehistory
and continued, at the very least, into the Middle Kingdom.
Substantial archaeological record evidences that flint-
knappers crudely worked flint nodules around the pits
and shafts and roughed out standardised, slender single
platform cores. The cores were used to remove quality
blades used as blanks for the production of sickle blades;
interestingly, the blades themselves are virtually absent
from Wadi el-Sheikh inventories (Negro, Cammelli 2010).
It is worthy of note that 90 per cent of flints recovered
from Old Kingdom layers at the site of Kom el-Ahmar,
located roughly 460km south away from the analysed flint-
mining site, were made of flint raw material procured from
Wadi el-Sheikh outcrops. Thus, Kom el-Ahmar inventory
bears ample testimony to the extensive distribution of raw
flint raw exploited at Wadi el-Sheikh (Pawlik 2006, after
Negro, Cammelli 2010).
Flint quarries not unlike those at Wadi el-Sheikh have
also been recorded at such sites as a nearby Wadi Sojoor,
dating from the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom, or
Abu Roash near Giza, exploited throughout the Pharaonic
7
Production of Tools
period (Tillmann 1999). Flint obtained from mines, more
hydric and less fractured, was certainly a higher quality
raw material compared to lumps collected from the surface.
Far less exploited in toolmaking was chalcedony, raw
material to be found in the area of Darb el-Arbain in the
Western Desert, where it occurs as nodules in playa deposits
(Said 1990), and obsidian, produced in small quantities by
such sites as Elephantine, Hierakonpolis, Abydos, Qau el-
Kebir, Tell el-Iswid, Tell el-Fara’in Buto, Kom el-Hisn, Tell
el-Farkha or Abusir el-Meleq. Considering that no obsidian
deposits have been identified anywhere in Egypt, the raw
material was assuredly imported, possibly from different
regions, although the areas of the African rift valley of
Ethiopia and Yemen look like the most likely sources of
obsidian imports (Hendricks, Bavay 2002; Wilkinson
2000). They were allegedly brought to Egypt via the Red
Sea and the Eastern Desert (Bavay et al. 2000). Analysis
of Predynastic obsidian artefacts recovered from Tell el-
Iswid and Tell el-Fara’in/Buto have demonstrated that
throughout the Lower Egyptian culture, the communities
inhabiting the Delta imported obsidian from the Middle
East, i.e., the region of present-day Turkey (Bavay et al.
2004).
In addition, tools were sporadically crafted from carnelian,
known from the Eastern Desert (Hikade 2000a; Kopp
2006), rock crystal (Adams, Ciałowicz 1997), or petrified
wood. Occasionally, perhaps when circumstances
precluded customary flint procurement, people tailored to
their specific needs flint implements from earlier periods
of prehistory, notably easily distinguishable flint artefacts
of Middle Palaeolithic origin (Figures 81:3; 85:3) to be
found in abundance scattered, e.g., all over the Western
Desert (Close 1996; Hikade 2013; McDonald 1996;
Kobusiewicz 2007; Riemer et al. 2005).
2.3. Lithic technology
The production of every single tool started with roughing
out the selected raw material. While the former tradition
of producing blades continued into the Predynastic and
Archaic Periods (Mączyńska 2013), the dominance of a
primitive flake technology, used for working nodular flint,
is apparent in the Old Kingdom Egypt.
The processing of raw flint typically began on the very
spot where it was obtained, be it on the surface where
flint lumps were collected, near open-cast pits or around
the tops of shafts in the case of underground mines. A
collected or mined flint nodule was initially roughed out,
its cortex thoroughly removed along with any unnecessary
fragments hampering further processing (Negro, Cammelli
2010; Weisberger 1987 ). Any nodules disintegrating due
to internal cracking were readily discarded at this phase.
That flint nodules brought to settlement sites were already
roughly prepared is attested to by the lack of unworked
pieces, crude cores or primary debitage, i.e., flakes
completely or largely covered with cortex at such sites. All
were purposely left at a mine with a view to facilitating
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
transportation. Nodules were further worked depending on
the type of implement to be manufactured.
Flintwork technological procedures fall into five general
types. In the first place, flake technology was used solely
for working nodular flint. Exploited were single platform
cores, which gradually, as the processing continued,
turned into irregular multiplatform cores. There was
little core shaping, and a striking platform, sides and
a back were invariably left unworked. Consequently,
cortex surfaces were often used as striking platforms.
Considering that cores were flaked at random directions,
multiplatform cores are most common (Figures 56: 1-3;
57: 1-4; 104). Flint knappers frequently discarded cores
having detached one or a few flakes, therefore initial cores
are found in considerable quantities. Heavily exhausted
cores are occasionally recovered, notably from watch-
posts (Figures 81:2; 85:1-2). Both hard and soft hammers
were in use, the former primarily during the initial phases
of core processing. The above-described technology was
employed to remove flakes, typically random and of
various shapes, fashioned into simple retouched tools of
generally smaller sizes.
Of a fundamentally different type was core technology,
used for processing tabular flint. This variety of flint was
never roughed out to produce cores; instead, a selected
piece of a slab was trimmed, or ‘carved’, to produce tools,
mostly larger pieces, such as various types of scrapers
(Figures 46: 1-3; 111-112) and massive rectangular and
triangular sickle inserts (Figures 44:1-5; 109-110).
Lithic technology of bifacial retouch was used in
subsequent phases of bifacial knives production (Figures
36-37; 39; 105). Midant-Reynes (1998) is of the opinion
that bifacial knives found at Ain Asil were imported
specimens. It is noteworthy, however, that Ain el-
Gazzareen yielded a fairly considerable amount of waste
flakes from the process of bifacial knives production and
the temple of Mut el-Khorab even more. The site of Ain
Asil produced admittedly a smaller, yet fair, quantity of
bifacial trimming flakes. Therefore, it is highly reasonable
to conjecture that bifacial knives were produced at these
sites or, at the very least, that they were repaired. Ain
el-Gazzareen (Figures 61:1-2; 63:1-4) or Abusir yielded
knives which were recurrently re-sharpened to the effect
that they became heavily worn, further providing strong
evidence that repairs were done on site.
The fourth technological variant pertains to working a
discoidal core. Its striking surface was exploited by a series
of concentric circular blows forming a round, slightly
convex striking surface; this technology produced more or
less regular flakes. The only known find is a chalcedony
core found at Bee’s Lookout watch-post (Figure 84).
Both Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil yielded implements
produced by dint of the fifth type of lithic technology. Par
pression technology was used to strike regular, slender
blades off a single platform core (Figures 42:1-3; 65:
8
4-6; 108). All such quality blades are made from mined
flint, which is absent in inventories, from both exhausted
cores and from manufacturing debris. Produced as blanks
for the manufacture of sickle blades, the blades were
supplied to settlement sites, where they were shaped into
rectangular (Figures 41: 1-9; 107) and triangular (Figures
65: 1-3; 107) sickle blades. Artefacts shaped using par
pression technology were found at such Archaic sites
as the tomb of Hemaka of Dynasty I in Saqqara (Emery
1938); Abu Roash and Abusir of Dynasty I; Abydos and
Giza of dynasties I-II, Ain Asil (Midant-Reynes 1998),
Ain el-Gazzareen (Kobusiewicz 2007) and Kom el-Hisn
of Dynasty VI (Kobusiewicz 1988, 2015).
Some researchers would argue that the above list of
technologies should take account of a sixth one, allegedly
employed by flint knappers from the Dakhla Oasis,
called a counter shock technique, purportedly consisting
of removing heavily rippled flakes by knapping a lump
of raw material set on a hard stone base with a hard
hammer. Using counter shock technique for toolmaking is
supposedly evidenced by the occurrence of scaled pieces
(Figures 51: 2,4; 86: 6, 120), usually regarded to be a
type of cores trimmed by dint of this technique, as well
as scaled flakes. I am of the opinion that scaled pieces do
not constitute the remains of a conscious process aimed
at obtaining scaled flakes, but were simply wedges used
for splitting various materials, such as wood and bone. As
such, they should be bracketed with implements.
Noteworthy are specimens from tabular flint exhibiting
traces of heat-treatment. In the late Predynastic and early
Archaic Periods, flint knappers heated raw material to
improve the quality of raw material (Hikade 2008; Holmes
1989, 1992, 1996; Inizan et al. 1975-1976; Schmidt 1996).
Identified in various locations of the old and new worlds,
this treatment was practised in Egypt for a long time in
the era preceding the periods under study (McDonald
1991). The question is whether heating was carried out
deliberately, in order to facilitate flint processing, or if
such artefacts accidentally fell into fire. It is significant,
however, that pieces made of nodular flint never display
any traces of having been exposed to fire.
Even if directly unrelated to the issue of technology,
methods of fixing flint knives and inserts into a haft
or handle should not be overlooked while we explore
toolmaking in Egypt. Fairly well-examined in our present
state of knowledge are handles of bifacial knives from the
Predynastic and Archaic Periods, notably those specimens
which played a part in ritual practices or were perceived
as items of prestige. They were sometimes mounted into
an ivory handle, decorated with scenes depicting people
or some mostly unidentifiable animals, perhaps mythical
beasts (Huyge 2004). The tomb of the pharaoh Djer
of Dynasty I produced a knife with the pharaoh’s name
inscribed on a gold handle (Needler 1956). The knife from
Gobelein was hafted in gold alike (Quibell 1901). Judging
by the paintings from Beni Hassan, a handle or haft could
have been secured by having been tied with organic fibres

(Váchala, Svoboda 1989). It is more than likely than
handles from organic materials were commonly used.
To make a sickle, flint inserts were set in grooves carved
in wooden hafts (Figure 43: 2), and cemented using some
adhesive, i.e., resin, probably imported from the Middle
East, where bitumen was also used for this purpose (Marder
et al. 1995). An imported container with resin, probably
cedar remains, was discovered in the tomb of Djer. Further
coeval examples of using resin as an adhesive include a
sickle blade with remnants of bituminous adhesive from
Buto. Of the much later, early New Kingdom origin, are
two sickle blades with preserved gluing mass of limestone
gypsum found at Tell el-Dab’a in the eastern Delta. That
type of adhesive is unknown in earlier periods of Egypt, the
earliest examples of its use coming from Palestine, where
they were estimated to be dated to the 13th millennium BC
(Endlicher, Tillmann 1997).
2.4. Typology
A typological analysis of flint artefacts from both periods
under study should be performed using the principles of
châine operatoire (dynamic typology) (Leroi-Gourhan
1964). This method is based on proper identification of flint
artefacts, i.e., cores, debitage, tools, from the subsequent
phases of production and possible repairs of an implement.
The history of the production process can be thus
reconstructed from lumps of raw material, through the core
preparation phase, shaping a blank, final refinement into a
tool by retouching or other procedures, to end with a tool’s
death, that is to say the maximal exploitation or discard. If
we assume that lithic technology, i.e., step-by-step actions
of a person making an implement, was a permanent rule
of conduct, typical and traditionally passed on to future
generations within a particular human group, we may
endeavour to observe cultural differences and similarities
between different communities. In order for the dynamic
typology approach, or châine operatoire analysis to be
effectively employed, it is essential to analyse the entire
flint inventory from a given site. As well as analysing cores
at all stages of processing, we need to study the so-called
characteristic flint waste, such as platform rejuvenation
flakes, core tablets, crested blades of various sequence,
chips, flakes, and blades, along with manufacturing debris
typical for the production of particular implements, such
as burin spalls and microburins. It is most unfortunate
that flint inventories recovered from the sites examined in
this book lack such vital elements. Deemed insignificant,
they were simply neglected either already in the course
of investigations (layers were unsieved, thus small flints
got overlooked) or in published reports. The possibilities
of typological analysis are consequently reduced and any
typology must be unavoidably based on the analysis of
cores and blanks, i.e., blades and flakes, providing there
are any among ready retouched tools in various stages of
their use. To some extent, exceptional in this respect are
sites such as Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil and some watch-
posts in the Dakhla Oasis, Elephantine in northern Nubia
and Kom el-Hisn in the Western Delta.
9
Production of Tools
Opportunely, the inability to use the method of dynamic
typology is not as problematic as it may seem in the case
of the analysis of the Archaic and the Old Kingdom flint
inventories of Egypt. The practical value of the method
lies in the possibilities of comparison it offers, allowing
archaeologists to seek similarities and differences between
innumerable, often spaced societies of various origin and
technological traditions; to draw an understanding of the
degree of relationships or isolation between such groups.
Châine operatoire analysis bears therefore particular
relevance for prehistoric times. This asset is not so
germane to the periods discussed in the book on account
of the circumstances prevailing in the then Egypt. Ancient
Egyptians were a largely unified population, including
their economic fundamentals and the resultant cultural
adaptation. Whilst an obvious choice in the study on the
unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, an issue, however,
not to be addressed in this book, a method of dynamic
typology is nevertheless useful for exploring the question
of acculturation of the communities of the Sheikh Muftah
culture from the Dakhla Oasis following the arrival of
Egyptians of Dynasty V from the Nile valley in the oasis,
which will be discussed below.
Any attempt to define the typology of the Archaic and
Old Kingdom flint artefacts is inescapably fraught with
serious difficulties. The reasons for this are manifold. In
the first place, the assemblages from the period are notable
for their rich variety. Assorted inventories were recovered
from settlement sites, cemeteries, watch-posts such as
the ones scattered around the Dakhla Oasis, mine fields
or temple premises, even if less numerous at the latter.
Each particular type of site fulfilled its own distinct role.
Implements were used by various social groups; hence,
the needs of farmers were at variance with those of high
officials, priests, guards occupying watch-posts or miners
extracting flint. Secondly, it is a common practise among
researchers compiling such lists of types to have different
types of tools combined into one type, e.g., denticulates
with notches or scrapers with end scrapers, thereby
hindering comparisons. Thirdly, lists of types published in
a number of mostly pre-war publications, do not take into
account such small tools as perforators, smaller borers or
burins.
Last, but not least, while we discuss the evolution of some
tool types, we should bear in mind that some specimens
may have been in use for a very long time, even for a
hundred years (Hikade 2004a).
Archaeologists handling Egyptian lithic materials brought
forward quite a few lists of types, largely for the purpose of
describing inventories from particular sites, for particular
types of implements, or for particular periods and regions.
The earliest and most numerous are lists of types prepared
for the sites attributable to the Archaic and Old Kingdom
periods. Lists of types compiled by W. M. F. Petrie for
Abydos (1902), and by W. B. Emery (1938) for the finds
from the tomb of Hemaka of Dynasty I in Saqqara provide
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
relevant examples. More recent lists were drawn up by
such authors as K. Schmidt (1992a), for Tell Ibrahim
Awad; B. Midant-Reynes (1998), for the sixth-dynasty site
of Ain Asil in the Dakhla Oasis; N. Conard (2000), for the
Old Kingdom materials from Giza; or T. Hikade (2005),
for the Archaic and Old Kingdom materials from Helwan
and Elephantine (Hikade 2013). Lists of types for the rich
inventories recovered from Ain el-Gazzareen, which also
lies in the Dakhla Oasis, are provided in chapter 7.1.2 of
the book.
As noted earlier, Egyptologists also attempted to create
lists analysing particular types of flint artefacts. Some
examples include A. Tillmann’s list (1992) presenting
types of sickle blades from the Predynastic period through
to the New Kingdom, lists appertaining to the typology of
flint arrowheads attributed to the Late Paleolithic through
to the New Kingdom of Egypt (Clark et al. 1974; Hikade
2001), or a list of Chalcolithic scrapers of the Early Bronze
Age chronology (Hikade 2004a).
With one significant exception, namely the publication
of materials from Elephantine (Hikade 2013), no general
typological studies have been attempted for the Old
Kingdom of Egypt as of yet. As regards the Predynastic
period, a list of tool types for the site of Maadi was
compiled by I. Rizkana and J. Seeher (1985); D. Holmes
(1989) drew up a comprehensive list of types for Upper
Egypt; and S. A. Rosen (1997) suggested a typology list
for the Levant, neighbouring Egypt.
With some notable exceptions, these lists concern merely
the typology of retouched tools or cores, ipso facto
ignoring debitage, which, as I previously stated, precludes
the application of the dynamic typology method for the
analysis of assemblages, or for that matter any comparison
between them.
All things considered, I shall not attempt to create an overall
list of types, which would comprise all flint materials
dated to both periods under discussion. The characteristics
of particular types used in the book is given in chapter 6.
A major weakness of the studies of flint inventories from
Egypt in terms of typology lies in the negligible amount
of traseological analyses. More intensive traseological
analyses should by definition enhance our knowledge on
the function of tools, thereby enabling the formulation of
more precise definitions of various types of implements.
Nonetheless, given the climatic conditions prevailing
in Egypt, whether such research would be successful in
this area is highly uncertain. Mineral salts contained in
site sediments cause salt weathering, bringing about the
destruction of flint surfaces and withering of finer use
wear traces. This process has been attested for artefacts
from the Egyptian Neolithic (Fojud, Kobusiewicz 1982),
albeit it is conceivable that it could be less destructive
for materials of younger chronology, as evidenced by the
results published in this volume.
10
2.5. Organisation of lithic production
I have discussed above a variety of sources of raw flint
exploited by Egyptians in the Archaic Period and the Old
Kingdom. Flint nodules were either harvested from surface
accumulations of eroded limestone or quarried in open-
cast pits or shafts (Negro, Cammelli 2010; Weinberger
1987), in all likelihood by expeditions made ​​up of
skilled professionals acquainted with quarrying methods
(Tillmann 1999). If sources of raw material, particularly
surface accumulations, were located nearby, flint nodules
were roughed out and hand-carried by inhabitants of
adjacent settlement sites for immediate use. In the case
of remote sources, pack animals were likely engaged
for carrying a load. A. Close (1996) suggests that cattle
could have been used to this end as early as the Neolithic.
Throughout the studied periods, these were most probably
donkeys, which are known to have been pack animals
of fundamental importance in the Early Dynastic and
Old Kingdom periods, employed also in goldmines. If
necessary, flint could have also been river transported.
Such expeditions are thought to have been organised to
provide supplies of raw material for groups of specialised
flint knappers who worked in the then capital or other
administrative centres.
From the Predynastic period onwards, the production of
flint tools was twofold. On-site production fulfilled the
basic needs of the inhabitants of settlements, notably in
areas where flint deposits were located in the vicinity. The
sites of Ain ​​el-Gazzareen (Kobusiewicz 2007), Ain Asil
(Midant-Reynes 1998) in the Dakhla Oasis, or younger
levels of Elephantine, dated to the period of dynasties V-VI
(Hikade 2013), provide relevant examples. Excavations at
these sites uncovered copious amounts of all categories of
lithic materials, i.e., cores, debitage and tools. Nevertheless,
a complete absence of unworked flint nodules as well as a
low incidence of initial cores and primary debitage products
(covered by cortex) suggest that the initial processing, e.g.
the removal of redundant pieces and cortex, together with
crude, initial core preparation,were done off-site, possibly
near the supply sources, with a view to reducing the weight
of the transported material.
Given that the technology used to work lithic raw materials
at the sites from the Dakhla Oasis was very simple, no
expertise or skills were required to produce tools. Cores
were roughly prepared and mass-produced flakes were
fashioned into an ad hoc, simple implements, such as
scrapers, notches, perforators, borers, denticulates or
retouched flakes for everyday use.
Core shaping tended to be somehow more sophisticated on
Elephantine. The lithic industry of the latter is typified by
the predominance of blade technology and commonness
of bladelets. Elephantine and Dakhla are alike, inasmuch
as simple expedient tools were mass-produced on the
island, too (Hikade 2013). In Ain el-Gazzareen, similarly
to Kom el-Hisn from the western Delta and Elephantine,
lithic artefacts were recovered from all architectural

structures, which suggests that flint was worked in
individual households, all over the settlement. Domestic
production is further confirmed by a find of a set of flint
implements stored in a storage vessel in unit XXXII at Ain
el-Gazzareen. It consisted of two almost spherical scrapers
from tabular flint, both retouched along the most part of the
length of the edges, a flake and five chips, all from nodular
flint. Similar deposits are known from the settlement
of Ain Asil, located c. 40km away. Two assemblages
containing lithic implements, cores and flakes were found
to have been kept in vessels in dwellings at the settlement
(Midant-Reynes 1998).
Likewise, preparation and repair of sickles were made on
site, as attested by a considerable amount of exhausted
sickle blades, burnt in fires in domestic hearths in
individual houses. Villagers gave sickle blades the final
finish in accordance with their needs, by appropriating
their length and shape and sharpening their edges with
fine serration. Sickle inserts were then set in wooden hafts.
Once an edge was worn out, a sickle insert was removed,
turned upside down and re-mounted, as evidenced by the
frequent occurrence of sickle sheen at both longitudinal
edges of these artefacts.
It looks as if the inhabitants of Ain ​​el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil
and partly Elephantine, were essentially self-sufficient in
the production of simple flint tools, with the exception
of the already mentioned import of half-produced sickle
blades, and other standardised tools.
On the other hand, guards stationed at watch-posts were
forced to settle for the raw material they brought with
them, or found somewhere in the vicinity. Judging from
the density of lithic artefacts inside the stone structures
at Seth Hill and Nephthys Hill, most activities somehow
related to flint tools, at the very least to their production
and storage, took place inside the structures shaded with
some coverage. Standardised implements from mined flint
were virtually unattainable for the guards.
Apart from the domestic production of expedient
implements for immediate use, high-end standardised
tools were supplied to the inhabitants of settlement sites
by specialised workshops providing full-time occupation
for expert flint knappers.
Excavations at Ain el-Gazzareen and Kom el-Hisn failed
to produce even a single core or piece of debitage from
mined flint, which was used for the production of quality
blades. i.e., blanks for sickle blades, so numerous in
inventories recovered from settlement sites, or any other
artefact manufactured by means of pressure technology
(except some arrowheads) or made of this type of flint. It
follows that quality blades must have been manufactured
somewhere off-site, most probably in the aforementioned
specialised workshops. Using pressure technology, such
workshops produced standardised tools such as bifacial
knives, bi-truncated regular blade tools (the so-called
11
Production of Tools
‘razor blades’), the above-mentioned regular quality blades
for the production of sickle blades, or arrowheads, covered
with precise surface retouch, all of which were further
exchanged or traded within centralised state distribution.
Upon the relocation of the central authority to the north in
the Archaic Period, such centralised groups of professional
flint knappers were probably housed at the administrative
centre, in the new capital of Memphis. They did all the
work, which required high standards of craftsmanship and
skill. Grinding, as a tedious and primitive work, is thought
to have been left to auxiliary, unskilled workers. As noted
earlier, it is more than likely that special expeditions
were mounted in order to supply flint knappers with raw
material, i.e., procure high quality flint (Hikade 2000a).
The aforementioned paintings from Beni Hassan amply
illustrate the work of craftsmen in the Middle Kingdom
(Dynasty XII) (Figure 97). Such professional workshops
are thought to have functioned as early as the Predynastic
period (Holmes 1992). Yet, notwithstanding the unreserved
consensus of opinion among all researchers that such
specialised flint workshops did function in Egypt (Adams,
Ciałowicz 1997; Briois, Midant-Reynes 2008; Hikade
1997, 1999b, 2000a, 2008, 2013; Kobusiewicz 2007;
Midant-Reynes 1998; Schmidt 1992b; Svoboda 2006;
Tillmann 1992, 1999; Wengrow 2006), their existence is
merely deduced from the analysis of debitage and tools.
Admittedly, T. Hikade (1999b) did publish a workshop
site from Helwan, dated to the period from the mid-I to
mid-II dynasties, which probably manufactured bifacial
knives and scrapers. The excavated workshop, however,
did not produce implements to be distributed within the
state, but worked in compliance with the needs of the
local necropolis. I am certain that it is only a matter of
time before field research confirms the hypothesis of the
existence of specialised workshops working on a large
scale.
The organisation of toolmaking at Kom el-Hisn in the
Western Delta, similarly presumed to date from Dynasty
VI, was at variance with that in the Dakhla Oasis or
Elephantine. Just like the above-discussed sites, so too
Kom el-Hisn failed to produce any workshops. Its lithic
inventory is almost exclusively made of sickle blades,
fragments of bifacial knives and minute amounts of other,
simple types of implements. Unlike at Ain el-Gazzareen,
cores are virtually absent at the site (constituting 0.71 per
cent of the assemblage), and primary debitage or waste
from further stages of working core either, which proves
that almost all, or even all lithic artefacts were brought to
the site ready-made. Only sickle blades were sharpened
and mounted in each particular dwelling in the settlement.
The scarcity of raw material in the Delta, which stands
in marked contrast to the abundance of easily accessible
lithic resources in the Dakhla Oasis, may perhaps account
for the fact that all flints at Kom el-Hisn were imported,
either acquired through trade, or, more likely, distributed
by central authorities in accordance with established
orders, unsurprisingly so considering that other areas of
production were correspondingly organised in Egypt.
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Researchers who investigated the site of Adaima, located
near the town of Isna, and estimated at the late Predynastic/
early Archaic Periods, arrived at very similar conclusions
regarding the twofold procurement of tools in Egypt.
They noted that the prevalence of the aforementioned two
models of toolmaking evidences social differentiation
(Briois, Midant-Reynes 2008). Such a bipartite model in
lithic assemblages is recorded at numerous sites in the Nile
valley (Hikade 1999b; Holmes 1989).

12
 Chapter 3
Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
Bifacial knives
Just like sickle blades, so too bifacial knives were in use
throughout the entire period discussed in this work. Of
much earlier, Predynastic origin, they were produced from
Naqada IIc onwards, much longer than the scope of this
study. As definitely best-researched, long-distinguished
and classified artefacts, bifacial knives are the first type of
tools to be presented.
Remarkably diverse, they are found at sites of varying
chronology and function: cemeteries, settlements, places
of worship and the seats of the elite. As I previously
mentioned, the vast majority of such knives were
manufactured in specialised workshops subordinate to
administration and distributed to all sorts of destinations.
High quality bifacial knifes were a long time in the making.
Midant-Reynes (1985) claims that their production
could have taken up even between ten and twenty hours.
Experimental production of a Gebel Arak type knife lasted
ten hours, including five hours of polishing (Midant-
Reynes, Tixier 1981).
The most splendid bifacial knife found in Egypt to date
is the specimen from Umm El Qaab burial site at Abydos
(Figure 36). It is 73cm long and 9.5cm wide and weighs
about 1kg. The core from which the blade for the production
of this knife was detached had to be about one meter in
length. Chronologically, this specimen is attributable to
the period of Dynasty I or early Dynasty II (Hikade 1997).
Lithic technology achieved utter perfection already by the
end of the Predynastic Period and the beginning of the
Archaic Period (Hikade 2000a; Midant-Reynes 1987).
Well-known and thoroughly-studied knives of the Gebel
Arak type, with a face covered with precise retouching
pattern resembling ripples created by pressure flaking,
adorn a number of museums across the world. Knives
from later periods are known not only from excavated flint
inventories, but are also mentioned in the ritual Pyramid
Texts and depicted in paintings in mastabas (Midant-
Reynes 1984, 1985; Miller 1983; Tillmann 1992; 1999).
A classic bifacial knife was also engraved on a sandstone
remnant in the Dakhla Oasis, along with other rites dating
back to Dynasty VI (Figures 105 -106).
Drawing up a list of types of the Archaic and the Old
Kingdom bifacial knives is no easy task. The reasons for
this are many. First, despite the fact that such knives have
been recovered from a number of sites, their more precise
chronology, notably in the case of earlier excavations,
is difficult to determine. With few exceptions, these are
13
single or rare finds, more often than not fragmentary.
With attention-grabbing finest ripple flaked knifes, there
have been attempts to define and classify the knives
of the Predynastic Period, the lithic industry of which
was somehow more readily explored by archaeologists
(Holmes, 1989; Midant-Reynes, Tixier 1981). The
classification of knives from later periods has not been
thoroughly studied for identical, above mentioned reasons.
The task is all the more difficult that several knives
were often re-sharpened, having their edges recurrently
retouched. Their dimensions, shapes and proportions were
thus frequently altered (Kabaciński 2012; Šajnarová 2006;
Váchala, Svoboda 1989). Exhausted bifacial knives were
from time to time refashioned into other tools (Schmidt
1992a).
There is a commonly held consensus that since the early
Archaic Period, i.e., from the beginning of Dynasty I,
knives become more and more primitive over time (Hikade
1999a; Katthagen 1985; Midant-Reynes 1984; Petrie;
1902; Tillmann 1999). An attempt has been undertaken to
draw up a list of types for knives from particular sites, such
as Abusir (Bonnet 1928), Giza (Kromer 1978) or Ain Asil
(Midant-Reynes 1998).
Throughout the first six dynasties, the significance and
quality of flint toolmaking were slowly decreasing. Flint
knives were nevertheless still important in the lives of the
inhabitants of the then Egypt. During dynasties I-II, an
originally concave back became gradually straightened, to
the effect that over time a back and handle formed one
straight line. At the same time, a handle becomes shorter,
‘for three fingers’, with the index finger positioned at the
back. Wall paintings in the twelfth-dynasty tomb from
Beni Hassan show threads made of organic materials
bound around a handle (Figure 97).
A more general division of bifacial knives proposed below
comprises six types, including three suggested by A.
Tillmann (1992).
Type 1. Fishtail knife. A U or V-shaped working edge
is set transversely to the tool axis of a tool. Both of its
faces are covered with flat, fairly regular retouch, and
margins are refined with bilateral fine retouch. A handle
was finished with semi-steep retouch (Figure 37). These
artefacts came up sometime in the Predynastic period. R.
Van Walsem (1978-1979) believes that certain varieties of
such knives were in use until Dynasty XVIII. The opinion
of a lengthy continuance of bifacial knives is rejected by
T. Hikade (2004b). Nevertheless, it can be safely assumed
that these knives still occur at the very beginning of the
Archaic Period.
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Type 2. The above-mentioned knife from the tomb of
Khasekhemui from Umm el Qaab provides a relevant
example. This 73cm-long knife is very slender. Its handle,
constituting an extension of the back, is simple, slightly
crooked, and prepared by steep retouch. It is not notched
and it has a rounded end. Both edges are thinned with fine
retouch, while both faces feature fairly regular, flat retouch,
albeit undeserving to be called ripple-flaked (Figure 36).
Comparably to Predynastic knives, the knife went through
all phases of processing, perhaps without grinding its
edges. Analogous artefacts were found in the tomb of
Hemaka in Saqqara (Emery 1938), in Helwan (Saad 1951)
and Elephantine (Dreyer, 1986). Such knives are dated to
the period from Dynasty I to Dynasty V inclusive.
Type 3 (Tillmann’s type 2)
This type is generally considered to have been used
throughout Dynasty I, perhaps II. Wide, fairly heavily
curved, with both curved edges running parallel to each
other, the knife is pointed and has a short handle with a
notch. Its both faces are covered with precise surface
retouch, albeit more irregular than a ripple-flaked type.
The working edge is very finely retouched, and its back is
thinned with steep retouch. This is a so-called knife with
a ‘handle for three fingers’; two fingers were holding a
handle, an index finger positioned at the back of the knife
(Eggebrecht 1973). Such characteristic knives are known
from a number of Archaic Period sites in Egypt (Figure
38:1) (Ciałowicz 1999; Emery 1938, 1954; Macramallah
1940; Needler 1956; Petrie 1902).
Type 4 (Tillmann’s type 3)
This type comprises less curved knives, with a narrower
and rounded blade. Their short, simple, unnotched handle
extends from a back, and a cutting edge shows fine retouch
(Figure 38: 2). Type 4 specimens are roughly dated to the
period between Dynasty II and Dynasty IV.
Type 5 (Tillmann’s type 4)
This type is similar to type 3, the only difference lying
in the slightly more pointed blade narrowing towards the
end (Figures 39, 105). Faces of type 4 and 5 and covered
with fairly primitive, flat retouch. A depiction of this type
of knife, dated to dynasties V-VI, was engraved onto a
sandstone gebel in the Dakhla Oasis (Figure 106).
Bifacial knives were made from high-quality homogeneous
mined flint in different varieties – beige, light brown,
honey-caramel, light brown with pinkish stripes in colour.
Given the size of knives, the cores to remove blanks
for their production must have been of considerable
dimensions. On no occasion do flint nodules of this size
occur on the surface, and even if they did, it is unlikely
that they would be suitable for obtaining high quality
blanks, appropriate for fashioning a knife. It is therefore
reasonable to conjecture that nodules had to be extracted
from some open-cast pits or mines.
14
It took a highly qualified artisan to produce a type 2
knife. As in the case of Predynastic ripple-flaked knives,
several exacting production phases had to be followed
sequentially: the detachment of an elongated flake or
blade off a core, roughing out a blank, smoothing the
planes, covering them with flat surface retouch by pressure
technique and refining the edges. A grinding phase was
perhaps omitted. Type 2 knife and ripple-flaked knife are
different inasmuch as the surface retouch covering the
faces of the former is irregular.
As in the Predynastic period, raw material was occasionally
burnt in order for its processability to be enhanced.
Although still labour-intensive, the production of the
above-mentioned types of bifacial knives required less
precision and was less time-consuming that manufacturing
Predynastic knives.
Bifacial knives attributable to the Archaic Period are most
common at burial sites; they are also found in temples, in
their vicinity and at settlement sites. There are nevertheless
discrepancies between knives yielded by particular site
types. Knives offered to the dead as grave goods are usually
high quality specimens, considerably sized and finely
crafted, generally displaying no traces of use wear (Hikade
1997). They are usually preserved as complete pieces,
broken at times, probably deliberately, before being placed
into a grave. By contrast, recovered from temples or nearby
areas are mostly fragments of a markedly inferior quality
or repetitively re-sharpened specimens, to the extent that
they lost their original proportions and size (Figure 38:
3-4). Sometimes such worn knives were reworked into
another type of tool, e.g., burins (Katthagen 1985). Knives
from settlement sites, rarely preserved unbroken, are often
maximally exhausted. Typically uncovered as fragments,
they are of fairly low quality and workmanship.
As well as having been used in rituals relating to offering
sacrifices, knives were understandably used in everyday
life (Figure 40), as evidenced by flint inventories from
settlement sites produced by particular dwellings. Most
important sites to yield bifacial knives include different
types of necropolises dating to the Archaic Period such
as Saqqara (Emery 1938; Hikade 2005; Macramallah
1940); to the very early Archaic Period, e.g., Helwan
(Hikade 2005; Saad 1942, 1951) or Abydos (De Morgan
1896); as well as settlement sites from the period, e.g.,
Tell Ibrahim Awad (Schmidt 1992a) and Tell el-Farkha
(Kabaciński 2012). The Old Kingdom examples include
cemeteries from Bet Khalaf of Dynasty III (Garstang
1903), Saqqara (Myśliwiec et al. 2010), the Pyramid
Complex of Raneferef and Khentkhaus II Mortuary
Complex of Dynasty V in Abusir (Svoboda 1993, 2006;
Váchala, Svoboda 1989), where numerous knives were
found to have been evidently destroyed and discarded in
the temple storerooms and slaughterhouse (Verner 1986);
and settlement sites, such as Elephantine (Hikade 2013;
Kaiser 1977), Giza (Kromer 1978), layers IV-VI of Tell el-
Fara’in (Buto) (Schmidt 1992b), Ain el-Gazzareen, Kom
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
el-Hisn (Kobusiewicz 2007; 2015) or Ain Asil (Midant-
Reynes 1998).
Other sites in the Nile valley or in the oases, such as Fayum
and Kharga in the Western Desert (Caton-Thompson
1952), unmentioned in the text, either produced negligible
amounts of bifacial knives, or were less thoroughly
investigated.
High standardisation of bifacial knives, coupled with the
absence of specific manufacturing debris in inventories,
e.g., exhausted and used cores, or debitage consistent with
the type of raw material used to make knives, indicate
that, at the very least, the majority of these artefacts were
produced somewhere off-site and delivered as finished
products to settlements or spots where grave goods were
prepared. Characteristic flakes detached when bifacials
were trimmed with surface retouch (bifacial trimming
flakes) found at some settlement sites are likely to have
been related to repairs (Šajnerova 2006). Alternatively,
they might be waste from the production of rectangular
or triangular massive flint sickle inserts from tabular flint,
also bifacially retouched. A good example is the settlement
site of Ain el-Gazzareen in the Dakhla Oasis.
Bifacial knives as discussed above are typical solely for
Egypt. As early as in Naqada III, Predynastic knives are
found at Chalcolithic Palestinian sites, thereby bearing
ample testimony to the influence, or even presence of the
Egyptians in the area. However, with the end of Dynasty I
such imports came to an end (Wilkinson 2000). In Byblos
(Jebeil), Lebanon, uncovered were knives dating back to
the end of the Old Kingdom (Helck 1971); Knossos yielded
a heavily damaged bifacial knife widely-attributable to the
times from the Predynastic period to the end of the Middle
Kingdom (Cadogan 1966).
Rectangular and triangular sickle blades
Although formally two different types, rectangular and
triangular sickle blades are discussed here together,
considering their identical, exceptionally well known,
function. Sickle blades are implements produced on high
quality, slender blades knapped off a single platform core
using pressure (par pression) technology. Such blades were
broken at both ends to acquire from the central part a more
or less slender elongated rectangle with parallel margins
and short transverse ends, set at right angles to the axis of
the blade (Figure 41:1-9). Triangular sickle blades, made​​
of the distal part of such a quality blade, are one variant.
One end was laterally broken off and two edges, one of
which is arched, converged at the other end at an acute
angle (Figure 65:1-3; 107). They were used to complete
the series of inserts mounted in a wooden haft of a sickle
(Figure 43:2). Both types feature a variety of secondary
flaking, i.e. weak sharpening serration along one edge,
steep retouch that enabled more stable attachment of a
sickle blade in a haft, semi-steep or microlithic retouch.
Transverse edges were also trimmed with steep retouch
sometimes. A worn-out sickle blade was removed off
15
a haft, re-sharpened and then re-mounted. Sickle sheen,
visible to the naked eye, makes this procedure easily
recognisable.
Sickle blades first appeared in the Middle East in
Palestine, in the Natufian culture (Cauvin 1968; Garrod,
Byte 1937), where they were used for reaping all crops
but cereals. In Egypt, they had already been known since
the Neolithic, e.g. in Fayum (Caton-Thompson, Gardner
1934; Tristant 2009), in the Predynastic Period (Holmes
1989); an important agricultural tool, they were used for
a long time both in the Nile valley and in the oases where
agriculture was a significant part of the economic base.
In the early period of the Old Kingdom, i.e. in Dynasty
III, this implement had already had a long history from
Predynastic and Archaic periods. Remarkably, sickle
blades’ shape stayed unchanged throughout the period of
their use in Egypt, the differences sometimes lying in the
dimensions and proportions of the specimens.
Almost all sites dated to the Archaic and Old Kingdom
periods yielded some sickle blades. Rarely registered at
cemeteries, they are numerous at settlement sites (Figure
43:1). There are several key sites to be mentioned.
Tell Fara’in/Buto (Schmidt 1992a), Tell Ibrahim Awad
(Schmidt 1992b), Saqqara (Emery 1938) and Helwan
(Hikade 2005) are dated to the Archaic Period, whereas
Elephantine, notably its southern area (Hikade 2013;
Katthagen 1985) and Giza (Kromer 1978, 2007) are
estimated to have functioned in the Old Kingdom. In
addition to Elephantine, the richest, and at the same time
best-investigated Old Kingdom settlement sites to yield
considerable amounts of sickle blades include Kom el-
Hisn, Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil; noteworthy is also
a poor, albeit homogenous inventory from a nowadays
desert site of Gilf el Kebir, dated to the very end of the Old
Kingdom. A group of arched truncations identified at the
site are referred to as sickle blades by E. Cziesla (1986).
Sickle blades from Kom el-Hisn
Kom el-Hisn is a large settlement site in the western
Delta, excavated in the years 1984, 1986 and 1988 by R.
Wenke from Washington State University (USA) (Wenke
et al. 1988). Three hundred forty-nine sickle blades were
recovered from the site; among them nine massive sickle
inserts with bifacial retouch were registered. Accounting
for 86.38 per cent, sickle blades constitute the vast
majority of retouched tools. This tool category includes
both rectangular sickle blades and triangular specimens,
with one arched side and a pointed end (Figures 89:1-9;
90:4-6). Leaving aside undetermined burnt pieces, 79.00
per cent of sickle blades were produced on the central part
of a blade, 14.00 per cent from the proximal part and seven
per cent from the distal part of the blade. Sixty-seven per
cent of these implements show inverse retouch along
the whole edge, whereas 33.00 per cent feature obverse
retouch. Retouch of the left edge is as frequent as retouch
of the right edge. Denticulate retouch is common (51.00
per cent). Sixteen per cent of specimens were sharpened
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Siwte Mean length
Kom el-Hisn 31.47
Ain el- Gazzareen 39.41
Ain Asil 47.00
Elephantine 50.13
Length
Kom el-Hisn 11.00 - 62.00
Ain el-Gazzareen 23.00 - 68.00
Ain Asil 16.00 - 85.00
Figure 1. Metrical data on rectangular sickle blades from Kom el-Hisn, Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil and Elephantine (measurements in mm).
Measurements for Ain Asil are given for the most numerous group of sickle blades at the site, made of auburn and black-coloured (silex
marron et noir) flint (according to Midant-Reynes 1998, fig. 7; for Elephantine according to Hikade 2013).
by serrating retouch and use retouch was registered on
33.00 per cent pieces. Steep retouch is most common,
whereas flat retouch is rare. Sickle sheen is visible to the
naked eye in the case of 61.00 per cent of specimens. It
is present always on the retouched edge or edges. Sixty-
six per cent of specimens shows sickle sheen on only
one edge, on the ventral or dorsal side. Eight per cent of
pieces display sickle sheen on both edges and both sides.
Almost all sickle blades (94.00 per cent) were produced
on tertiary blades (entirely lacking cortex), and 5.85 per
cent were made on secondary blades (remains of cortex
covering less than half of the area). Primary blades (more
than 50.00 per cent of surface covered by cortex) were
never used for the manufacture of sickle blades. Mined
flint was a material of choice in the case of 88.31 per cent
of specimens, transparent flint – for 3.56 per cent, brown
flint – for 3.05 per cent and hornstone – for 0.25 per cent.
The raw material was indeterminable in 4.58 per cent of
cases. Metrical data on sickle blades and their comparison
are given below in Figure 1.
Sickle blades from Ain el-Gazzareen
Dated to the late Dynasty V and VI, Ain el-Gazzareen is
a large settlement site in the western part of the Dakhla
Oasis in the Western Desert. It has been investigated
since 1995 by A. Mills from the Dakhla Oasis Project
(Kobusiewicz 2007; Mills 1995; Mills, Kaper 2003). The
description of sickle blades is given on a basis of a sample
of 91 specimens (Figures 64:1-9; 65:1-3). Just as at Kom
el-Hisn, so too sickle blades were produced on quality
blades knapped off single platform cores using pressure
technology. The specimens are mostly trapezoidal, less
frequently triangulate in section. The majority of them
were made on a central part of a blade with proximal
and distal parts broken off in order to create an elongated
rectangle. Longitudinal edges show retouch analogous to
that on sickle ,blades at Kom el-Hisn. Likewise, traces
of sickle sheen are located in similar places. Triangular
16
Mean width Mean thickness
13.17 4.38
12.75 3.76
12.00 4.00
13.60 4.10
Range
Width Thickness
8.00 - 18.00 2.00 - 8.00 –
9.00 - 18.00 2.00 - 8.00 –
7.00 - 19.00 2.00 - 8.00
sickle blades with one side arched and pointed, mounted
as the last piece in a row of rectangular inserts in the haft
of a sickle were also in this case bracketed in the same
tool type. The mean length, width, thickness and range of
sickle blades from Ain el-Gazzareen are given in Figure 1.
Sickle blades from Ain Asil
The fortress and the seat of a governor, dated to Dynasty
VI and the very beginning of the First Intermediate Period,
Ain Asil is situated in the central part of the Dakhla Oasis.
It has been investigated since 1997 by J. Vercoutter, L.
Giddy, G. Soukiassian and M. Wuttman (Midant-Reynes
1983; 1998). Excavations at the site yielded 109 sickle
blades, which accounts for 18.00 per cent of retouched
tools (Figure 41:1-9). As at both sites described above,
blanks for sickle blades were struck off single platform
cores from high quality raw material, which outcrop has
not been identified in the area. Again, pressure technology
was used. The morphology, ways, types and location of
retouch and sickle sheen are identical to those visible at
sickle blades from Kom el-Hisn and Ain el Gazzareen.
Sickle blades from Elephantine
The site has been explored by a German expedition since
1968. Sickle blades recovered from Elephantine come
from different areas and from different layers. Younger
levels, located south of the Khnum Temple, estimated
mostly at the Old Kingdom, produced 163 sickle blades,
both rectangular and triangular specimens. They are similar
to the artefacts from the above-described sites, inasmuch
as they are made on quality blades from imported mined
flint. Their dimensions and proportions correspond also to
sickle blades from other periods – the Archaic and early
First Intermediate Period (Hikade 2013). The metrical data
on sickle blades from the other two, less numerous groups
of sickle blades from this site are alike.
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
Predynastic
Measurements Nagada Hamemieh
Medium length 48.86 74.97
Medium width 14.82 15.46
Medium thick. 3.82 5.00
Length/width
3.64 4.59
ratio
Figure 2. Comparison of measurements and proportions of rectangular sickle blades of the Predynastic period and the Old Kingdom
(Nagada, Hamemieh, Badari according to Holmes 1989, Ain Asil according to Midant-Reynes 1998, Elephantine according to Hikade 2013).
Metrical data on rectangular sickle blades for the four of
the above-described sites is given in a table (Figure 1).
The above table shows that inhabitants of Ain Asil used
the slenderest sickle blades (length/width ratio 3.23); less
slender pieces were found in Elephantine (3.68) and Ain
el Gazzareen (3.09); the most stout sickle blades were
uncovered at Kom el-Hisn (2.39). No explanation for this
phenomenon has been provided.
Interesting, yet again hardly explainable is a comparison
of the dimensions and proportions between sickle blades
from the Old Kingdom (Kom el-Hisn, Ain el-Gazzareen,
Ain Asil and Elephantine) and Predynastic sickle blades
(Figure 2). Predynastic and Old Kingdom sickle blades
from Elephantine are alike in terms of their dimensions
and proportions and are clearly longer, wider and thicker,
or simply larger than sickle blades from the Delta and the
Western Desert. Perhaps a strong resemblance between
the sickle blades from Elephantine and Predynastic
sickle blades from Upper Egypt can be explained by the
continuous influence of local Predynastic tradition of
Upper Egypt on later, but geographically close flintwork
of Elephantine.
At the three Predynastic sites, as well as on Elephantine,
in Kom el-Hisn and Ain el-Gazeereen, sickle blades were
produced from different varieties of high quality mined
flint such as transparent, beige or brown flint.
Evident standardisation of sickle blades recorded in vast
amounts at Old Kingdom sites suggests that quality blades,
i.e. blanks for sickle blades production, were manufactured,
like most bifacial knives, in specialised workshops.
Sickles with flint inserts were used in Egypt not only
throughout the Old Kingdom, but much longer, continuing
until Roman times. The ease and cheapness of sickle blades
production from quality flint readily available in Egypt, a
concurrent lack of raw materials for bronze production and
then the delay in the introduction of iron (Tillman 1999),
can unmistakeably account for an extended period of using
sickles with flint inserts, which were nevertheless almost
as effective as metal sickles that replaced them.
17
Old Kingdom
Kom el-Hisn
Badari
Elephantine Ain el-Gazzareen
district
Ain Asil
57.53 50.13 39.29
16.86 13.60 12.64
5.09 0.41 4.04
3.59 3.69 3.11
Half-products of sickle blades (Figure 42:1-3).
As well as sickle blades, a number of inventories contained
also substantial amounts of half-products of sickle blades –
the above mentioned quality blades with a typical pointed
butt, produced by pressure technology. The blades were
preserved either as complete specimens or were broken,
usually at the distal end. They were used for the production
of rectangular or triangular sickle blades.
Massive rectangular and triangular sickle inserts (Figures
44:1-7; 109- 110)
In addition to the above-described sickle blades, some sites
attributable to the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
yielded another variant of this type of artefact – the so-
called massive sickle inserts. Made of tabular flint or on
flakes, they are much larger, more massive and stout than
sickle blades. Massive sickle inserts occur in two varieties.
To obtain a rectangular implement (Figure 44: 1-5), both
ends of a blank were broken off and steeply retouched in
order to fashion an elongated rectangle or trapezoid. Their
longitudinal edges show flat or semi-steep fine serration,
while lateral edges display frequent sickle sheen visible
to the naked eye. The other variety comprises massive
sickle inserts in the shape of an obtuse triangle with a
pointed tip (Figure 44: 6-7) and a concave or straight back.
Analogously to sickle blades, rectangular massive sickle
inserts were set in a groove of a wooden haft to form an
oblong blade of a sickle, completed at both ends with
massive triangular inserts.
It is reasonable to conjecture that a sickle with sickle
blades and a sickle with massive inserts were each intended
for specific purposes, nonetheless a practical difference
between them has not been determined as of yet.
Found at such Predynastic sites as the cemetery in Maadi
(Rizkana, Seeher 1988) or Maghara (Hendrickx, Midant-
Reynes 1988) as well as at Helwan (Hikade 2005) or
Giza (Kromer 1978), attributable to the Archaic Period,
massive sickle inserts are much more rare than sickle
blades and this applies to all known sites. It is noteworthy
that although such massive implements found at Giza are
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
referred to by the investigator of the site as saws, I interpret
them to be sickle inserts. Massive sickle inserts increased
in amount at the end of the Old Kingdom, as markedly
evidenced by specimens recovered from settlement sites
at Ain Asil (Midant-Reynes 1998) and Ain el-Gazzareen
(Kobusiewicz 2007), both located in the Dakhla Oasis in
the Western Desert and dated to Dynasty VI. One massive
triangular sickle insert was recovered from Seth Hill watch-
post in the Dakhla Oasis, dating from Dynasty V. Rich in
sickle blades, correspondingly dated flint inventories from
settlement sites at Kom el-Hisn in the western Delta and
in Elephantine do not contain any massive sickle inserts.
It is interesting that this type of sickle inserts, even if
not numerous, was also identified in the inventory of an
early Archaic site of El Kharafish (Riemer 2011a), lying
in the depths of today’s Western Desert. Considering that
uncovered at the site were remains of a stay of the Sheikh
Muftah pastoral nomadic population, the presence of a
sickle insert in its inventory is astonishing, just as it is in
the case of the above-mentioned watch-post.
Bi-truncated regular blade tools (Figure 45:1:10)
The so-called razor blades, Rasiermesser, square
flakes, rechteckige breite Klingen, Doppelschaber or
Viereckklingen will be referred to in this book, after T.
Hikade (2013), as bi-truncated regular blade tools, in
order to avoid any suggestions regarding their usage. The
purpose of the implements is indeed taxing to specify.
Once believed to have been end scrapers (Emery 1938;
Petrie 1902), they were later considered by several
researchers to have been used for cosmetic purposes, since
they were found in graves together with tool kits for this
kind of treatment. Such usage is purportedly attested to
by finds from the tomb of Hetepheres at Giza (Reisner
1929), where such artefacts were placed next to copper
blades of the same size and shape. It is perhaps reasonable
to accept that while these tools were supposedly used for
beauty treatments, they also fulfilled other functions, even
working in hard materials, as evidenced by registered
traces of use wear (Hikade 1999a; Katthagen 1985).
Having their roots in Palestine (Tillmann 1999), they
first appeared in Egypt at the beginning of Dynasty I and
continued to be in use down to the end of Dynasty IV of
the Old Kingdom (Hikade 1999a, 2013). They often make
up a substantial part of an inventory, e.g., on Elephantine
(Hikade 2002, 2013). The tools are very uniform and
standardised, as strongly attested to by numerous bi-
truncated regular blade tools from the tomb of an official
Hemaka (Emery 1938) showing the same size, proportions
and shapes (Tillmann 1992). They were made from a
central part of a large, fairly massive, regular blades both
ends of which were broken off. Such blades are typically
trapezoidal in cross-section. A longitudinal section of a
slightly bent blade frequently shows a protuberance near
one end. Short transverse edges, formed by breaking, are
trimmed with obverse, semi-steep or, less commonly,
steep retouching. Sometimes one or both parallel lateral
edges show complete or partial inverse, obverse or bifacial
retouch. Some, though admittedly rare, specimens taper
18
towards one of the ends, which gives them a shape of a
very elongated trapezoid.
Bi-truncated regular blade tools fall roughly into two
groups, distinguished by T. Hikade (2008), who analysed
finds from Umm el Qaab and Elephantine. The first type
comprises earlier artefacts dating back to Dynasty I; their
transverse edges are rounded on both ends, which gives
them a shape of an elongated oval (Figure 45: 1-5,9).
From Dynasty II onwards, the transverse edges became
straight and the implement turned into a regular, elongated
rectangle (Figure.45: 6-8,10), continuing in such a form
into Dynasty III-IV.
Bi-truncated regular blade tools were produced from
different varieties of high-quality flint procured from
outcrops and mines. Gi,ven the aforementioned evident
standardisation, these tools can be safely assumed to have
been manufactured, in common with bifacial knives and
half-products of finished sickle blades, in specialised
workshops to be traded or distributed by the state
administration.
Bi-truncated regular blade tools are found both at
cemeteries, having been offered to the dead as grave goods,
and at settlement sites. The most important archaeological
burial sites to yield these implements include Saqqara
(Dynasty I; Emery 1938; Macramallah 1940), Abusir
(Dynasty II; Bonnet 1928), Abydos (Dynasty II; De
Morgan 1896); Umm el Qaab (Dynasty I; Hikade 2003a),
Beth Khalaf (Dynasty III; Garstang 1903); they were
also recovered from several sites, to wit: Tell Ibrahim
Awad (Schmidt 1992a), Tell el Farkha from the eastern
Delta (Kabaciński 2003), Elephantine (the Archaic Period
and the Old Kingdom; Hikade 2002, 2013; Katthagen
1985) and Giza (the early Old Kingdom; Kromer 1978).
Numerous specimens of this type are also known from
the Fayum Oasis, dating probably from different periods
(Caton-Thompson, Gardner 1934).
Scrapers (Figures 46:1-3; 47:1-2)
Implements of a very ancient origin, scrapers were
extremely common both in the Archaic Period and the
Old Kingdom. Known as early as in the Neolithic Capsian
culture in Algeria (Roubet 1979), they were used in
Egypt also in the Neolithic, in the Predynastic (Rizkana,
Seeher 1988) and Early Dynastic periods (Stępień 2011).
Scrapers were made on flakes of various sizes and shapes.
Both nodular flint or tabular flint were used, depending
on the accessibility of raw material. Edges, or sections of
edges were shaped with flat or semi-steep, always obverse
flaking. Uncomplicated to make, scrapers were expedient
tools not requiring the craftsmanship necessary to produce
the majority of bifacial knives, sickle blades and bi-
truncated regular blade tools. Fashioned by everyone
for their immediate use from the nearest available raw
material, their shape and size were conditioned by the size
and quality of raw flint, to some extent also by the intended
function, with the exception perhaps of triangular scrapers
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
showing some degree of standardisation, admittedly rare
in Egypt.
The extraordinary variety of shapes and proportions
renders drawing up a list of types for this type of artefact
particularly difficult. Such a task was undertaken by T.
Hikade (2004a), who distinguished nine types of scrapers
for the period from Naqada I down to Dynasty VI, to wit:
1. fan-shaped scrapers, 2 flat elongated scrapers, 3.circular
scrapers, 4 triangular scrapers, 5. scrapers made on flakes
– by-products of bifacial production, 6. arched scrapers,
and three other types he identified as scrapers, which
I believe to be in fact end scrapers; I shall elaborate on
this issue later on. In this book I distinguish two types of
scrapers, namely massive scrapers (Figures 46: 1; 111)
and flat scrapers (Figures 46: 2; 112). Triangular scrapers
(Figure 47: 2) are very scarce.
It is common knowledge that scrapers were used for a
variety of activities such as dressing slaughtered animals or
hunted game, butchering a carcass, scraping bones, working
hides, and manufacturing objects of wood. Traditionally
called scrapers, these implements did not necessarily have
to be used solely for scraping. Traseological analyses have
shown some of them to have been used as cutting tools.
See the appendix in this volume.
Scrapers are often found at settlement sites, e.g., Tell el
Fara’in (the Archaic Period; Schmidt 1987), Elephantine
(the Old Kingdom; Hikade 2013; Katthagen 1985),
Ain Asil (Dynasty VI; Midant-Reynes 1998), Ain el-
Gazzareen (Kobusiewicz 2007) and Giza (Conard 2000;
Kromer 1978; Werschkun 2007a, 2007b); at Seth Hill and
Bee’s Lookout watch-posts in the Dakhla Oasis scrapers
represented 15.00 per cent and 30.00 per cent of flint
inventories, respectively. Few scrapers were registered
at Kom el-Hisn in the western Delta (Kobusiewicz 1988,
2015), even less at Archaic cemeteries such as Abydos
(Petrie 1902), Saqqara (Emery 1938; Macramallah 1940)
or Helwan of Dynasty III (Hikade 2005). Numerous
scrapers, made mainly on flat flakes, were recovered from
a layer dated to Dynasty I at a site of the Sheikh Muftah
culture at El Kharafish, located in the Western Desert on a
limestone plateau 25 km north of Dakhla (Riemer 2011a).
At settlement sites, scrapers usually make up between ten
and twenty per cent of the whole assemblage, for example:
Helwan – 16.94 per cent, Elephantine – 15.06 per cent,
Giza – 15.63 per cent (Hikade 2005), although as regards
Elephantine, in the 2013 publication the author states
that scrapers represented circa 13.00 per cent and five
per cent for older and younger inventories, respectively.
Ain el-Gazzareen yielded 16.55 per cent of scrapers. The
southern group on Elephantine, mostly dating to the late
Old Kingdom produced 5.13 per cent of scrapers. There
are, nevertheless, significant deviations from this picture,
such as a substantial amount of scrapers at Ain Asil (51.00
per cent) and a total lack of them in Tell Ibrahim Awad
(Hikade 2005). Particular in this respect is the site of El
Kharafish, where different varieties of scrapers amount to
19
55.6 per cent of the assemblage from the excavated site
02/5-1, while in the case of surface finds from the site
0-2/5-0, they represent up to 80.6 per cent of the total
inventory (Riemer 2011a).
Advanced and centralised production of flint scrapers
from tabular flint is noticeable in the Pharaonic era in
Palestine and Sinai (Schmidt 1988). This type is relatively
well defined and comprises oval, fan-shaped specimens,
round or elongated, made on flat flakes. Unlike Egyptian
scrapers, their dorsal side is normally covered with cortex.
Occurring from the Chalcolithic to the Old Kingdom
inclusive, such scrapers were widely distributed in the
areas from the Euphrates to Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding
a developed trade in such scrapers, they virtually did not
make it to the Nile valley, except for the Sinai in the Archaic
Period and the Old Kingdom (Rosen 1983; Schmidt 1988).
End scrapers (Figure 47:3-5)
Sometimes bracketed together with one of the groups of
scrapers, from the morphological point of view end scrapers
represent a different type, even though the functions
of both types were perhaps alike. In this book the term
‘end scrapers’ designate implements made on a relatively
massive blade or an elongated flake, with one end, usually
distal, trimmed by steep or semi-steep obverse flaking. A
retouched transverse edge, called scraping edge, may be
arched, straight or ’nosed’, symmetrical or asymmetrical
with respect to the tool axis, or oblique. Sometimes
entire lateral edges or their fragments were trimmed with
obverse retouch. A function of time, the length of an end
scraper is irrelevant from the perspective of typology; as
scrapers were used, they became blunted and had to be
re-sharpened, thereby getting progressively shorter and
eventually becoming very short. It is uncommon for an
end scraper to have two scraping edges, yet some double
specimens have been registered, with one scraping edge
located at the distal end and the other at the proximal end.
Scrapers were ad hoc tools, requiring no special skills or
practice to make.
In Egypt, end scrapers came up sometime in the Late
Paleolithic (Banks 1989; Mazher et al. 2005), and were
used throughout the Neolithic (Mazher et al. 2005; Wendorf
et al. 2001), the Predynastic period (Rizkana, Seeher
1988) and the Old Kingdom. Starting from the Paleolithic,
they are always present in small to moderate quantities,
although a considerable number of sites attributable to the
Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom produced none such
specimens. End scrapers estimated at the Archaic Period
were found in Dynasty I tombs in Saqqara (Emery 1938),
in Abydos (Petrie 1902), Giza (Kromer 1978), Helwan,
Elephantine (Hikade 2013) and Tell Ibrahim Awad (Hikade
2005). Few end scrapers were also recovered from the site
of El Kharafish (Riemer 2011b); a sixth-dynasty settlement
site of Ain el-Gazzareen; Seth Hill, a watch-post in the
Dakhla Oasis, where end scrapers made up 6.25 per cent of
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
the flint inventory; and the settlement site of Kom el-Hisn,
which produced a single large end scraper.
‘Nosed’ end scrapers (Figures 49:1-2; 113)
Analogously to common end scrapers, a scraping edge
of a ‘nosed’ end scraper is situated at the distal end of a
flake. Regular, heavily arched and protruding, it resembles
a snout of an animal. Fairly rare, some were identified,
e.g., in the inventory of Ain el-Gazzareen. The function
of nosed scrapers and ordinary end scrapers was most
probably alike.
Rabots (Figure 73:1-4)
Found at Ain el-Gazzareen, rabots are end scrapers made on
massive, stout flakes, with a very high and steep scraping
edge. They are uncommon, possibly for the reason that
they are customarily counted among cores.
Crescent-shaped drills (Figures 48:1; 114)
Crescent-shaped borers are typical of Egypt. Known from
the Predynastic Period to the end of the Old Kingdom,
they were made on massive flakes, measuring averagely
from seven to nine centimetres in length. The flakes
were retouched to produce a crescent-like shape, with
one concave side and the other arched. The retouch is
steep, from both the concave side of a notch and the one
running along the other, convex edge. K. Schmidt (1988)
distinguishes such variants of the implements as sickle-
shaped borers, banana-shaped or rectangular borers, the
shape being dependent, in the author’s opinion, on the
phase of manufacturing a stone vessel in which particular
specimens were employed, or on the shape of a fashioned
vessel, with various shapes of pots necessitating the use of
different shapes of borers. Making a borer is thought to be
an easily manageable task.
It is a widely held view that crescent-shaped borers
were used for the manufacture of vessels of travertine
(’Egyptian alabaster’), or other stones. T. R. Hester (1976),
however, refutes such interpretation of their function and
argues that on none of the analysed specimens did he find
any traces of use, which should be unmistakably visible
on tools working in hard materials. On the other hand,
according to K. Schmidt, a borer of this type, found at a
settlement site of Tell el Fara’in (Buto), features green
remains of stone dust (Schmidt 1988). It is also possible
that crescent-shaped borers were used for other purposes,
such as straightening and preparation of wooden hafts
used for mounting all kinds of tools.
Such implements are already known from a Predynastic
cemetery in Maadi (Rizkana, Seeher 1988), and as regards
the Archaic Period, from Abydos (Dynasty I; Petrie 1902)
and Tell el Fara’in/Buto (Schmidt 1985), which yielded
a concentration of thirteen borers dating to the period
between dynasties I and III. As to the Old Kingdom, they
were found at a settlement site of Ain el-Gazzareen in
20
the Dakhla Oasis (Kobusiewicz 2007); on Elephantine
merely two such specimens were unearthed (Hikade
2013). More than two hundred crescent-shaped borers
were found scattered on the surface near the pyramid of
Djoser of Dynasty III (Lauer, Debono 1950); they were
also collected from the surface of the Fayum Oasis (Caton-
Thompson, Gardner 1934).
Arrowheads (Figures 49:3-8; 115-116)
Flint arrowheads to be projected by a bow came up
in Egypt in prehistoric times, sometime in the Late
Paleolithic and were used throughout the Neolithic, the
Predynastic period (Rizkana, Seeher 1988) through to the
New Kingdom. A list of five types of flint arrowheads was
drawn up by W. Emery (1938) for arrows found in the
tomb of Hemaka, an official during the reign of Dynasty I.
Egyptian arrowheads were more broadly explored against
general African background by D. Clark (Clark et al.
1974). The list of types of arrowheads for all periods was
put forward by T. Hikade (2001). In this monograph, we
shall understandably focus on arrowheads attributable to
the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom. According to the
above-mentioned list of D. Clark, there were five types
of flint arrowheads in use throughout this time. The first
one is shaped like a trapezium with concave sides (Figure
49: 8). The second type comprises segments, or otherwise
crescents, i.e., sector-shaped arrowheads with a convex
edge thinned with steep, back retouch. Both of these types
originated in the Late Paleolithic and persisted unmodified
into the Old Kingdom, and probably longer. Besides,
during the Archaic Period, older types of arrowheads
bifacially retouched with a more or less deep notch at the
base were replaced by three different types. This period
saw the emergence of bifacially retouched arrowheads of
a lanceolate shape, with a poorly isolated tang and straight
or slightly convex lateral edges. Roughly 5cm in length
and 1cm in width, they are bifacially, fairly regularly
retouched (Figure 49: 7). Since a substantial number of
such arrowheads were found on the Archaic cemetery at
Abydos, T. Hikade designated them as ‘the classic Abydos
arrowheads’, one variant called ‘Abydos with a transverse
edge’. These are similar to the classic Abydos specimens,
tapered, ended with a trapezoidal, transverse edge forming
a basis of a trapezoid. The third type includes lanceolate,
bifacially retouched arrowheads with a poorly isolate
tang (Figure 49: 6). They were not given a designation
in this list of types, but are presented in the typological
table as attributable to the Archaic Period (Hikade 2001).
In Dynasty VI, Egyptians used tanged arrowheads of
Ounan point type (Figure 49: 3,5). The area of the Western
Desert produced numerous flint arrowheads in different
varieties; their more precise chronology is hardy possible
to determine, if not unmanageable. Nearly all were found
on the surface, devoid of a broader context. T. Hikade
includes here tanged types, often bifacially retouched on
one or both sides.
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
Judging from the table summarising the proposed
classification, all five types were still in use in the Old
Kingdom (Hikade 2001).
There are several reasons responsible for the fact that
a complete and well-documented list of types of flint
arrowheads known from Egypt is not easy to draw up.
Although tombs of Dynasty I in Saqqara and Abydos
yielded a number of flint arrowheads, deliberately placed
there in large quantities in order for the items to serve the
deceased in the afterlife, otherwise finds of arrowheads are
rare at settlement sites with no more than a few specimens
recorded at the most (obviously only in inventories
acquired in the course of precise excavations).
A rich, sixth-dynasty flint inventory recovered from the
settlement of Ain el-Gazzareen in the western part of
the Western Dakhla Oasis, which contains only four
arrowheads, provides an illustrative example. Two
arrowheads are tanged, similar to the Ounan type, while
the other two are lanceolate in shape, bifacially retouched
specimens, including one closest to J type from the Western
Desert and the oases according to the classification
proposed by T. Hikade (2001). Ain Asil, a comparable, yet
larger settlement site of the same chronology, located in the
middle of the oasis, produced a single tanged arrowhead,
corresponding to type E in the Western Desert, in accordance
with the same classification (Midant-Reynes 1998). This is
all the more surprising that Ain Asil was an administrative
centre, inhabited also by armed soldiers. An incomparably
poorer inventory from a watch-post commonly called Seth
Hill, lying in the same oasis, and dating to Dynasty IV/V,
periodically inhabited by a few guards probably recruited
from Ain Asil, contained two tanged arrowheads. It is
remarkable that a very rich inventory from all Archaic and
Old Kingdom levels on Elephantine, notably a defensive
site – a fortress, contained only three arrowheads (Hikade
1999a, 2013; Katthagen 1985). Likewise, a sizeable
assemblage recovered from a large settlement site at Kom
el-Hisn in the Western Delta, also estimated at Dynasty VI,
did not provide a single arrowhead. The observation of a
paucity of flint arrowheads at settlement sites holds true
for both periods.
It is the arrowheads themselves that provide another
explanation as to why a detailed list of types of flint
arrowheads is problematic to create. First, the shape of
these specimens, constrained by their function, is not
particularly changeable. Second, it is also likely that
arrowheads of different shapes and sizes were used for
various purposes, such as hunting large or small mammals
or birds, or for military purposes. It is a well-recognised
fact, for example, that trapezoid arrowheads were to cause
bleeding. Hence, different types of arrowheads could have
occurred at the same time but in different sets, or some
types might have appeared at different times.
The first and unquestionably praiseworthy list of types put
forward by T. Hikade (2001) will probably become more
comprehensive and precise once archaeologists acquire
21
more well-dated and contextualised finds. Typological
sequences based on an analysis of flint arrowheads types
recognised in the prehistory of the North American
continent provide an ample example. The basic difference,
however, lies in the fact that in North America, sites with
arrowheads are many, arrowheads are in abundance, the
inventories have been analysed and more or less precisely
dated. For the moment, the state of research on Egyptian
flint arrowheads is far from satisfactory. It would be
interesting, for example, to find out who produced flint
arrowheads in Egypt. Simple trapezes and segments or
even tanged arrowheads are easy to make and could have
easily been produced by the users themselves. Tanged
arrowheads from Ain el-Gazzareen (Figures 49: 3,5; 115)
and Seth Hill (Figures 83: 2-3; 115) illustrate this point
well. In contrast, bifacially retouched arrowheads required
considerable craftsmanship and talent. For example,
considering the high degree of standardisation of the
arrowheads from the tomb of Hemaka, it seems likely that
they were manufactured in specialised workshops intended
to address the needs, e.g., of the army, perhaps by the same
specialists who produced fashioned bifacial knives, half-
products of sickle blades or bi-truncated regular blade
tools.
The vast majority of arrowheads were made from different
varieties of flint. Although scarce, some specimens were
shaped from other raw materials such as agate, rock crystal
(Adams, Ciałowicz 1997; Hikade 2001), or carnelian, e.g.,
segments from Umm el Qaab (Hikade 2000b).
Whilst the function of arrowheads is obvious, it is,
however, uncertain whether arrowheads used for hunting
differed, and if they did, in what way, from corresponding
items employed by the army.
There is another site in the Western Desert, located north
of the Dakhla Oasis, that is to say El Kharafish. The
inventory yielded by the level attributable to the camp
inhabited by the population of the Sheikh Muftah culture
from the times of Dynasty I contained three arrowheads
(Riemer 2011a). One of them matches the classic Abydos
type, the second type F from Hikade’s list; the third one is
an Ounan point type, deemed by the author of research to
have been of earlier chronology, probably brought into the
site from unspecified location. A site codenamed 80/14 in
Gilf el Kebir, at the heart of the Western Desert produced
relics of a camp dating to the end of the Old Kingdom
or the very beginning of the First Intermediate Period.
Among them, seven trapezoidal arrowheads were found,
corresponding to the first type described in T. Hikade’s
list – trapezoidal arrowheads (referred to as Querschneider
(Cziesla 1987)
Microperforators (Figures 48:2-5;117)
This category of very small tools used for piercing or
drilling is hardly ever listed in publications devoted to flint
inventories. This does not reflect their insignificance in
everyday activities carried out by Egyptians at Archaic and
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
the Old Kingdom settlements, but simply their negligence
in the course of excavations due to their microlithic
sizes. Tiny implements, they are frequently overlooked,
and hence not included in research papers. This is not to
say that microperforators were used everywhere. At the
settlement site of Ain el-Gazzareen from Dynasty VI, they
make up almost two per cent of all retouched tools, while
the settlement site of Kom el-Hisn from the same period
did not yield a single specimen, although all cultural layers
were scrupulously screened. Seth Hill and Bee’s Lookout
watch-posts, dated to Dynasties IV-V, produced three
specimens (3.75 per cent), and two specimens (3.07 per
cent), respectively. By contrast, the early Dynastic level
of the settlement at Tell el-Farkha produced a number of
workshops manufacturing microperforators (Kabaciński
2012). Likewise, on Elephantine, in the area that yielded
young inventories mostly dated to the late Old Kingdom
and the early First Intermediate Period, unearthed was
a microperforator workshop, hence the number of these
artefacts amounts to 14.34 per cent.
Microperforators were made on small, yet massive blades,
the end or, less commonly, ends of which were sharpened
with steep retouch to form a pointy end. Now and again,
the retouch is alternating. From time to time, lateral edges
feature steep retouch, at a certain distance from a sting,
occasionally along the entire tool and at times only along
its shorter section. Use wear is visible to the naked eye
on some specimens as evident gloss on a sting. Many are
broken, probably at work, where they were discarded.
Ease to make, microperforators are likely to have been
produced ad hoc for immediate use and mounted. The
foregoing description is based on the inventory from Ain
el-Gazzareen, which yielded 11 microperforators.
Borers (Figures 50:1-5;118)
Borers make up a substantial element of certain flint
inventories recovered from Archaic and Old Kingdom
settlement sites. This type comprises both borers and
groovers. Firstly, because they fulfilled comparable
functions, and, secondly, because they typically remain
undistinguished in subject literature, which precludes their
more comprehensive analysis.
Borers exhibit a great variety of shapes. They were made
both on blades and flakes, often waste products. The
presence of a more or less protruding fragment was a main
criterion for selecting a particular blank to be modified into
a borer. Such a fragment was further sharpened along both
edges, on one or both sides, unilaterally or bilaterally, with
steep, more or less regular, sometimes alternating retouch.
Borers were expedient tools produced for immediate use,
either for making implements, ornaments of different
materials, or for the manufacture of products from leather.
No further information is available, pending traseological
studies.
22
As to the Old Kingdom, fairly numerous were borers
excavated on Elephantine (Hikade 2002, 2013; Katthagen
1985); some of them display clear use wear. The borers
were mostly made on blades and their stings were poorly
isolated at the distal end. Borers were also found in Abydos
(Petrie 1902), Tell el Fara’in (Schmidt 1985) and Helwan
(Hikade 1999b).
The inventory of the Ain Asil settlement site in the Dakhla
Oasis, dated to Dynasty VI, contained only one specimen
of this type. The settlement of the population of the Sheikh
Muftah culture at El Kharafish, situated on a plateau in
the Western Desert, north of Dakhla, dating to the early
Archaic Period, yielded a large amount of borers so
that they come second in the inventory, after scrapers.
The borers are mostly made on flakes and often have an
isolated sting.
A larger group of borers was recovered from a settlement
site of Ain el-Gazzareen (15.00 per cent), also dated
to Dynasty VI, and from concurrent Seth Hill and
Bee’s Lookout watch-posts in the Dakhla Oasis, borers
representing just over one per cent of the inventories at
both sites.
Notches (Figure 48:6-8)
Notches are another type of tools difficult to define. Made
both on blades and flakes, they have at least one notch
fashioned at the edges, which show a great variety in
shape, length and depth. Obverse retouch is most common.
Employed for scraping wooden or bone objects, round in
cross section, notches were again made when the need
arose.
Notches attributable to the Archaic Period are known from
Helwan, where they account for about two per cent of the
inventory (Hikade 2005), and from settlement sites of
Ain Asil and Ain el-Gazzareen, Dakhla Oasis, where they
represent 4.0 per cent and 1.8 per cent of the assemblages,
respectively. Notches are more frequent at nearby watch-
posts: at Seth Hill they made up 8.75 per cent and at
Bee’s Lookout almost 14.00 per cent of the inventory.
By contrast, a single notch was found at the watch-post
codenamed Dakhla 99/38; however, considering that the
flint inventory comprised only 13 retouched tools, the
said notch still represents more than eight per cent of the
assemblage (Riemer et al. 2005). At El Kharafish, the
Western Desert, notches represent 4.0 per cent of the flint
inventory.
Denticulates (Figures 50:6-7;119).
Denticulates are found at both Archaic and Old Kingdom
sites. The intensity of their occurrence is problematic
to determine. Earlier studies either failed to identify
the tools, or did not publish any data on them. The
unavoidable impression is that, having concentrated on the
analysis of bifacial knives, sickle blades or alternatively
scrapers, archaeologists still do not take into account
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
such unappealing artefacts, often difficult to identify, as
denticulates, notches or scaled pieces. It is a common
practice in published lists of types from given sites to
combine notches and denticulates or scrapers and end
scrapers, perhaps unsurprisingly so, given that the ultimate
categorisation of an implement can be very demanding and
is inherently arbitrary. This makes the determination of the
intensity of occurrence of a type at a given site intractable.
Denticulates could be easily made by anyone. They were
probably used to perform a variety of tasks, such as sawing,
cutting or scraping.
Denticulates attributable to the Archaic Period were
recovered from Abydos (Petrie 1902). Ain Asil and Ain
el-Gazzareen, the Dakhla Oasis, yielded 5.0 per cent
and 4.50 per cent of these implements, respectively. Late
Old Kingdom watch-posts from Dakhla produced a high
percentage of denticulates: Seth Hill more than 21.00 per
cent and Bee’s Lookout 20.00 per cent. In the watch-post
codenamed 99/38, among 13 retouched tool, four were
denticulates, representing 31.00 per cent of the inventory
(Riemer et al. 2005). At El Kharafish, the Western Desert,
occupied by the communities of the Sheikh Muftah culture,
denticulates accounted for nine per cent of the inventory
from Dynasty I level (Riemer 2011a).
Strangled pieces (Figures 51:1,3; 121)
Elongated flakes with two fairly deep notches formed by
retouch at opposing edges came to be known as strangled
pieces. While their function has been unrecognised as of
yet, the notches are believed to have been shaped in order
to facilitate the fitting of a handle.
These rare tools were found at two nearby sites in the
Dakhla Oasis, i.e., Ain Asil (Midant-Reynes 1998) and Ain
el-Gazzareen, both dating to Dynasty VI. Excavations at
these settlement sites produced two and three specimens,
respectively. In the northern area of Elephantine registered
were three specimens referred to as ‘blades with lateral
notches’ (Hikade 2013), a description presumably denoting
strangled pieces.
Scaled pieces ( Figures 51:2,3; 120)
Most often made on massive flakes, scaled pieces exhibit
traces of removals of the so-called scaled flakes on one
or both surfaces in the form of clear, highly rippled flake
scars. Flake scars show the directions of blows, which
could be applied from one or both ends of a flake, and
even from all four sides. Heavy rippled surface of flake
scars, as well as deep cryptobulbs, testify to high impact.
In prehistory, particularly the European one, scaled
pieces are considered to be a type of cores from which
scaled flakes were detached. These cores are grouped
according to the directions of flake removal into uni-, bi-
or multipolar. A ‘pole’ corresponds here to the concept of
a striking platform adopted to describe ordinary cores. In
the terminology appertaining to African materials, scaled
23
pieces are correctly regarded as implements. They were
used as chisels or wedges for working or cleaving various
materials. Strong impact necessary for their use brought
about the flaking of the blade, detachment of characteristic
scaled flakes and a heavy rippled surface of the resultant
flake scars. With use, an implement was rotated so that
the point of impact changed and multipolar scaled pieces
were shaped.
Known and popular in prehistoric cultures, scaled
pieces are bound to have been frequently used in Egypt
throughout the periods discussed in the book, yet, until
recently, they remained largely unidentified. They are
reported to have been registered at very few sites, e.g., on
Elephantine (Katthagen 1985); at Ain el-Gazzareen, the
Dakhla Oasis, where scaled pieces amounted to 2.10 per
cent of the inventory; at nearby watch-posts, representing
3.75 per cent of the assemblage at Seth Hill, 12.30 per cent
at Bee’s Lookout, 14 per cent at Nephthys Hill (Kaper,
Willems 2002); some specimens were recorded also at El
Kharafish, the Western Desert (Riemer 2011a).
Easy to make, scaled pieces were used on a daily basis.
Axes (Figure 53).
Axes were found at merely few sites. They are quite
numerous in Abydos (Petrie 1902), some were registered in
Giza (Kromer 1978), and Elephantine produced three axes
along with two bifacial knives (Hikade 2013; Kaiser et al.
1997). Axes from Abydos, Giza and Elephantine are all
very similar, inasmuch as they are fairly flat, bifacially and
entirely covered with medium and fine surface retouching.
Axe blades are slightly arched or nearly straight. Three
similar axes found in the Old Kingdom workshop in the
Fayum Oasis were published by G. Caton-Thompson and
G. Gardner (1934).
Hoes (Figure 54)
Excavations at the settlement site of Ain el-Gazzareen,
the Dakhla Oasis produced two very similar tools made
of tabular flint, dating to Dynasty VI. Remains of cortex
surfaces are present at both sides of these massive
artefacts. Deep and quite extensive notches at both lateral
edges were shaped with heavy, steep retouch. Their blades
are slightly convex; in one case sharpened with transverse
blow and in the other trimmed by removing a few flakes
along the axis of the tool on the dorsal and ventral side.
Judging from the position of side notches, these specimens
were rather hoes than axes and were used accordingly.
Choppers –pebble tool (Figures 55; 122)
There is one type of flint tool that has not been hitherto
distinguished in the lists of types drawn up for particular
sites in Egypt, yet sometimes noted in descriptions of
inventories. These are choppers, or the oldest stone tools
produced and used as early as at the dawn of the Lower
Palaeolithic one million years ago. In typological terms,
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
artefacts referred to herein as choppers formally meet all
the requirements to be called choppers.
As their Palaeolithic countertypes, choppers of the
Pharaonic period are sizable flint pebble tools the edge
of which was sharpened by detaching a few flakes.
Analogously to the Paleolithic specimens, they may be
grouped into two types: ordinary one-sided choppers,
which edge was formed through the removal of flakes from
only one side of a pebble, and bilateral chopping tools,
which had their edge sharpened by striking off flakes from
both sides of a pebble. In the case of longitudinal pebble
tools, the working edge may be longitudinal or transverse.
But for flake scars, the entire chopper is covered with
cortex.
All Pharaonic sites in Egypt to have supplied choppers
lie in the vicinity of locations known to have been related
to working stone, building pyramids and mastabas. For
example, a royal necropolis of Dynasty V in Abusir gave
some choppers. Alongside similar tools made of hard
rocks such as basalt, quartzite and granite, the site yielded
also choppers made from local flint pebbles. In addition to
classical choppers, the tools found at the site fall also into
the categories of hammers, hammerstones and wedges.
The edges of some choppers exhibit traces of sharpening.
Choppers are found everywhere, but hammerstones and
scaled pieces tend to be concentrated in the vicinity of
brick buildings (Váchala, Svoboda 1989).
The Old Kingdom materials from Giza gave, under the
name of unifacial or bifacial cobble cores, both single and
double-sided choppers. Made of local flint pebbles, they
reach 7.5cm in length and 6cm in width (Conard 2000) and
are commonly regarded to have been used for smoothing
limestone (Aston et al. 2000).
In Dahshur, similar artefacts were found near two
pyramids. The area near the Red Pyramid of Sneferu of
Dynasty IV produced flint pebbles with traces of pounding.
The oblong chopper, 12cm by 5.5cm in size with a chisel-
like end, believed by Ch. Eger (1994) to be of Lower
Paleolithic origin, is in fact an Old Kingdom chopper. Flint
artefacts of this kind are accompanied by various types of
hammers made of other rocks of up to more than eight
kilograms in weight, with grooves carved probably for
binding a hammer to a wooden haft. Remains of stone dust
registered on their surfaces prove that they were used for
working blocks of limestone and sandstone (Eger 1994).
In the northern foreland, a few hundred meters to the
south, natural mantles of flint pebbles were found lying at
a distance of several meters from the northern edge of the
Bent Pyramid, also Sneferu of Dynasty VI’s work. They
are spread over the area of tens of square meters. Among
natural, unworked pebbles, choppers of both variants,
large flakes, as well as large cores in the initial stages of
treatment were found in copious amounts. It is reasonable
to conjecture that such a rich accumulation of pebbles
24
close to the pyramid was readily exploited by its builders
(Figure 101).
I have also discovered a concentration of pebbles and
accompanying massive choppers and chopping tools in
Saqqara, having at first suspected the site to be of Lower
Paleolithic origin.
Elephantine gave analogous artefacts. In addition to
choppers, reaching up to 18cm in length and 10cm in
width, the island yielded picks, up to 13cm long and
6cm wide. They are dated to dynasties III and early IV
(Hikade 2002). The usage of flint implements in working
architectural elements has been expertly discussed by W.
M. F. Petrie (1890), D. Arnold (1991) and D. A. Stocks
(2003).
The foregoing observations point out that choppers were
put to use in works relating to stone architecture, so
extensive in the Old Kingdom. They allegedly came handy
for finishing the planes of sandstone or limestone blocks to
make them adequately adhere to one another, or for other
similar tasks. Marked by the simplicity of production,
they were most likely manufactured somewhere near the
building sites.
Tools of a definite shape and unmistakable functionality,
choppers are fully entitled to be included as a distinct type
in a list of flint artefacts of Ancient Egypt.
Retouched blades and flakes (Figure 51:5-6)
Retouched blades and flakes are common at all settlement
sites, starting from the Lower Palaeolithic until the dawn
of civilisation. Effortlessly produced, probably only for
immediate use, these tools were discarded once cutting,
scraping or piercing were done. Particularly frequent
in inventories are retouched flakes, their shapes, types
of retouch and its location exhibiting a great variety.
Likewise, the intensity of retouch shows considerable
diversity: some tools might have been consciously
retouched in order to form a particular type of an edge or
to sharpen it, while others feature merely unintentional use
retouch. Sometimes both types of retouch co-occur on a
flake or blade.
Burins (Figure 52:1-4)
Burins are infrequent in Egyptian late prehistoric flint
inventories. Rarely produced in Egypt of the Pharaohs,
they were more common in the Predynastic period. The
inventory from Maadi provides a good, if somehow
exceptional example; numerous burins of different
varieties, mostly made on blades, constitute a major part
of the flint inventory (Rizkana, Seeher 1988). In later
periods, burins are a rarity. Some specimens dating to the
Old Kingdom were found on Elephantine (Hikade 2002,
2013; Katthagen 1985); in the sixth-dynasty fort of Ain
Asil burins represent only 0.50 per cent of the inventory
(Midant-Reynes 1998; very few were registered at Kom
 Types of Flint Artefacts in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom
el-Hisn (0.66 per cent). Many inventories do not contain
any burins at all.
Few burins were made on blades, flakes and even
fragments of bifacial knives (Katthagen 1985). There
are some dihedral burins (Figure 52: 1-3), and burins on
truncations (Figure 52: 4). It did not take a specialist to
produce a burin – every resident could have fashioned
such an implement for their own needs: for working bone,
wood, probably even soft rocks. Given that the fruits of
all these basic activities, that were no doubt undertaken
in the periods discussed herein, are well-represented in
archaeological record, they were probably carried out also
by dint of other kind of tools, e.g., ordinary unretouched
blades or flakes. Traseological analyses might perhaps
help elucidate the issue.
Backed pieces (Figure 52:5)
In the Archaic and Old Kingdom periods, backed pieces,
i.e., blades, more rarely flakes with one straight edge
formed by steep, high retouch, are scarce. T. Hikade
(2005) reports that the Helwan cemetery supplied four of
such artefacts, representing 1.65 per cent of the inventory.
The author (Hikade 2013) notes that only three specimens
made on flakes were recorded in the Elephantine
inventories from the area North of the Knumh Temple,
which represents 0.27 per cent of all retouched tools.
Neither settlement sites of Dynasty VI from the Dakhla
Oasis nor neighbouring watch-posts produced any backed
pieces. This tool was probably of little use in these periods.
25
Bracelets (Figure 52:6-7)
While we explore the issue of flintwork in the Archaic
Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it is incumbent
upon us to note that flint was used not only for the
production of implements, but also sculptures and
ornaments, namely bracelets, favourites already with the
prehistoric inhabitants of Egypt (Kobusiewicz et al. 2010).
Unfortunately, no flint bracelet has been preserved in its
entirety. A large fragment of a bracelet was found at the
settlement site in Buto, dated by K. Schmidt (1987) to the
Archaic Period, whilst a small one, attributable to the early
Dynasty I, was recovered from Tell el-Farkha in the central
Delta (Kabaciński 2003). B. Katthagen (1985) published a
half of a flint bracelet from the Old Kingdom unearthed on
Elephantine (Figure 52: 7).
Presumably very valuable, flint bracelets must have been
manufactured by craftsmen-specialists. It comes as a
surprise that these artefacts are found merely on settlement
sites, and that they were never registered in the tombs of
the then elite.
Animal sculptures
Elaborately ‘carved’ animal figurines of flint are also
noteworthy. The oldest to date are figurines of a hippotamus
and dog unearthed at a late Predynastic cemetery in
Hierakonpolis (Adams 2000; Friedman 2000), as well
as a crocodile and hippopotamus uncovered at a coeval
settlement site near the temple of Osiris at Abydos (Petrie
1902). A small hippopotamus of the Middle Kingdom
origin is known from Kahun (Friedman 2000).
 Chapter 4
Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
4.1. The Dakhla Oasis
In the Dakhla Oasis, flint materials attributable to the
Old Kingdom were recovered from four types of sites of
similar chronology, yet different functions. An extensive,
agricultural settlement site of Ain el-Gazzareen in the
central western part of the oasis, long-excavated by A.
Mills, constitutes the first type. The second type is Ain
Asil: a large urban centre in the middle of the oasis with
a fortress – the abode of the governor. The area of the
El Khorab temple located within today’s town of Mut
exemplifies the third type; and a series of watch-posts
within and surrounding the oasis constitute a fourth type
of sites under study. All are coetaneous sites: Ain Asil
and Ain el-Gazzareen are dated to dynasties V-VI; the El
Khorab temple is perhaps a little earlier and is estimated
at Dynasty IV (kind information of C. Hope). Watch-
posts should be dated to dynasties V-VI, although some
researchers speculate that this type of sites date back as
early as to Dynasty IV (Riemer et al. 2005).
The examination of materials from these four types of
well-researched sites has permitted the presentation of
the typology of flintwork and the technology employed in
the late Old Kingdom in the Dakhla Oasis. Interestingly,
while the typology and technology have been shown to
bear great similarities throughout the Oasis, they differ
in some respects from Old Kingdom flint inventories
recovered from other areas of Egypt. Furthermore, the
studies have allowed us to draw an understanding of such
issues as the procurement and management of raw material
used in toolmaking. Besides, as well as suggesting some
hypotheses relating to various aspects of economy, lithic
analyses provided an insight into the relationships between
indigenous people living in the Oasis and Egyptians, who
arrived from the Nile valley carrying their more advanced
civilisation. I analysed flint inventories, inter alia, in
pursuance of an explanation if the local population of the
Oasis was supplanted by the colonisers or else, if it yielded
to acculturation, i.e., a progressive assimilation into the
Egyptian civilisation. This issue is further explored in
chapter 9.2.
Raw materials
Two types of rock raw materials predominate at all sites of
the Dakhla Oasis analysed in this book. The first is the so-
called nodular chert (Figure 99), which occurs as relatively
small, almost spherical nodules, 6 – 10cm in diameter,
found at foot of escarpment bounding the oasis in the north
(Midant-Reynes 1998).
26
The other highly common type is tabular chert (Figure
100), imported in the form of flat slabs from unknown, yet
given the popularity of this raw material, probably nearby
sources.
Chalcedony was found exclusively at watch-posts; Bee’s
Lookout produced a considerable amount of this raw
material, and Nephthys Hill likewise. In Bee’s Lookout, a
large number of implements were detached from a single,
large, spherical, half-exploited chalcedony concretion
covered with grey, fairly fine-grained cortex, the surface
of which exhibits multidirectional cracks. The hue of
chalcedony goes from light bluish-grey (Grey 2.8/1) to
pinkish grey (5YR 7/2), to turn into cherry red near the
surface. Deposits of chalcedony are unknown anywhere
in Dakhla.
Relatively few specimens of mined flint, used solely for
the production of sickle blades, had been brought from one
of many outcrops in the Nile valley. Occurring in various
shades of brown, sometimes dark honey in colour and with
occasional brighter streaks, this variety of flint is easily
distinguishable from the two other types of flint prevailing
at archaeological sites in the Oasis. Transparent and brown
flints, rare in inventories recovered from the Dakhla Oasis,
were also imported, perhaps from one of the numerous
sources to be found in the Nile valley.
Just like nodular flint, so too quartzite, produced in
negligible amounts by archaeological investigations, had
likely eroded from the Upper Cretaceous strata in the
northern escarpment to be picked up and brought to the
Oasis by its inhabitants (Midant-Reynes 1998).
4.1.1. Ain el-Gazzareen (Site 32/390/K2-2)
Discovered in 1979, this settlement is located in the
central-western part of the Oasis. Regular excavations
under the supervision of A. Mills, the Director of the
Dakhla Oasis Project, were conducted in the years 1995
to 2002 and 2004 – 2005 and have been continued since
then (Mills 1995; Mills, Kaper 2003). The site is almost
5 acres in area. Previous excavation seasons produced
massive quantities of flint materials – cores, debitage and
tools relating to the daily life of the settlement, nowadays
called Ain el-Gazzareen. Estimated on the basis of pottery
at dynasties V-VI (Puttman 2012), in Dynasty VI, perhaps
as early as the end of Dynasty V, the settlement was an
autonomous, large agricultural village (Mills, Kaper
2003). Its architecture was of a fairly low quality; none
traces of any prestigious structures have been uncovered to
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
T y p e
Single platform cores for flakes
Opposed platform cores for flakes
Ninety-degree cores for flakes
Regular multiplatform cores for flakes
Irregular multiplatform cores for flakes
Initially struck cores
Unclassifiable cores
Total:
Figure 3. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Absolute and percentage frequencies of types of cores.
date. A satellite settlement of the governorate of Ain Asil,
located about 40km as the crow flies, the village’s raison
d’être was supplying food to Egyptian settlers in the oasis
(Mills 1995).
Flint materials
The description of cores and debitage from Ain el-
Gazzareen was grounded in a minute examination of a
special collection yielded by a sample square codenamed
O16. The material was collected with particular preciseness,
including all kinds of chipping debris, such as tiny flakes
and chips, since it was intended that the inventory from
the square would provide a representation of debitage
and so it did. In order to draw an understanding of the
employed technology, all complete retouched tools, cores
and debitage from the square were accurately measured
and the type of the raw material identified. Furthermore,
determined were types of blanks (flake vs. blade) and their
butts; the degree of coverage with cortex (primary flakes/
blades – more than half of the surface covered with cortex;
secondary flakes/blades – less than half of the surface
covered with cortex; and tertiary flakes/blades – absence
of cortex on the surface); types and position of retouch;
types of striking platforms and their angle of inclination
with respect to the striking surface; and, last but not least,
the degree of core preparation and exploitation.
The collection and analysis of the data have allowed a
reconstruction of the intentions of flint knappers from Ain
el-Gazzareen along with the procedures they followed
in order to achieve their aims. Conveniently, the results
of the analysis of lithic inventories from the site can be
successfully applied to other Old Kingdom inventories
known from the Dakhla Oasis.
In general, the assemblage from the so-called sample
collection from O16 square consists of 5272 products,
where 56 cores represent 1.06 per cent of the assemblage,
5092 debitage pieces amount to 96.59 per cent of the
collection, and 124 retouched tools account for 2.35 per
cent of the total number of excavated artefacts. Virtually
all specimens were made from two of the aforementioned
27
Number Percentage
22 39.32
3 5.35
5 8.92
2 3.57
11 19.64
3 5.35
10 17.85
56 100.00
varieties of raw material, i.e., nodular flint and tabular
flint, constituting 53.17 per cent and 46.58 per cent of
the assemblage, respectively. Other types of raw material
include imported mined flint (0.24 per cent), quartzite and
quartz (0.01 per cent).
Cores and debitage from Ain el-Gazzareen are presented
below based on the material obtained from the sample
collection from O16 square, while retouched tools are
discussed on the basis of a much richer assemblage
produced by multiple research seasons.
Cores in the sample collection (Figures 56:1-3; 57:1-4;
104)
Fifty-six cores from the sample collection were analysed
in detail; the table shows the absolute and percentage
frequencies of particular types of cores (Figure 3).
Single platform cores for flakes (22 specimens)
In general, cores of this type are rather small, stout, short
and very short. Their mean length equals 38.12mm, and
they fall in the range of 20.00–60.00mm; their mean width
is 40.20mm (ranging between 18.00 and 58.00mm); and
the mean thickness amounts to 22.88mm (ranging from
8.00 to 41.00mm). Striking platforms are largely covered
with cortex (36.38 per cent); lisse and faceted platforms
represent 27.27 per cent and 22.72 per cent of platforms,
respectively; 13.63 per cent of platforms are unclassifiable.
The mean angle between a striking platform and a striking
surface is 80.30°, falling in the range of 49° to 99°. The
preponderance of cores (59.10 per cent) exhibits no traces
of cores preparation whatsoever. 40.90 per cent of cores
were very roughly prepared. 63.64 per cent of cores are
characterised by an advanced degree of lithic reduction,
whilst 36.36 per cent are fully exhausted.
Opposed platform cores for flakes (three specimens)
These are also small and short cores, with the mean length
of 40.00mm (ranging between 34.46 and 45.54mm), the
mean width of 35.00mm (falling in the range of 34.00 to
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Standard
Core type Mean Range
deviation

Length 38.12 10.55 20.00 – 60.00

Single platform cores for flakes Width 40.20 10.53 18.00 – 52.00
Thickness 22.88 8.28 8.00 – 41.00

Length 50.60 11.90 43.00 – 70.00

Ninety-degree cores for flakes Width 53.00 22.29 51.00 – 68.00
Thickness 35.20 8.72 6.00 - 20.00

Length 57.00 14.41 20.00 – 67.00

Irregular multiplatform cores for
Width 35.20 11.50 20.00 – 58.00
flakes
Thickness 25.60 7.65 16.00 – 38.00

Length 49.71 20.71 20.00 – 80.00

Unclassifiable cores Width 41.40 17.36 28.00 – 75.00
Thickness 27.86 8.65 20.00 – 40.00

Figure 4. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Metrical data on cores (measurements in mm).

36.00mm) and the mean thickness of 24.50mm (ranging
from 23.00 to 26.00mm). Three striking platforms are
covered with cortex. The mean angle between a striking
platform and a striking surface equals 85° (ranging
between 51° and 108°). All these specimens were crudely
prepared and all were partly exploited.
Ninety-degree cores for flakes (five specimens)
These cores are short and stout, with the mean length of
50.60mm (in the range of 43.00 to 70.00mm), the mean
width of 53mm (ranging between 51.00 and 68.00mm)
and the mean thickness of 35.20mm (ranging from 20.00
to 46.00mm). The striking platforms of four pieces are
covered with cortex, and one striking platform is lisse.
The mean core angle is 84° (a core angle range of 62-
105°). In two cases, the striking surfaces are situated at
the same side and are convergent, while in two cases the
striking surfaces are located at separate planes of the core.
Unshaped prior to exploitation, four cores were partially
reduced and one was fully exhausted.
Regular multiplatform cores for flakes (two specimens)
These multiplatform cores are short and stout. Their
mean length equals 57.00mm (ranging between 55.00
and 59.00mm), width – 51.50mm (between 42.00 and
61.00mm) and thickness – 28.50mm (between 21.00 and
35.00mm). Three striking platforms are faceted and two
are lisse. The mean core angle is 88° (ranging from 80° to
93°). In two cases, the striking platforms are situated at the
same side of a core, being convergent in once case. Only
one specimen displays traces of core preparation. Both
cores were partially exploited.
Irregular multiplatform cores for flakes (11 specimens)
Short and stout, irregular multiplatform cores for flakes
have got a mean length of 57.00mm (falling in the range of
20.00 to 67.00mm), the width of 35.20mm (in the range of
20.00 to 58.00mm) and thickness of 25.70mm (in the range
of 20.00 to 38.00mm). Most striking platforms are lisse,
some are covered with cortex and some are unspecified.
Core angles are varied and difficult to measure, and
the relation of striking platforms likewise. None of the
specimens bears any traces of core preparation, and
the majority of them exhibit maximum degree of lithic
reduction.
Initial cores (three specimens)
Initial cores are, by definition, slightly larger and show
no core preparation. Their mean height is 46.50mm
(they range from 45.00 to 48.00mm), width – 36.00mm
(between 30.00 and 42.00mm), and thickness – 21.00mm
(in the thickness range of 20.00 to 22.00mm). In two cases,
the striking platforms are covered with cortex; one is lisse.
The core angle ranges from 90° to 95°, and there is no
regularity as regards the localisation of striking platforms.
Unclassifiable cores (ten specimens)
Unclassifiable cores are relatively larger specimens,
fractured or damaged in the initial stages of exploitation.
Their mean dimensions are as follows: the mean length –
49.71mm (between 20.00 and 80mm), width – 41,40mm
(from 28,00 to 75.00mm) and thickness – 27.86mm
(between 20.00 and 40.00mm). The types of striking
platforms, their interrelation, core angles and extent of
core shaping are largely unreadable. Almost all cores were
maximally exhausted.
Generally, all cores are alike, inasmuch as their dimensions
and proportions are very similar. Cores for blades are
virtually non-occurring, and few blades identified in
the debitage were probably knapped accidentally. All
cores were made from nodular flint. Core preparation
is negligible or unnoticeable. A lack of core preparation
is further corroborated by the absence of characteristic
chipping debris produced while a core is shaped. Flint
knappers processed these cores by directing random blows
at different angles, hence their occasional almost spherical

28
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites

Debitage type Number Percentage

Cortex flakes 72 1.41

Cortex blades 59 1.15

Flakes from single platform core 454 8.91

Flakes from double platform core 2 0.04

Flakes from ninety-degree core 17 0.33

Flakes from multiplatform core 5 0.10

Unclassifiable flakes 365 7.17

Blades from single platform core 39 0.76

Blades from double platform core 1 0.02

Blades from ninety-degree core 1 0.02

Unclassifiable blades 13 0.25

Crested blades 1 0.02

Chips 3513 69.03

Chunks 400 7.85

Burin spalls 2 0.04

Scaled pieces 50 0.98

Biface trimming flakes 98 1.92

Total: 5092 100.00

Figure 5. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types

shape. The assemblage contains numerous discarded
initial specimens. Detached flakes were plentiful and
irregular, the preponderance of them left unretouched. The
foregoing observations further substantiate the hypothesis
that the Ain el-Gazzareen population enjoyed an easy
access to raw material.
The foregoing detailed characterisation of cores from the
model collection from O16 square broadly corresponds
to the nature of numerous cores recovered from other
excavation units at Ain el-Gazzareen.
Debitage in the sample collection
The sample collection comprises 5092 pieces of debitage
(Figures 5 and 6). If the length is lesser than the width, a
specimen is referred to as a flake, while a blade is defined
as a specimen, the length of which is equal to or greater
than its width. A chip is a flake that measures less than
15mm. A chunk is a fragment of a raw material nodule,
which disintegrated on impact or spontaneously, due
to natural fractures. Typically small and short, rarely
larger and extensive, with the characteristic butt at an
obtuse angle to the dorsal surface, bifacial trimming
flakes are characteristic flakes detached while shaping
bifacially retouched tools. Their butts are oblong, very
fine, unspecified or pointed, which attests to the use of
a soft hammer or more likely pressure. Some of them,
measuring less than 15mm and classified as chips, were
likely overlooked in the course of investigations.
For the purpose of identification of raw material types
from the O16 square of sample collection, a random
sample of debitage was selected, numbering 2200 pieces,
which represents 43.00 per cent of the entire debitage. The
analysis has demonstrated that 19.70 per cent of examined
specimens were made from nodular flint, while 80.30 per
cent from tabular flint. The number of chips of nodular flint
roughly equals the rest of debitage specimens from this raw
material, while the quantity of tabular flint chips almost
three times outnumbers other debitage pieces from this
raw material. This discrepancy arises from the technology
of working tabular flint. In order to fashion a desired
implement, to ‘carve’ it out of a tablet, a flint knapper
must have chipped it extensively, thereby producing huge
amounts of chips, including typical bifacial trimming
flakes, made without exception from tabular flint.
Furthermore, this process accounts for the relative
advantage of tabular flint within the category of chips,
much greater if we consider the entire inventory.
It is undeniable that flake technology was used for
processing nodular flint. A nodule was knapped from all
sides, with cortex surfaces often used as striking platforms.
In most cases, striking platforms, sides, back of a core or

29
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Debitage type Mean St. Dev. Range

Cortex flakes Length 28.20 14.85 4 – 65

Width 26.45 10.07 4 – 54
Thickness 7.69 4.45 2 – 22

Flakes from single platform core Length 23.95 10.14 7 – 60

Width 24.22 10.17 9 – 90
Thickness 5.89 3.78 1 – 30

Flakes from ninety- degree core Length 31.18 12.23 15 – 55

Width 30.47 7.21 14 – 42
Thickness 9.00 3.34 3 – 17

Flakes from multiplatform core Length 21.20 4.55 14 – 25

Width 29.40 12.58 14 – 45
Thickness 7.60 4.39 2 – 13

Blades from single platform core Length 36.27 16.13 17 – 72

Width 14.69 7.43 5 – 32
Thickness 5.58 4.05 2 – 14

Figure 6. Ain el-Gazzareen. Sample collection. Metrical data on debitage (measurements in mm)

even edges of striking platforms were unprepared. The
debitage lacks any characteristic forms produced while
preparing a core, such as platform rejuvenation flakes or
crested blades. Given that flakes were generally randomly
detached, frequent are irregular multiplatform cores.
In fact, cores typologically identified as single platform
specimens apparently did not have more striking platforms
simply because there were no more to be found; it follows
that, once one striking platform was exploited, a core was
simply discarded. Consequently, we cannot describe the
technology of working nodular flint as the technology of a
single platform core; it was more of an ‘as it was possible’
technology. It seems that once a flint knapper proceeded
with working a flint nodule, they used a hard hammer, as
evidenced by frequent extensive bulbs. Hammer stones
and fabricators are scarce in Ain el-Gazzareen. Excavation
exposed few quartz hammer stones (Figure 103) along
with unworked spherical nodules with traces of knapping,
most likely used for working flint.
Flaking produced thick flakes, often with an obtuse angle
between a butt and ventral surface. Most common are
lisse butts and cortex butts are less frequent. Flakes of
tabular flint are slightly larger than those of nodular flint.
Lithic reduction resulted in the detachments of numerous
chunks. A great deal of carelessness is noticeable in the
management of raw material, which is unsurprising since
areas in the vicinity were rich in sources of raw flint. Out of
a vast amount of detached flakes, few were retouched with
the intention of shaping them into desired forms. Typical
for the manufacture of flint implements at the site is the
frequent use of irregular, debris flakes, not particularly
suitable, in my opinion, to achieve an anticipated objective.
A relatively large number of bifacial trimming flakes,
usually from tabular flint, are a characteristic testimony of
the employment of this type of technology at the site. Very
few flakes of quartzite probably represent the waste from
the production of millstones.
Retouched tools
Retouched tools were studied on the basis of analyses
of 614 retouched tools recovered from all surface units
explored in the course of six excavation seasons in the
years 1998-2002 and 2004 at Ain el-Gazzareen (Figure 7).
9.06 per cent of retouched tools were shown to have been
burnt.
For the purpose of a comprehensive analysis of retouched
tools, a list of 23 types was compiled specifically for
the abundant inventory from Ain el-Gazzareen. More
subtypes could perhaps be distinguished, e.g., within the
scrapers class, it seems nevertheless that manufactures
had no intention of producing such a diverse range of
products, hence an artificial construction of types does not
help to clarify but rather obscures their intention. Since the
examination of archaeological record yielded by other Old
Kingdom sites in the Dakhla Oasis proved the applicability
of the list of types developed for Ain el-Gazzareen to all
four types of sites recognised in the Oasis, the list was
accordingly used to present lithic materials from all these
sites.
4.1.2. List of types for the site of Ain el-Gazzareen
Type 1. Bifacial knives. (Figure 58:1; 59; 60:1-2; 61:1-2;
62:1-2; 105; 106) Bifacial knifes found at Ain el-Gazzareen
were made on flat, longitudinal flakes of considerable size.
The raw material for their production was identified as
mined flint, rarely tabular or Egyptian flint. The knives’

30
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites

Burnt
Type No. Tool type Number Percentage Figure
No. %

1 Bifacial knifes 24 3.90 59; 60:1-2; 105;106 3 5.35

2 Rectangular sickle blades 84 13.68 64:1-9; 107 6 10.71

3 Triangular sickle blades 13 2.11 65:1-3, 107 1 1.78

4 Half-products of sickle blades 29 4.72 65:4-6; 108 - -

5 Massive rectangular sickle inserts 29 4.72 65:7-8; 66:1-8; 109 4 7.14

6 Massive triangular sickle inserts 15 2.44 67:1-5; 110 - -

7 Massive scrapers 83 13.51 68:1-3; 111 8 14.28

8 Flat scrapers 37 6.02 69:1-2; 70:1-5; 112 9 16.07

9 Endscrapers 20 3.25 71:1-5 - -

10 Nosed endscrapers 17 2.76 72:1-3; 113 - -

11 Rabots 3 0.48 73: 1-4 - -

12 Crescent-shaped borers 3 0.48 74:1,4; 114 1 1.78

13 Tanged arrowheads 2 0.32 74:2,5; 115 - -

14 Bifacially retouched arrowheads 2 0.32 74:3,6; 116 - -

15 Microperforators 11 1.79 75:1-9; 117 - -

16 Borers 8 1.30 76:1-8; 118 - -

17 Notches 11 1.79 75:10-12 - -

18 Denticulated tools 28 4.56 77:1-6; 119 2 3.57

19 Strangled pieces 3 0.48 78:1,3, 121 - -

20 Scaled pieces 13 2.11 78:2,4; 120 - -

21 Hoes 2 0.32 54 - -

22 Retouched blades 8 1.30 79:1,4 - -

23 Retouched flakes 169 30.12 79:2,3,5 22 39.32

Total: 614 100.00 56 100.0

Figure 7. Ain el-Gazzareen. Absolute and percentage frequencies of particular types of retouched tools along with the absolute and
percentage frequencies of burnt pieces calculated within particular types .

surface was bifacially retouched and shows irregular
retouch scars. The arched edge was trimmed with regular,
continuous retouch on one side, while the other side either
lacks edge retouch, or was thinned by discontinuous
retouch. Edge retouch is invariably flat. The back of a
knife is straight, forming one line with a handle, which
is projecting in sufficiently preserved specimens. Knives
from Ain el-Gazzareen correspond to type 5 in accordance
with the above-given description of types, thus type 4
according to Tillmann.
Type 2. Rectangular sickle blades (Figure 58:2; 64:1-9;
107) were produced on quality, slender blades (trapezoidal
in cross-section), knapped off a single platform core using
pressure technology. Such blades were broken at both
ends to acquire a regular elongated rectangle with parallel
edges. The edges of rectangular sickle blades are covered
with fine serration on the ventral or dorsal side, sometimes
both. One or both longitudinal edges typically display
heavy sickle sheen, usually at one, more rarely at both
sides.
Type 3. Triangular sickle blades (Figure 58:3; 65:1-3:107).
These are pointed sickle blades with one arched edge. They
were used to complete the series of inserts mounted in a
wooden haft of a sickle. Their edge retouch is analogous to
that of rectangular sickle blades.

31
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Type 4. Half-products of sickle blades (Figure 58:4; 65:4-
6; 108) are quality, regular, slender blades removed from
a single platform core by dint of pressure technology.
When a butt is discernible, it is either pointed or lisse. The
feature that distinguishes half-products of sickle blades
from sickle blades is the absence of retouch. Some of them
have traces of use such as the regular sickle blades (see
Appendix Figure 14). The blanks were fashioned into both
types of sickle blades.
Type 5. Massive rectangular sickle inserts (Figure 58:5;
65:7-8; 66:1-8; 109) were made exclusively from tabular
flint. Massive and fairly flat, they were finished with
steep or semi-steep, always obverse retouch along four or
alternatively three edges, which also occasionally exhibit
sickle sheen.
Type 6. Massive triangular sickle inserts (Figure 58:6:
67:1-5; 110), made from tabular flint, resemble a slightly
obtuse-angled triangle with a pointed tip in shape. The
convex, arched edge opposite the obtuse angle has regular
retouch, and the other edge, also retouched, is a little
concave. The straight base was prepared with regular
steep retouch. Long, often serrated edges are finished with
semi-steep or almost flat, fairly regular retouch. Marked
by a very pointy and sharp tip, these implements were used
as sickle inserts, as suggested by sickle sheen visible on
the concave side. They were hafted as the last two sickle
inserts in a row of massive rectangular inserts set in a
wooden handle of a sickle.
Type 7. Massive scrapers (Figure 58:7; 68:1-3; 111)
were predominantly made from tabular flint. Resembling
irregular circle or oval in shape, sometimes a rectangle
with rounded edges, they were either finished with
almost all-around retouch, or retouch could be limited
to an arched scraping edge. Retouch was regular, semi-
steep, from time to time almost flat and not particularly
high. Complete tools are relatively massive, usually of
considerable dimensions.
Type 8. Flat scrapers (Figure 58:8; 69:1-2; 70:1-5:112) are
similar in shape to massive scrapers, albeit are typically
smaller in size. They were crafted on flat or very flat tablets
of tabular flint, therefore their regular retouch running
along most of their perimeter or in its section is flatter.
Type 9. The distinguishing characteristic of end scrapers
(Figure 58:9; 71:1-5) is a single scraping edge. End
scrapers found at Ain el-Gazzareen were mostly made on
flakes, occasionally massive, sometimes elongated. Their
scraping edges are regular, usually arched, shaped with
steep or semi-steep, at times high retouch. Lateral edges
are from time to time irregularly retouched.
Type 10. Nosed scrapers (Figure 58:10; 72;1-3, 113) are
made on fairly massive flakes, with an easily discernible
projection, at which an arched scraping edge was shaped
by regular, flat or very flat retouch, fairly fine and restricted
basically to the edge.
32
Type. 11. Rabots (Figure 58:11; 73:1-4). End scrapers with
a very tall scraping edge, made on a thick flake or a chunk,
sometimes called core end scrapers.
Type 12. Crescent-shaped drills (Figure 58:12; 74:1,4;
114). These are massive, thick fragments of flakes or flakes
resembling new moon in shape. The main distinguishing
mark of these borers is an extensive, fairly deep notch and
a back parallel to the notch. Shaped by heavy, high, steep
retouch, crescent-shaped borers were purportedly used for
drilling stone vessels.
Type 13. Tanged arrowheads (Figure 58:13; 74:2,5;115).
These implements were made on slender, fine blades and
had a pointed tip along with a short, projecting tang.
Type 14. Bifacially retouched arrowheads (Figure 58:14;
74:3,6;116). Small, fine, flat and slender leaf-shaped
implements bifacially retouched with fine, flat, very
regular retouch, which completely covers both planes.
Type 15.Microperforators (Figure 58:15; 75:1-9; 117).
Microperforators are small, slender perforators, sometimes
with two ends. They are made on small, quite massive,
fairly irregular blades; bilateral, less frequently unilateral
semi-steep or steep retouch, tapering to an end or ends,
forms a pointed end.
Type 16. Borers (Figure 58:16; 76:1-8; 118). Borers
were mostly made on irregular flakes, less often blades.
Characteristic for them is a projecting working end,
frequently shaped with alternating retouch.
Type 17. Notches (Figure 58:17; 75:10-12;). These
implements were made on irregular flakes or, much less
commonly, blades. They take their name from notches of
varying extent and depth shaped with steep or semi-steep
retouch at their edges.
Type 18. Denticulated tools (Figure 58:18; 77:1-6; 119)
were made on flakes of irregular shapes. Denticulates are
marked by adjacent notches situated at different sections to
form a denticulate edge.
Type 19. Strangled pieces (Figure 58:19; 78:1,3;121).
These are elongated, flat fragments of tabular flint,
tapering towards one end. Both ends are transverse, with
one end wider and the other narrower. One transverse edge
is finished with obverse and inverse retouch at the same
time, other edges are trimmed all-around with semi-steep
retouch. Characteristic for them are two opposite, large
and very deep notches shaped with bifacial retouch at both
longitudinal edges near the narrower end.
Type 20. Scaled pieces (Figure 58:20; 78:2,4; 120).
Relatively flat nodules of raw material, which longitudinal
planes are covered with heavily rippled scars of flat flakes,
forming a kind of a striking surface. The scars may run
from one, two or even multiple directions.
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
Type and location of retouch on sickle blades
Retouch on one edge on ventral side
Retouch on one edge on dorsal side
Retouch on both edges on ventral side
Retouch on both edges on dorsal side
Alternating retouch
Microlithic use retouch on one side
Microlithic use retouch on both sides
No retouch. Truncated end
Total:
Figure 8. Ain el-Gazzareen. Type and location of retouch on sickle blades
Type 21. Hoes (Figure 58:22; 54). Made of tabular
flint, hoes are notched at sides. Both their surfaces are
covered with flat, irregular retouch. The working edge is
occasionally sharpened by a side blow or a series of finer
flaking along the axis of an implement.
Type 22. Retouched blades (Figure 58:23; 79:1,4) are
waste blades finished with a variety of obverse, more rarely
inverse or alternating retouch, steep, semi-steep, flat, often
irregular. It occupies merely a segment or segments of the
edge. Sometimes merely very fine use retouch is present.
Type 23. Retouched flakes (Figure 58:24; 79:2,3,5).
The production of all retouched tools at Ain el-Gazzareen
is typified by the exclusive use of three varieties of raw
material, namely nodular, tabular and mined flint (Figure
9). Sickle blades and blanks for their production as well
as the majority of bifacial knives were made exclusively
from mined flint.
Sickle blades were made on imported, very regular blades
detached from single platform cores by pressure. The table
above (Figure 8) demonstrates the types and location of
retouch on these implements.
It is not a strict rule, yet a marked trend that larger tools
such as massive triangular and rectangular sickle blades,
strangled pieces and most scrapers were manufactured
from tabular flint, while smaller tools were made on
nodular flint flakes, albeit implements of tabular flint are
also an occasional occurrence. Next to tools made of flint,
a damaged axe of basalt and two quartz artefacts were also
registered. 9.06 per cent of retouched tools were burnt.
4.1.3. Watch-posts
A watch-post is a term coined by archaeologists to define
a place on top of sandstone remnants (gebels), selected
from a strategic point of view. By order of a governor,
33
No. Percentage
23 23.71
21 21.64
5 5.15
18 18.55
5 5.15
16 16.49
6 6.18
3 3.09
97 100.00
a watch-post housed a small military crew, probably
numbering at most a few men, who stood guard and
tracked the movements of both the local nomads and
passing caravans (Figure 80). As well as remains of stone
structures protecting them against wind and sun (Figure
123) and more or less comprehensible to us rock carvings,
the soldiers left behind negligible amounts of potsherds
along with some flint artefacts, the lithic analysis of which
is presented below. Watch-posts date back to the late Old
Kingdom, arguably dynasties V-VI. Flint assemblages
from watch-posts were examined in accordance of the
above list of types developed on the basis of rich materials
from Ain el-Gazzareen.
Seth Hill (Site 30/420-G2-1)
Investigated by O. Kaper in December 2000 and January
2004 (Kaper, Wilems 2002), this watch-post was named
after the statuette of god Seth found on site (see Figure 80).
Typically, a kind of shelter was erected from boulders on
top of a sandstone gebel, probably for protection from the
north wind (see Figure 123). Guards who occupied the
site left behind pottery, flint artefacts and rock engravings.
Deposited in a layer of blown sand or on its surface, artefacts
were collected within 2 x 2m squares. The investigators
delved into sand, yet did not sieve it. Most of the artefacts
were collected from more or less flat top of the gebel, and
some from the slopes, where they without doubt were
subject to post-depositional translocations. Given that no
clusters of artefacts or concentrations of particular types
were registered, the inventory of Seth Hill was analysed
and described as a whole. Noteworthy is only a relatively
large collection labelled ‘hut floor’ from the interior of the
stone structure located on the top of the hill.
The entire assemblage from Seth Hill amounts to 1910
specimens, including 44 cores (representing 2.30 per cent
of the collection), 1786 pieces of debitage (93.52 per cent)
and 80 retouched tools (4.18 per cent). 77.30 per cent
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Type No. of % of No.of % of % of

Types of tools Other
No. tabul. tabul. nodul. nodul. Other

1 Bifacial knifes 9 37.50 - - Mined flint 15 62.50

2 Rectangular sickle blades 3 3.70 - - Mined flint 81 96.30

3 Triangular sickle blades - - - - Mined flint 10 100.00

Half-products of sickle
4 1 3.44 - - Mined flint 28 96.56
blades.

Massive rectangular
5 29 100.00 - - - -
sickle inserts

Masive triangular sickle

6 15 100.00 - - - -
inserts

7 Massive scrapers 73 87.99 9 10.84 Quartz 1 1.20

8 Flat scrapers 33 89.19 4 10.81 - -

9 Endscrapers 8 40.00 12 60.00 - -

10 Nosed scrapers 5 29.41 12 70.78 - -

11 Rabot - - 3 100.00 - -

12 Crescent drills 3 100.00 - - - -

13 Tanged arrow heads 2 100.00 - - - -

Bifacially retouched
14 - - - - Mined flint 2 100.00
Arrow heads

15 Microperforators - - 10 91.00 Mined flint 1 9.00

16 Borers 3 37.50 5 62.50 - -

17 Notches 7 63.63 3 27.27 Quartz 1 9.10

18 Denticulates 18 64.25 10 35.75 - -

19 Strangled pieces 3 100.00 - - - -

20 Scaled pieces 3 23.08 9 69.23 Mined flint 1 7.69

21 Hoes 2 100.00 - - - -

22 Retouched flakes 7 87.50 1 12.50 - -

23 Retouched blades 101 59.77 68 40.23 - -

Figure 9. Ain el-Gazzareen. Absolute and percentage frequencies of particular types of raw materials counted for each type of retouched
tools

34
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
Debitage type
Cortex flakes
Flakes from single platform core
Flakes from multiplatform core
Unclassifiable flake
Blades from single platform core
Chips
Chunks
Total:
Figure 10. Seth Hill. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types
of recovered artefacts were made from nodular flint and
21.42 per cent from tabular flint.
Cores (Figure 81:1-3)
The vast majority of cores (93.87 per cent) were made of
nodular flint. Some specimens from quartzite sandstone
(4.08 per cent) and a single piece of mined flint (2.04 per
cent) were also recorded. Two types of cores were basically
distinguished. Most numerous are multiplatform, irregular
cores for flakes (40 specimens, accounting for 90.68
per cent of cores). There are few single platform cores
for flakes (9.10 per cent) and one (0.22 per cent) single
platform core for blades. Both main types of cores entirely
correspond to analogous types of cores characterised for
Ain el-Gazzareen, the only difference lying in the more
advanced degree of exploitation, thus smaller size of cores
from Seth Hill. The specimens also lack any traces of core
preparation.
Debitage
Debitage types identified amongst 1786 pieces of debitage
recovered from the site are given in a table (Figure 10):
Just like cores, so too the debitage from Seth Hill is
marked by a slightly smaller size than the debitage of Ain
el-Gazzareen. 74.36 per cent of debitage is made from
nodular flint, 24.33 per cent from tabular flint, 0.50 per
cent from quartzitic sandstone, 0.33 per cent from quartz,
0.22 per cent from mined flint, 0.11 per cent from basalt;
specimens from hornstone and the so-called transparent
flint are an uncommon occurrence, representing 0.05 per
cent of the assemblage each. Few blades recovered from
the site are irregular. Given an almost complete absence
of cores for blades, these can be assumed to have been
detached by accident. In contrast to Ain el-Gazzareen,
at Seth Hill debitage from nodular flint is more frequent
than from tabular flint, which indicates that the hosts of
the watch-post did not have an easy access to sources of
tabular flint.
35
Number Percentage
45 2.52
168 9.41
91 5.10
162 9.10
6 0.34
1165 65.21
149 8.32
1786 100.00
Retouched tools (Figures 82, 83)
Eighty retouched tools were distinguished in the lithic
inventory recovered from Seth Hill, including 57 pieces
(71.25 per cent) from nodular flint, 17 pieces (21.25 per
cent) from tabular flint, five specimens (6.25 per cent)
from mined flint and one piece (1.25 per cent) from
chalcedony (Figure 11).
Tools of Seth Hill are slightly smaller in size than
implements from Ain el-Gazzareen and none of them are
large, massive specimens.
Noteworthy is a relatively rich inventory recovered from
the interior of a stone structure (hut floor). It consists of 14
retouched tools, including two massive scrapers and one
flat scraper from tabular flint, a groover, three denticulates,
two notches, four retouched flakes, one scaled piece, and
one small retouched blade, all from nodular flint. These
tools are accompanied by ten cores and three flakes
from nodular flint. Outside, next to the entrance to the
construction, a cluster was registered, comprising one
fully exhausted core from nodular flint, 22 flakes from the
same raw material, five flakes from tabular flint along with
two small and one large flake from quartzitic sandstone.
Given that this cluster of nodular flint products seems to
be homogenous as regards raw material, it is reasonable
to conjecture that this was a spot where one nodule of raw
flint was worked.
Generally, the lithic technology and typology of Seth Hill
assemblage closely resembles that of Ain el-Gazzareen,
being analogously marked by primitiveness and, basically,
a lack of core preparation.
While we compare the lithic assemblages of Ain el-
Gazzareen and Seth Hill, it is interesting to note Middle
Paleolithic cores (Figure 81:3) and tools made on Middle
Palaeolithic flakes (Figure 83: 1,6-7,9), frequent in the
inventory of the latter. A total of nineteen such specimens
were distinguished, of which nine exhibit no traces of re-
working and ten were retouched for the purpose of being
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Type
Tool type Number Percentage Figure
No.

5 Rectangular sickle blades 1 1.25 82:1

6 Massive sickle inserts 2 2.50 82:2

7 Massive scrapers 5 6.25 82:4

8 Flat scrapers 7 8.75 82:3

9 Endscrapers 5 6.25 83:1

10 Tanged arrowheads 2 2.50 83:2-3

15 Microperforators 3 3.75 83:5

16 Borers 6 7.50 83:6

17 Notches 7 8.75 83:8

18 Denticulate tools 17 21.25 83:7

20 Scaled pieces 3 3.75 83:9

22 Retouched blades 3 3.75 -

23 Retouched flakes 20 23.75 83:4

Total: 80 100.00

Figure 11. Seth Hill. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools

re-used. Palaeolithic artefacts are believed to have been
exploited as the supply of raw material. All heavily eolised,
Middle Palaeolithic artefacts are scattered on the surface
around Seth Hill watch-post and in several other places
in the oasis. The fact that they were collected combined
with the general reduction in the inventory’s size speaks of
some difficulties with obtaining raw material experienced
by the crew of the watch-post. Furthermore, a relatively
small amount of sickle blades at Seth Hill (3.60 per cent)
stands in a striking contrast to finds from Ain el-Gazzareen
(16.20 per cent). Notwithstanding a minimum quantity of
arrowheads at both sites, their percentage is nonetheless
more than three times larger at Seth Hill. Moreover, two
arrowheads found at the watch-post were made from
exotic raw materials, i.e., mined flint and chalcedony.
Neither bifacial tools nor flakes for their production were
uncovered at Seth Hill. To conclude, despite apparent
similarities of technology between the inventory of Seth
Hill and that of Ain el-Gazzareen, there are considerable,
yet unsurprising differences between them in terms of
typology, which is obviously all down to a sharp distinction
between their functions.
Bee’s Lookout (Site 30/450-C4-1)
Bee’s Lookout is a watch-post examined by O. Kaper in
December 1999. Artefacts were collected from the surface
within 2 x 2m squares, and the material from some squares
was screened. Since there were no clusters of artefacts or
of particular types of products, all finds were treated as a
single unit. The list of types developed for Ain el-Gazzareen
was again used as a reference for the description of the
artefacts. The assemblage from Bee’s Lookout and Seth
Hill are alike, inasmuch as their typological composition
is comparable.
A total of 1388 lithic artefacts were recovered from the
site, the assemblage consisting of 74 cores (5.33 per cent),
including 35 specimens of chalcedony and 39 specimens
of nodular flint; 1249 pieces of debitage (89.99 per cent);
and 65 retouched tools (4.68 per cent). Artefacts from
chalcedony outnumber those from nodular flint (51.52
per cent vs. 40.48 per cent, respectively). 7.00 per cent
were made from tabular flint. Hornstone and quartzite are
present in minor amounts (0.64 per cent and 0.57 per cent,
respectively). Chalcedony from Bee’s Lookout is dull
white in colour, turning into cherry plum near the surface
of the cortex, supposedly owing to having been burnt in
fire.
Cores (figure 84; 85:1-2)
A considerable quantity of chalcedony artefacts were
worked from a large, spherical, almost half-exploited
concretion, from which a discoidal, hemispherical core
was roughed out, sized 105 x 105 x 70mm (Figure 84).
Its single striking surface is circular and slightly convex,
and consists of scars of irregular flakes removed by
concentric blows directed to the edge of the nodule. As
such, it resembles a ‘tortoise’s shell’ of Levallois cores.
The core does not bear any traces of preparation. Both
the large core and smaller cores of chalcedony along with
other cores of nodular flint were very crudely worked.
A flint knapper randomly selected subsequent surfaces

36
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
Debitage type
Secondary cortex flakes
Flakes from single platform core
Unclassifiable flakes
Chips
Chunks
Total:
Figure 12. Bee’s Lookout. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types
that occurred during processing to be used as a striking
platform, using both hard and soft hammer. Except for the
above-described core of chalcedony, other specimens are
irregular multiplatform cores for flakes, fairly small and
heavily exhausted (Figure 85: 1-2). The largest specimen
is 36mm in length, 40mm in width and 23mm in thickness
and the smallest core measures 18 x 26 x 22mm.
Debitage
Among 1249 pieces of debitage, 51.00 per cent were made
of chalcedony, 41.01 per cent from nodular flint and 7.99
per cent from tabular flint (Figure 12).
Primary (cortex) flakes are absent, and secondary flakes
are fairly rare, perhaps owing to the exploitation of a large,
spherical, chalcedony concretion, which yielded a number
of flakes from the inside of the nodule, thus devoid of
cortex. Unlike flakes from chalcedony, somewhat more
regular, with mostly lisse butts and rare cortex butts, flakes
from nodular flint have mostly cortex butts, lisse butts
being scarcer. Bulbs are slightly convex and extensive.
Bee’s Lookout’s flintwork exhibits a soft hammer use.
The watch-post did not produce a single hammerstone or
fabricator.
Retouched tools (Figure 85:3-7; 86:1-7)
Sixty-five retouched tools were identified at Bee’s
Lookout (Figure 13). Analogously to Seth Hill, the
implements are slightly smaller than their counterparts
from Ain el-Gazzareen. The majority of them were made
from nodular flint (52.86 per cent), a considerable quantity
from chalcedony (40.00 per cent) and some from tabular
flint (7.14 per cent).
In general, the inventory from Bee’s Lookout watch-post
bears a close resemblance to the inventories from Ain
el-Gazzareen and Seth Hill inasmuch as the technology
and typology of artefacts are practically the same. The
difference lies in the extensive usage of chalcedony, the
supply of which enabled some profligacy in raw material
management and exempted the inhabitants of the watch-
post from the exploration of the area in pursuance of
37
Number Percentage
12 1.30
134 10.71
162 13.02
860 68.50
81 6.47
1249 100.00
Middle Palaeolithic specimens or using them as a source
of raw material for the manufacture of tools.
Nephthys Hill (Site 30/450-D4-2)
Discovered by M. Kleindienst in 1997, the site lies east
of the village of Eneida (see figure 80). The material was
collected within stone constructions designated as Hut A,
B, C and D, and from the surface (Kaper, Willems 2002).
Flint inventory was recovered merely from Hut A and next
to the entrance to the structure.
The assemblage from Nephthys Hill was published by M.
McDonald (2002), thus the data given below come from
her publication. The site yielded 968 flint artefacts in total,
almost two third of which, i.e., specimens smaller than
15mm, were sorted out, while the remaining 247 pieces
were analysed by the author. This collection comprises 50
retouched tools, 28 of their fragments and 26 specimens
with scant retouch; ten cores and five core fragments; 111
flakes, four blades and 13 chunks. All cores were used to
detach flakes; the vast majority of them were multiplatform
specimens, single platform cores being a rare occurrence.
Amongst retouched tools most common are denticulates,
followed by scaled pieces, perforators and notches. The
material kindly provided to me by O. Kaper was the
very part of the assemblage that M. McDonald did not
examine. It comprises six hundred chips, four retouched
tools (a retouched flake and three scaled pieces) and one
multiplatform core for flakes. In total, debitage amounts
to 75.00 per cent, cores – 14.00 per cent and retouched
tools – 11.00 per cent of the entire assemblage recovered
from the site.
The analysis of the raw material carried out by McDonald
on the basis of debitage showed that the basic material
was nodular flint (63.48 per cent), followed by chalcedony
(34.71 per cent); few specimens were made from tabular
flint (1.81 per cent). MacDonald is right when she claims
that flints from Nephthys Hill are characterised by
relatively smaller dimensions. The inventory is striking in a
considerable quantity of highly eolised Middle Palaeolithic
flakes (6.30 per cent), which were used to shape some
retouched tools found at the watch-post (McDonald 2002).
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Type No. Tool type
7 Massive scrapers
8 Flat scrapers
15 Microperforators
16 Borers
17 Notches
18 Denticulate tools
20 Scaled pieces
23 Retouched flakes
Total:
Figure 13. Bee’s Lookout. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools
Meidum Hill (Site 13/12 – 00)
A watch-post excavated by O. Kaper, Meidum Hill yielded
a modest inventory numbering 92 specimens, including
seven cores from nodular flint, two flat end scrapers, two
rabots, one massive rectangular scraper from tabular flint,
three denticulates (one from tabular flint and two from
nodular flint), one sickle blade and one half-product of
sickle blade from Egyptian flint. Next to the tools, the
inventory comprises 53 flakes from nodular flint, 22 flakes
from tabular flint, one irregular blade from nodular flint as
well as six heavily eolised Middle Palaeolithic flakes.
As well as the above-presented inventories from watch-
posts, which provided fairly abundant materials,
archaeological prospection in the oasis and in its vicinity
has revealed a few similar locations. Very briefly
investigated, they nevertheless bear resemblance to
the above described watch-posts, making plausible a
suggestion of their comparable role. These are as follows:
Venus Hill (Watch-post 12)
The watch-post produced 68 specimens, including 19 cores
and 45 flakes from nodular flint, two flakes from tabular
flint and two specimens of Middle Palaeolithic origin. No
retouched tools were registered.
Trigpoint Hill (12/12 – 00)
Only specimens of considerable dimensions were
collected. A sixty-eight-piece assemblage comprises two
irregular multiplatform cores for flakes, 58 flakes and
chunks from nodular flint, five flakes from tabular flint,
one flake from quartzite sandstone and a quartz chunk.
Darb el Tawil Ascent (Watch-post 12/2000 + 1.2001)
Five collected specimens included one flat scraper, one
denticulate, two flat retouched flakes and one chunk, all
from tabular flint.
Number Percentage Figure
11 16.92 85:4
9 13.84 85:3,5
2 3.07 85:6
5 7.69 85:7; 86:1-2
9 13.84 86:3
13 20.04 86:-5
8 12.30 86:6
8 12.30 86:4,7
65 100.00
Watch-posts: Site 99/38 and Site 99/39
These are two watch-posts located on two small, adjacent
sandstone remnants in the desert, south of the Dakhla
Oasis, about 25 kilometers south of the settlement site
of Ain el-Gazzareen (Figure 35). Discovered in 1999 by
C. Bergman, they were excavated in 2000 by a group of
German researchers under the direction of R. Kuper and
H. Riemer (Riemer et al. 2005).
Richer in artefacts is a watch-post codenamed 99/38.
As well as a fairly considerable quantity of potsherds,
containing both the ‘Egyptian’ and Sheikh Muftah
elements and faunal materials, a poor inventory of flint
products was recovered, which includes six cores, 190
pieces of debitage and 13 retouched tools, among them
one scraper, one borer, four denticulates, two notches, two
truncated blades, one retouched blade and two retouched
flakes. Flint is the predominant raw material, occurring
in light grey, grey, dark brown to wine and caramel
varieties, although sandstone and fossilised wood are also
represented.
The watch-posts were inhabited in three phases: Dynasty
IV, the end of the Old Kingdom and the Late Period. The
flint inventory is attributable to the Pharaonic era. These
checkpoints controlled areas southwest of the oasis and in
Dynasty VI could have been ‘ports of call’ on the way to
Abu Balas (Riemer et al. 2005).
4.1.4. The temple of Mut el-Khorab (Site 31/405 – G9 –
1)
This Old Kingdom temple, excavated by C. Hope, is
estimated to function throughout the reign of Dynasty IV.
The collection consists of 114 pieces and contains no cores.
Debitage and retouched tools account for 93.45 per cent
and 6.55 per cent of the assemblage, respectively. Tabular
flint markedly predominates in the collection (representing
79.83 per cent of the assemblage), followed by quartzite
(14.91 per cent), small amounts of nodular flint (2.63 per
38
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
cent) and quartz (2.63 per cent). 107 pieces of debitage
were identified, of which 14.95 per cent are flakes, 22.44
per cent are bifacial trimming flakes, 37.38 per cent are
chips and 25.23 per cent are chunks. The preponderance of
debitage was made from tabular flint, some from quartzite,
nodular flint or quartz. The assemblage of retouched tools
numbers seven pieces. It consists of a massive end scraper;
a massive, rectangular scraper from tabular flint; two
denticulates (one of nodular flint and the other from tabular
flint); and three retouched flakes from tabular flint. The
assemblage of Mut el-Khorab can be said to represent the
technology akin to that characterising Ain el-Gazzareen’s
inventory and identical types of retouched tools. The
occurrence of bifacial trimming flakes, more numerous
compared to other sites, attest to the on site production,
or at least intense repair and re-sharpening of bifacially
retouched tools, in all likelihood knives, since bifacial
trimming of arrowheads does not produce such flint waste.
The absence of knives in the excavated assemblage is not
surprising considering the indigence of the inventory.
The Mut el-Khorab assemblage differs significantly from
all assemblages discussed above in a kind of exploited
raw material. Tabular flint markedly outnumbers other
lithic resources, while nodular flint, hitherto always most
frequent, constitutes less than three per cent of the Mut
assemblage. Fairly common is quartzite.
4.1.5. Ain Asil
Ain Asil, the abode of a governor who worked in a fortress
surrounded by residential complex, is the largest Old
Kingdom site in the Dakhla Oasis. The description given
below is based on a comprehensive publication of B.
Midant-Reynes (1998). The flint inventory uncovered to
date was produced by two soundings set in the northern
and southern part of the site. Given that it has been
published elsewhere, there is no need to present it in detail
in this book. Therefore, I shall simply recapitulate here,
just for the record, the absolute and percentage frequencies
of various types of tools (Figure 14).
In general, the Ain Asil inventory is comparable to
the above-described assemblages, notably to Ain el-
Gazzareen, inasmuch as almost the same types of raw flint
were exploited, albeit in slightly different proportions.
Accounting to almost 90.00 per cent of all raw materials,
nodular flint (silex gris) is markedly most popular in the
debitage from the northern sounding. It was collected
from the surface of the slopes at the foot of the escarpment
surrounding the oasis from the north, extending a few
kilometers from the settlement site. Some concentrations
where flint was worked were identified in this area (Midant-
Reynes 1998). Other raw materials include tabular flint
(plaquettes); transparent flint (silex beige translucide);
mined flint (silex brun et noir), supplied from outside as
standardised tools; as well as quartz and siliceous nodules
(quartz et nodules siliceux), which occur in comparable
amounts and together constitute approximately ten per
cent of the assemblage.
39
Again, the lithic technology can be defined as very
primitive. Most numerous are irregular multiplatform
cores for flakes, almost spherical in shape, frequently
discarded by tool makers upon removing merely a few
flakes. Single platform cores are scarce, and opposed
platform cores occur in negligible amounts. The absence
of characteristic chipping debris speaks of the absence of
any core preparation. Striking platforms of the cores are
mostly lisse, and few are cortex. Flake technology is the
only one employed in lithic reduction, as evidenced by
the percentage frequency of flakes (86.40 per cent of the
debitage) versus the percentage of blades (1.3 per cent).
The type of butts is indicative of the use of both hard
(most likely during initial phases of core processing) and
soft hammers. The site produced also a core for flakes and
blades and a Levallois core.
The nodules collected from the surface were initially
roughed out somewhere outside the settlement.
Analogously to Ain el-Gazzareen, simple tools of everyday
use were produced ad hoc at the settlement. The percentage
frequency of different types of retouched tools at both
compared sites is alike, although a detailed comparison is
hardly manageable because of the discrepancies between
the lists of types adopted for each site. Two groups of
artefacts made from two different varieties of raw material,
i.e., on flakes from nodular flint and from tabular flint,
feature prominently at both sites. Scraping implements
markedly outnumber other tool types, followed by sickle
blades from mined flint. Frequent are denticulates and
retouched flakes, while end scrapers and notches are less
common. Borers, strangled pieces and arrowheads are
scarce.
There is one striking quantitative discrepancy between
both sites. The number of sickle blades is five times larger
at Ain el-Gazzareen than at Ain Asil. The difference is
nonetheless unsurprising given the character of both sites
– Ain el-Gazzareen is a large agricultural settlement site,
while Ain Asil is a fortress.
Flint artefacts uncovered at watch-posts were used in
activities other than those recovered from settlement
sites. Sickle blades, related to agriculture, are scarce at
posts. Bifacial knives or even characteristic flakes from
the process of their production or sharpening are absent.
Other retouched tools are trivial specimens that could have
been used to perform several tasks. The foregoing suggests
that guards stationed at watch-posts used flint implements
to carry out the usual, mundane activities of daily life.
Engraving ideas, cuts andn signs into the soft sandstone,
the meaning of which is hardly decipherable nowadays, is
a fascinating exception. Equally interesting is a relatively
high frequency of occurrence of scaled pieces. A fair
quantity of arrowheads at watch-posts likely results from
their use as elements of weapons.
Although poor, the inventory of the temple of El Khorab
in Mut is nevertheless attention-grabbing. There is nothing
in particular that we can conclude from a few retouched
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
tools recovered from the site, but striking is a considerable
(22.44 per cent) share of bifacial trimming flakes. Such
high frequency could attest to some intense activities
of ritual significance associated with the use of bifacial
knives for sacrifice. That such knives were used in temples
on a massive scale is exemplified by the Pyramid Complex
of Raneferef in Abusir (Svoboda 2006). The host of the
Mut temple had probably an unlimited access, or simply a
clear demand for tabular flint, most frequent as compared
to other Old Kingdom sites of the entire Dakhla Oasis,
amounting in Mut to 80.00 per cent of the assemblage.
4.1.6. Comparison of sites from the Dakhla Oasis
Above, I have characterised flintwork at four different
late Old Kingdom types of settlement found in the Dakhla
Oasis. All these archaeological sites carried out their
own particular functions in the Old Kingdom and their
assemblages recovered in the course of investigations
provide a basis for comparison between their lithic
industries. We have therefore fairly comprehensive
knowledge of flint inventories from a typical, yet
extensive, settlement site of cultivators and breeders (Ain
el-Gazzareen); the central hub of the local authority (Ain
Asil); from a series of watch-posts deployed inside and
around the oasis in this period; and from a temple (Mut
El Khorab). In the case of watch-posts, I shall employ for
comparison only two richer inventories of Seth Hill and
Bee’s Lookout.
Ain Asil slightly differs from Ain el-Gazzareen in the
preference for exploited raw materials. The watch-posts
are typified by the predominance of local nodular flint
coupled with a complete absence of tabular raw material.
Save for a considerable quantity of chalcedony recovered
from Bee’s Lookout, other raw materials are negligibly
represented at these locations. By contrast, tabular flint
markedly predominates in the temple.
From the technological point of view, all these assemblages
exhibit great similarity, inasmuch as their producers
employed the same technology of production, described
in detail in the section devoted to the technology at Ain
el-Gazzareen. Some differences between the inventories
lie in the quantities of particular raw materials used for
toolmaking.
In the economy of the communities inhabiting the Dakhla
Oasis in the Old Kingdom era, most important for the lithic
industry were local nodular and tabular flint, sometimes
chalcedony; other lithic raw materials, such as mined flint,
quartzite or quartz were used sporadically. A relatively
considerable quantity of mined flint corresponds to the
number of imported standardised tools, such as sickle
blades and half-products of sickle blades, bifacial knives
and bifacially retouched arrowheads. At Ain el-Gazzareen,
just over half of the implements were made from nodular
flint (53.10 per cent); tabular flint was used for 46.58 per
cent of artefacts. Other lithic raw materials constitute
merely 0.26 per cent of the assemblage. Nodular flint is
40
even more common at Ain Asil (90.00 per cent). Other raw
materials include mined flint, tabular flint and quartz, which
together with siliceous rocks occur in comparable, small
amounts. At Seth Hill, nodular flint clearly outnumbers
tabular flint (they represent 74.36 per cent and 24.33 per
cent of its assemblage, respectively), while the quantity of
mined flint is negligible (0.22 per cent). At Bee’s Lookout
nodular flint and chalcedony are virtually equally common
(amounting to 47.48 per cent and 46.63 per cent of the
assemblage, respectively), whereas tabular flint is merely
a tiny addition (4.68 per cent). Other stone raw materials
are an extremely rare occurrence. All the other investigated
watch-posts display a close resemblance to Seth Hill and
Bee’s Lookout in terms of raw material frequencies. It is
evident that unlike inhabitants of settlements, guards to
occupy watch-posts scarcely used tabular flint, perhaps
on account of its inaccessibility. In contrast, tabular flint
(85.06 per cent) clearly preponderates in Mut el-Khorab,
followed by quartzite (12.14 per cent) and eventually
nodular flint (2.80 per cent). Both excavated settlement
sites, namely Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil, display
a marked profligacy in flint management, in contrast
to watch-posts, which show certain thriftiness in flint
exploitation. Difficulties in obtaining raw material at
watch-posts are further confirmed by the registered heavy
exhaustion of cores from nodular flint at Bee’s Lookout
and averagely smaller sizes of lithic artefacts uncovered at
all watch-posts.
Remarkable is the issue of using Middle Palaeolithic
artefacts, regularly scattered on the surface throughout
the oasis and re-used in subsequent periods. All made of
nodular flint, their presence has been hitherto discussed by
other researchers (McDonald 2002; Midant-Reynes 1998,
Riemer 2011a). Heavily eroded Levallois flakes were
recovered in large quantities from Nephthys Hill, where
they accounted for more than six per cent of the whole
assemblage. Nineteen were identified in the Seth Hill
inventory, including ten re-retouched by the watch-post’s
inhabitants, and six were found at Meidum Hill. Ain Asil
is noted for a high frequency of their occurrence (Midant-
Reynes 1998). The rich materials from Ain el-Gazzareen
contained none such specimens. Re-usage of Middle
Paleolithic artefacts is unsurprising at watch-posts, given
that the guards were probably not allowed to wander off in
pursuance of raw materials for the manufacture of tools.
Accordingly, they collected everything that was at hand.
A by-product, assuredly plentiful, of fashioning tablets of
tabular flint into implements by flaking, chips naturally
account for the most numerous debitage pieces in all
excavated lithic assemblages. Had the content of explored
layers been screened, there would assuredly be even
more of them. Flakes, formally removed from single
platform cores, but in all likelihood mostly detached from
multiplatform cores, are second most numerous artefacts.
Unclassified flakes are also common.
Most likely knapped accidentally, blades are registered in
minimum amounts, at Ain el-Gazzareen constituting not
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
Tool type
Scrapers
Retouched pieces
Notches
Denticulates
Denticulates with regular retouch
Pieces with steep retouch
Perforators
Pieces à bord abattu
Burins
Knifes
Unidentified
Diverse
Total:
Figure 14. Ain Asil. Absolute and percentage frequencies of retouched tools (according to Midant-Reynes 1998)
more than one per cent of the whole inventory. Likewise,
at Ain Asil, ordinary blades equal merely 1.3 per cent of
the assemblage.
In general, all sites are marked by a total absence of
characteristic chipping debris, which testifies to the
primitiveness of employed technology. It follows that the
so-called châine operatoire was short.
This is not to say that flint knappers from the Dakhla Oasis
did not possess more advanced skills. If we accept the
hypothesis that some bifacial knives were produced on site,
they must have been able to implement more sophisticated
techniques should the need arose.
At settlement sites, flint was further worked on site within
particular households. All kinds of flint tools are evenly
distributed and no units displaying evident differences in
lithic inventory have been registered to date.
I have already mentioned that soldiers stationed at watch-
posts had to do with the raw material they brought with
them or happened to find in the vicinity. Judging from the
density of artefacts found inside stone structures at Seth
Hill and Nephhtys Hill, we can safely assume that most
of flintwork-related activities, at any rate appertaining to
the production of flint tools and their storage took place
in a shady interior, sheltered from the hot sun with some
coverage.
Some fragments of tabular flint exhibit traces of having
been exposed to fire. As noted earlier, perhaps a large
41
Number Percentage
922 51
130 7
70 4
83 5
239 13
34 2
19 1
1 0.5
1 0.5
44 2
242 13
9 1
1794 100
chalcedony nodule recovered from Bee’s Lookout watch-
post shows traces of fire exposure. It is hard to tell whether
these traces evidence intentional burning undertaken in
order to facilitate lithic reduction or simply result from
an accidental burning in fire or hearth. The question
nonetheless arises why specimens made of nodular flint
never display any traces of burning.
Sickle blades, particularly numerous at Ain el-Gazzareen
(16.00 per cent) and relatively frequent at Ain Asil (5.25
per cent), account for merely 2.35 per cent of the Seth
Hill inventory, being virtually absent at Bee’s Lookout
or other watch-posts. Massive rectangular sickle inserts
are common at the settlement sites of Ain el-Gazzareen
and Ain Asil. None whatsoever were recovered from
the investigated watch-posts or the temple. The absence
of sickle blades at watch-posts is unsurprising given
the function of the posts, totally unrelated to works
necessitating the use of a sickle. Found at settlement
sites, bifacial knives are non-present at watch-posts. The
group of scrapers is numerous at the settlement sites of
Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil, less common at watch-
posts and absent in the temple. End scrapers are found
at all sites under discussion, bar the temple, similarly to
borers, notches and infrequent arrowheads. A relatively
higher frequency of occurrence of arrowheads at watch-
posts is self-evident given the military character of the
sites. Major differences are discernible in the frequency
of denticulates, relatively less common at the settlement
sites, namely at Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil, and a
few times more numerous at watch-posts. Scaled pieces,
clearly most frequent at watch-posts, were exposed in a
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Ain el-Gazzareen Ain Asil Watch-posts Mut el Khorab

Nodular flint XXX XXX XXX X

Tabular flint XXX X absent XXX

Mined flint X XX X absent

Other raw materials absent X X X

Double patinated tools absent X XXX absent

Roughing out beyond a settlement XXX XXX absent absent

Production of simple tools on site XXX XXX XXX X

Supply of tools from a workshop XXX XXX X absent

Finishing out sickle blades on site XXX XXX absent absent

Blade technology absent X absent absent

Core technology XXX XXX XXX XXX

Core preparation absent absent absent absent

Sickle blades XXX XX X X

Massive rectangular sickle inserts XXX XXX X X

Bifacial knives XXX XXX absent absent

Scrapers XXX XXX XX absent

End scrapers XX XX XX X

Borers X X XX absent

Denticulates XX XXX XXX X

Microperforators X absent X absent

Notches XX XX XXX absent

Scaled pieces X absent XXX absent

Strangled pieces X X absent absent

Crescent-shaped borers X absent absent absent

Arrowheads X X X absent

Hoes X absent absent absent

Retouched flakes XXX XXX XXX absent

Figure 15. Comparison of flint inventories recovered from the late Old Kingdom sites in the Dakhla Oasis. XXX – very frequent, XX –
frequent, X – scarce.

small number at Ain el-Gazzareen. Few strangled pieces
were recorded only in the inventories from the settlements.
An agricultural settlement, Ain el-Gazzareen produced
two hoes. As regards retouched flakes, they are numerous
everywhere except the temple. Ain el-Gazzareen and
especially Mut el-Khorab yielded a relatively considerable
amount of bifacial trimming flakes, virtually absent at
watch-posts.
What function did flint tools play in the lives of those who
dwelt in the Dakhla Oasis throughout the Old Kingdom?
There is no doubt that in the case of the settlement site
of Ain el-Gazzareen as well as the fortress and settlement
at Ain Asil, they fulfilled agriculture-related economic
functions (sickle inserts) and had obvious ritual importance
(bifacial knives). In the latter case, one could argue that
not all knives had an exclusively ritual significance, yet
how to recognise the ones that did? After all, metal was not
yet widespread in Dakhla, and iron came to be used almost
a thousand years later. It is self-evident that knives were
indispensible in everyday life, thus probably at least some
of these specimens found in Dakhla were used in everyday
activities. This is further attested to by the observation that
the knives were habitually re-sharpened, to the extent that
their shape was seriously altered (Figure 61:1-2; Figure
63:1-4), as already noted by J. Svoboda (2006) in the case

42
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
of the Pyramid Complex of Raneferef in Abusir. It is more
than likely that knives used solely for ritual purposes did
exist, but, surely, they were not so recurrently re-sharpened.
Whether very few arrowheads found at the settlement sites
constituted elements of weapons or hunting equipment is
difficult to conclude.
Flint artefacts uncovered at watch-posts were used in
activities other than those recovered from settlement
sites. Sickle blades, related to agriculture, are scarce at
posts. Bifacial knives or even characteristic flakes from
the process of their production or sharpening are absent.
Other retouched tools are trivial specimens that could
have been used to perform several tasks. The foregoing
suggests that guards stationed at watch-posts used flint
implements to carry out the usual, mundane activities of
daily life. Engraving ideas, cuts and signs into the soft
sandstone, the meaning of which is hardly decipherable
nowadays, is a fascinating exception. Equally interesting
is a relatively high frequency of occurrence of scaled
pieces. In my opinion, these were wedges used to perform
some unidentified activity (see Appendix, Figure 15:8-9).
A fair quantity of arrowheads at watch-posts likely results
from their use as elements of weapons.
Although poor, the inventory of the temple of El Khorab
in Mut is nevertheless attention-grabbing. There is nothing
in particular that we can conclude from a few retouched
tools recovered from the site, but striking is a considerable
(22.44 per cent) share of bifacial trimming flakes. Such
high frequency could attest to some intense activities
of ritual significance associated with the use of bifacial
knives for sacrifice. That such knives were used in temples
on a massive scale is exemplified by the Pyramid Complex
of Raneferef in Abusir (Svoboda 2006). The host of the
Mut temple had probably an unlimited access, or simply a
clear demand for tabular flint, most frequent as compared
to other Old Kingdom sites of the entire Dakhla Oasis,
amounting in Mut to 80.00 per cent of the assemblage.
To sum up, the typological composition of flint tools is
similar at different sites. It largely stems from their similar
function and to some extent from their location in the area.
The comparison of the inventories from the sites in the
Dakhla Oasis is provided in the table (Figure 15).
4.2. Kom el-Hisn, the western Nile Delta
Research on the Old Kingdom episode at Kom el-Hisn
was conducted in 1984, 1986 and 1988 by Robert Wenke
from Washington State University, who worked on behalf
of the American Research Center in Egypt. An extensive
settlement, the capital of nom III, the site lies on the sands
of gezira, i.e., an unimpressive in terms of height, yet
extensive hill built from Pleistocene sands and gravels
located on the western edge of the Delta. The settlement
in the area is presumed to date to dynasties V-VI ( c.
2500 BC- 2200 BC). Some areas of the site yielded also
artefacts attributable to the First Intermediate Period and
43
the Middle Kingdom, and as such are left aside in this
book (Kobusiewicz, 1988, 2015; Wenke et al. 1988). The
description and analysis of the lithic assemblage, provided
below, was based on materials recovered from all explored
trenches, bar three, which date back to periods later than
the Old Kingdom. Besides, the latter rare materials are
virtually no different from the former.
The site yielded a total of 986 flint specimens attributable
to the Old Kingdom where cores represent 0.70 per cent of
the assemblage, debitage pieces amount to 53.15 per cent
of the collection and retouched tools account for 46.15 per
cent of the total number.
Raw materials
Mined flint clearly predominates in the lithic inventory
from Kom el-Hisn, most common being a strong brown
variety (7.5 YR 4/6), but also brown (7.5 YR 4/4) and
somehow transparent brown (7.5 YR 5/3) flints are
present. Its sources unaccounted for as of yet, mined flint
amounts to 95.42 per cent of products preserved well
enough to identify the variety of raw material. Exceptional
in the inventory are single specimens of petrified wood
and hornstone.
Cores (Figure 87:1-2)
The site yielded seven cores, including four complete. One
specimen is a single platform initial core made from mined
flint. Its striking platform and side surfaces were prepared
by removing some flakes. The majority of its surfaces are
covered with cortex. Merely one flake was detached off
the striking surface (Figure 87:1). Two other cores from
mined flint are of average size and completely flat. The
back of one of them is covered with smooth, thin cortex.
The striking platforms of both these specimens were
prepared by removing a few small flakes. The fourth core
is a microlithic multiplatform specimen of obsidian, fully
exhausted (Figure 87:2). Out of three fragments of cores,
one is a fragment of a single platform core for blades, made
from mined flint, while the other two are unclassified.
Debitage
Identified were 524 pieces of debitage. The absolute and
percentage frequencies of debitage types are provided in a
table (Figure 16).
The vast majority of blades were made from mined flint
(84.00 per cent). Blades of brown flint are much less
common (12.00 per cent), while those from transparent
flint represent merely four per cent of the assemblage.
Among 211 flint implements, including sickle blades
and half-products of sickle blades with preserved butts,
174 (82.49 per cent) have pointed butts, seven (3.31 per
cent) lisse, six (2.84 per cent) faceted and four (1.89 per
cent) cortex butts. In 20 cases (9.47 per cent), butts are
unidentifiable. In the case of blades, most common are
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Debitage type Number Percentage

Blades 25 4.77

Blade fragments 402 76.73

Flakes 26 4.97

Flake fragments 18 3.43

Crested blades 8 1.52

Core trimming flakes 1 0.19

Chips 25 4.77

Chunks 19 3.62

Total: 524 100.00

Figure 16. Kom el-Hisn. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types

Type No. Type of tool Number Percentage Figure

1 Bifacial knifes 43 9.45 88:1,3

2 Rectangular sickle blades 297 65.26 89:1-9; 90-1-3

3 Triangular sickle blades 52 11.43 90:4-6

4 Half-products of finished sickle blades 44 9.67 90:7-10

8 Flat scrapers 2 0.44 88:4

9 Endscrapers 1 0.23 91:1

16 Borers 2 0.44 87:4

17 Notches 4 0.88 87:3

22 Retouched blades 5 1.10 91:3

24 Truncations 2 0.44 87:5-6

25 Burins 3 0.66 88:2

Total: 455 100.00

Figure 17. Kom el-Hisn. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types

pointed butts. Butts of flakes and chips tend to be lisse,
faceted and cortex, but are frequently unidentifiable.
Primary blades are scarce (1.90 per cent); secondary
blades are represented by 6.29 per cent of blades; tertiary
blades markedly predominate in the inventory, amounting
to 91.81 per cent of blades recovered from the site.
Retouched tools
Since the list of types compiled for the flint inventory from
Ain el-Gazzareen was used for the description of retouched
tools it was possible to draw comparisons between both
sites.
The site yielded 455 retouched tools (Figure 17). Half-
products of sickle blades were also counted among tools,
since they have more in common with tools than with
debitage. Sickle blades account for 76.69 per cent of all
tools, and if we include half-products of sickle-blades their
frequency rises to 86.36 per cent.
Bifacial knives (Figure 88:1,3)
Fragments of bifacial knives comprise the third largest
group of tools at Kom el-Hisn after sickle blades and half-
products of sickle blades. No knife was complete and 43
fragments were identified. Among 33 identifiable pieces,
63.64 per cent are central fragments, 24.24 per cent are
tips of knives and 12.12 per cent ends from the side of

44
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites

Type of raw material Number Percentage

Mined flint 40 93.04

Transparent flint 1 2.32

Petrified wood 1 2.32

Hornstone 1 2.32

Total: 43 100.00

Figure 18. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knifes. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different raw materials.

Types of blanks Number Percentage

Primary 0 0.00

Secondary 2 4.65

Tertiary 41 95.35

Total: 43 100.00

Figure 19. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knifes. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different types of blanks

Retouched edge Number Percentage

Left 96 27.51
Right 82 23.49
Both edges 139 39.84
Unclassifiable 32 9.16
Total: 349 100.00

Figure 20. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of the location of retouch.

the handle. Almost all (95.35 per cent) are retouched on
the entire surface on both sides. The vast majority (93.04
per cent) were made from mined flint, while others from
transparent flint, fossilised wood or hornstone, one from
each (2.32 per cent each) (Figure 18). Figure 19 shows
different types of blanks used for knife production.
Two specimens are burnt. A couple of better preserved
fragments display obvious traces of heavy use especially
in the area of the handle, but also along the cutting edge.
Rectangular sickle blades (Figures 89:1-9; 90:1-3)
The site produced copious amounts of rectangular sickle
blades, namely 297 pieces. All were made on straight,
regular quality blades detached from a single platform core
by dint of pressure technology. Blades were intentionally
broken in order to produce rectangular segments. One or
both longitudinal edges were trimmed with fine, semi-
steep retouch on the ventral, dorsal or occasionally both
sides. One or, more rarely, two transverse edges were
shaped by steep retouch. Sickle sheen is frequently visible
to the naked eye along one or both edges. Metrical data on
rectangular sickle blades is given in Figure 1.
Triangular sickle blades (Figure 90:4-6)
The site yielded 52 triangular sickle blades. They were
manufactured by breaking the proximal end of a blade to
leave only its distal end. A very prolonged triangle was
thus acquired with one arched edge. The hypotenuse
exhibits retouch analogous to that of rectangular sickle
blades. Since a number of flint implements from Kom el-
Hisn were heavily burnt, in the case of 30.27 per cent of
sickle blades it is sometimes difficult determine precise
attributes of each sickle blade. Based on well-preserved
specimens, it was calculated that 79.00 per cent of sickle
blades were made from the central part of a blade, 14.00
per cent from the proximal part and seven per cent from
the distal end. 67.19 per cent featured inverse retouch,
while 32.81 per cent were finished with obverse retouch.
Left and right longitudinal, lateral edges of sickle blades
were retouched with almost equal frequency. Also, it is not
uncommon for both edges to be retouched (Figure 20).

45
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Raw material Number Percentage

Mined flint 371 91.36

Transparent flint 14 3.56

Hornstone 1 0.25

Petrified wood 1 0.25

Unclassifiable 18 4.58

Total: 393 100.00

Figure 21. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different raw materials.

Type of blanks Number Percentage

Primary 0 0.00

Secondary 12 3.05

Tertiary 370 94.15

Unclassifiable 11 2.80

Total: 393 100.00

Figure 22. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Absolute and percentage frequencies of different types of blanks.

Blade fragment Number Percentage

Central fragment 257 65.42

Distal fragment 25 6.36

Central and proximal fragment. 15 3.81

Central and distal fragment 6 1,52

Whole piece 10 2.54

Unidentifiable 64 16.28

Total: 393 100.00

Figure 23. Kom el-Hisn. Sickle blades. Different sections for blades used for sickle production.

51.00 per cent of sickle blades were finished with
denticulate retouch. Occasionally, only use retouch is
noticeable. 16.00 per cent of sickle blades are serrated.
55.00 per cent specimens show irregular retouch, while
the remaining 45.00 per cent regular, sometimes really
fine retouch. Unlike flat retouch, steep retouch is frequent.
Sickle sheen is visible to the naked eye in the case of
61.00 per cent of specimens, invariably on the retouched
edge or edges; among these specimens, 66.00 per cent are
smoothed only along one edge, on the ventral or dorsal
side. Eight per cent of pieces display sickle sheen only on
one side, while six per cent on both edges.
Almost all sickle blades were made on tertiary blades; only
some (5.85 per cent) were produced on secondary blades
(Figure 22). 91.36 per cent of these implements were
fashioned from mined flint, 3.56 per cent from transparent
flint, 0.5 per cent from hornstone, 0.25 per cent from
petrified wood; in 4.58 per cent of cases raw material was
unclassifiable (Figure 21).
Sickle blades were most frequently manufactured on
central fragments of blades, much more rarely on distal
fragments, even more rarely on central and proximal and
finally central and distal fragments of blades. Likewise,
complete blades were rarely used (Figure 23).
Half-products of sickle blades (Figure 90:7-10)
This category numbers 44 pieces. It comprises 25 complete,
regular quality blades removed from single platform cores
using pressure technology (par pression). The longest one
measures 92mm in length, 19mm in width and 4mm in
thickness. Moreover, identified were 408 fragments of
such blades, intentionally broken to produce sickle blades,
still unsharpened, that is to say unretouched along the
edges, which would turn them into proper sickle blades.
Neither do they exhibit any sickle sheen at the edges.
The majority of these are central fragments, less numerous
are proximal fragments and the least frequent are distal

46
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites
ends. By definition, half-products of sickle blades are
made from identical raw materials as ready and exploited
sickle blades.
Flat scrapers (Figure 88:4)
Two specimens were registered. The first is manufactured
on a flat, regular, semi-circular tertiary flake of mined
flint. All its edges are trimmed with regular, obverse
retouch (Figure 88:4). The other one, produced on a large,
regular secondary flake also from mined flint is finished
with regular, semi-steep retouch at the distal end, in the
central part of the left edge.
End scrapers (Figure 91: 1)
Investigations at the site uncovered one end scraper,
made on a large, massive tertiary blade from mined flint.
A semi-circular scraping edge, featuring steep obverse
retouch, was set on the distal end. Both lateral edges were
finished with irregular retouch on the ventral and dorsal
side. Markedly polished, the scraping edge is heavily used.
Borers (Figure 87:4)
Two borers were identified at the site. The first is made
from mined flint. Its sting, located at the distal end, was
shaped with stepped, obverse retouch. The left edge
features fine obverse retouch (Figure 87:4). The other
specimen was made from mined flint.
Notches (Figure 87:3)
Four specimens were found at Kom el-Hisn. A double
piece, made on a large, massive tertiary blade from mined
flint has two notches located on the left side, finished with
steep retouch. Its both ends are retouched analogously
to truncated blades (Figure 87:3). The other notch
was produced on a very massive secondary flake from
transparent flint. Its butt is facetted and its two notches are
steeply retouched on the dorsal side – one on the right side
and the other at the distal end. The third specimen with a
notch retouched on the dorsal side was made on a flake
from mined flint.
Retouched blades (Figure 91:3)
Five specimens were registered, all of them tertiary
blades; four were made from mined flint and one from
transparent flint. Three were retouched along the left edge
on the dorsal side. The distal end of the fourth blade was
retouched along one edge on the dorsal side, and along
the other edge on the ventral side (Figure 91:3). The fifth
specimen features fine, alternating retouch along one edge.
Truncated blades (Figure 87:5-6)
Two truncated blades were recovered from the site, both
of mined flint. One was made on a tertiary blade, with a
truncation steeply retouched on the left edge. The other
47
one was made on a secondary blade and has an oblique
truncation, steeply retouched on the left side of the distal
end (Figure 87:5-6).
Burins (Figure 88:2)
Three specimens were registered. One is a dihedral angle
burin made on a flake covered with cortex. The burin point
was made by directing three burin blows on the left side of
the proximal end (Figure 88:2). The second one is a double
dihedral angle burin fashioned on a fragment of a bifacial
tool (a knife?), from mined flint. The third specimen is
unidentifiable.
Striking at Kom el-Hisn is a considerable amount of flint
artefacts burnt in fire, with the number of burnt tools
virtually equal to burnt pieces of debitage. This accounts
for a high percentage of specimens unclassifiable in terms
of raw materials or location of retouch.
The comparison of the percentage frequency of a few
types of retouched tools at selected sites is provided in the
table (Figure 24).
There is no doubt that most important in the Kom el-Hisn
tool-kit were sickle blades. Necessary for their production
were simple, very regular, fairly thin, yet strong blades,
removed by dint of highly specialised technology. Blades
were knapped off regular, well-prepared single platform
cores. A large amount of pointed butts in the debitage
and characteristic ‘extensive’ bulbs of blades attest to
the use of soft, perhaps bone hammer, or more likely,
pressure technique. The uniform nature of the blades, their
proportions, length, width, and thickness speak of excellent
craftsmanship and specialisation of flint knappers.
Removed blades – blanks for sickle blades, analogously
to the sites in Dakhla, were intentionally broken and their
edges sharpened with retouch, then mounted already as
sickle inserts in a wooden haft. Some of the known hafts
are up to 55cm in length (Emery 1938). The binder used
for keeping inserts in place is present on some sickle
blades to this day. Triangular sickle blades were set as
the first and last pieces in a series of inserts in a wooden
frame, as shown in sickles from the tomb of Hemaka of
dynasty I, discovered in Saqqara (Emery 1938) (Figure
42: 4). Another technology was used for the production of
bifacial tools, in the case of Kom el-Hisn merely knives.
Given the minor amount of cores, debitage, i.e., ordinary
flakes and blades, characteristic chipping debris, chips or
chunks, and very few specimens of primary and secondary
debitage or bifacial trimming flakes at Kom el-Hisn, it is
highly reasonable to conclude that virtually all flint was
knapped somewhere off-site, in workshops, which could
have operated nearby the settlement site (although, as of
yet, none have been registered), or, more likely, somewhere
else, probably in the vicinity of the major centres of power.
Standardised blades were therefore brought to the site,
while their breaking, retouching and framing was done
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Tool type Helwan Elephantine Giza Ibrahim Awad Ain Asil Ain el-Gazzareen Kom el-Hisn

Bifacial knives 1.24 9.44 22.26 3.01 1.06 3.90 9.45

Scrapers 16.96 15.06 15.63 0.00 51.00 19.53 0.44

End scrapers 3.30 3.61 4.84 1.20 no data 6.01 0.23

Segmented blades 6.12 8.03 11.06 33.13 6.08 15.79 76.69

Bitruncated 1.60/
0.83 25.70 4.22 0.00 0.00 0.00
rect. blades 6.44

Retouched blades and

54.13 25.50 12.90 no data 7.25 31.42 1.10
flakes

Figure 24. Comparison of percentages of different tool types from selected sites. Percentages based on the total number of tools (Helwan,
Elephantine, Giza, Ibrahim Awad and Ain Asil according to Hikade 2005. For Ain el-Gazzareen and Kom el-Hisn see this volume

already on site in individual households, as evidenced, just Raw material Percentage

like in Ain el-Gazzareen, by the occurrence in all dwellings 1. Mined flint 24.08
of half-products of sickle blades, worn out or discarded
sickle blades. For some reason or other, the provision of 2. Pebble flint 19.89
ready half-products of sickle blades was severely limited Either 1 or 2 55.71
for the inhabitants of Kom el-Hisn compared to the
residents of Ain el-Gazzareen. Note that the number of Carnelian 0.29
sickle blades with traces of sickle sheen along both edges, Quartzite 0.03
which evidences their re-use at Kom el-Hisn, is almost
twice as high (39.84 per cent) as at Ain el-Gazzareen (23.7 Total: 100 (n=4668)
per cent). It is evident that farmers from Kom el-Hisn
somehow conserved these implements. Figure 25. Elephantine. Northern Group. Types of raw material
(according to Hikade 2013)

The foregoing observations bear a testimony to the fact

that not only half-products of sickle blades but practically
almost all, if not all flint artefacts registered at this site
were brought from outside, this situation stemming
perhaps from the difficulties in procuring raw material, so
numerous and readily available in the Dakhla Oasis. Flint
was perhaps traded in the Delta, or, more likely, allocated
by the central government.
Remarkable is an insignificant amount of other retouched
tools. Kom el-Hisn did not yield any metal items, and flint
was undeniably the essential source of raw material for
the manufacture of tools. The question therefore arises,
unanswerable at the moment, why, then, various types of
flint tools and specimens representing them are so sparse.
The Western and Eastern Deserts are replete with sources
of different varieties of the so-called mined flint, which
was used for making tools at Kom el-Hisn (Aston et al.
2000; Hikade 2000a; Kopp 2006; Negro, Cammelli 1910).
It is nevertheless possible in the case of Kom el-Hisn that
these materials were procured in deposits of pebbles and
gravels lying near sites such as Khatatba and Abu Roash on
the western edge of the Delta. The closest known sources
of obsidian are located in Ethiopia, from where it arrived
to Egypt via the Eastern Desert.
The lithic industry recovered at Kom el-Hisn speaks of
the major role of agriculture in the lives of the inhabitants
of the settlement throughout the reign of dynasties V and
VI, which is further confirmed by numerous finds of stone
quernstones at the site.
4.3. Elephantine
Flint artefacts from Elephantine were long-published
and while there is apparently nothing new in the lithic
inventory, the comprehensive publication of all inventories
attributable to the 3rd millennium BC (Hikade 2013)
permits the publicisation of these rich materials to be
considered as a newness.
An important source for the knowledge of toolmaking,
notably in the Old Kingdom and to a lesser extent the
Archaic Period, numerous flint inventories were produced
by excavations carried out on Elephantine since 1969 by
a German expedition of the Deutsches Archäologisches
Institut. Located at the southern tip of Egypt, the site
represents flint materials from this area, lying c. 840km
away from Kom el-Hisn and about 450km from the Western
Desert sites. Just like in the case of Ain Asil, I shall not
refer here the materials in detail, because they were fully
analysed in T. Hikade’s work (2013). Here, I shall discuss
the main features of flint knapping at the site. Hikade
divided the Elephantine inventories into two groups, that
is to say the older one, from the northern part of the site
(North of the Khnum Temple), comprising some materials
from the Archaic Period (Satet Temple), and especially
from dynasties III and IV; and the younger assemblage

48
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites

from the southern part of the island (South of the Khnum
Temple), dating back to the times of Dynasties V-VI and
the early First Intermediate Period. The development of
settlement on the island over the centuries understandably
caused some interweaving of chronological levels, but
generally, this division makes it possible to distinguish
artefact assemblages within the proposed chronological
frameworks. Listed below is their characteristics according
to T. Hikade (2013).
Inventories of the northern group (North of the Khnum
Temple)
The group of the inventories yielded 4668 specimens. The
types of exploited raw materials are given in Figure 25.
The debitage constitutes approximately 40.00 per cent of
the assemblage, while cores and their fragments three per
cent. Most numerous are multiplatform cores for flakes
(0.49 per cent of the entire debitage). Other types of
cores occur in negligible amounts. The quantity of blades
(25.16 per cent) clearly outnumbers the number of flakes
(16.30 per cent). Bladelets represent 1.74 per cent of the
assemblage. By contrast, in the area of East Town, blades
three times outnumber the amount of flakes. Several
of these blades are evidently standardised specimens,
most likely supplied from outside. Core trimming flakes
account for 0.58 per cent of the inventory. Some massive
large blades used for the production of bi-truncated regular
blade tools (rasor blades) were also found. The types of
debitage are presented in a table (Figure 26).

Number Percentage

Nodules 9 0.19

Pebble & nodule fragments 464 9.94

Fragments of tabular nodules 9 0.19

Single striking platform cores for flakes 4 0.09

Single striking platform cores for flakes/blades 2 0.04

Multiple striking platform cores for flakes 23 0.49

Multiple striking platform cores for flakes/blades 2 0.04

Multiple striking platform cores for blades 3 0.06

Multiple striking platform cores for bladelets 1 0.02

Core caps 24 0.51

Crested blades 5 0.11

Core rejuvenation pieces 17 0.36

Non-distinct core fragments 80 1.72

Chips 901 19.30

Shattered pieces 953 20.42

Flakes 761 16.30

Bifacial thinning flakes 27 0.58

Irregular bladelets 39 0.84

Irregular blades 326 6.99

Irregular large blades 182 3.90

Regular bladelets 42 0.90

Regular blades 360 7.71

Regular large blades 306 6.56

Bifacial tools 128 2.74

Total 4668 100

Figure 26. Elephantine. Northern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types (according to Hikade 2013)

49
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Tool type Number Percentage

Pebbles and nodules fragments with retouching 46 4.09

Flakes with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 44 3.91

Bladelets with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 7 0.62

Blades with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 65 5.78

Large blades with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 70 6.23

Projectile points on blades 1 0.09

Sickle blades 194 17.25

Backed blades on flakes 3 0.27

Blades with right notch 2 0.18

Blades with left notch 2 0.18

Blades with bilateral notches 3 0.27

Borers 50 4.45

Crescent drills 1 0.09

Crescent-shaped tools 2 0.18

Burins 12 1.07

Endscrapers 55 4.90

Sidescrapers 138 12.27

Triangular scrapers 2 0.18

Bi-truncated, regular blade tools 303 26.96

Knives 88 7.83

Axes 6 0.53

Picks 1 0.09

Chopping tools 2 0.18

Ambiguous bifacial tools 27 2.40

Total 1124 100

Figure 27. Elephantine. Northern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types (according to Hikade 2013).

Among 1124 retouched tools, which is equal approximately

Raw material Percentage
to one quarter of all specimens from the northern group,
most numerous are bi-truncated regular blade tools. Sickle 1.Mined flint 7.64
blades constitute the second largest group. The number of
2. Pebble flint 24.49
scrapers exceeds the amount of end scrapers, and bifacial
knives occur in considerable amounts. Borers are fairly Either 1 or 2 67.16
abundant. There are some, albeit scarce, axes, chopping
Obsidian 0.01
tools and a single pick.
Rock crystal 0.01
The retouched tools are presented below in a table (Figure
Carnelian 0.56
27).
Quartzite 0.13
There is a clear dominance of blades over flakes, the
former mostly imported. A relatively small number of Total: 100 (n=5822)
cores or characteristic lithic waste indicate that flint was
Figure 28. Elephantine. Southern Group. Types of raw material
rarely worked on Elephantine (Hikade 2013). (according to Hikade 2013)

50
 Flint Assemblages from Recently Investigated Old Kingdom Sites

Inventories of the southern group (South of the Khnum
Temple).
The southern group of sites yielded slightly more lithic
materials than the northern group, namely 5812 pieces.
Types of lithic raw materials exploited in this group are
given in a table (Figure 28).
The table shows a marked decrease of mined flint in
younger inventories and an increase in the amount of
pebbles collected from the surface in the area. Crystal and
obsidian are present in tiny amounts.
Debitage is almost twice more numerous than in the
northern area, equalling to almost 74 per cent of all flint
artefacts in Area XII. Cores and their fragments represent
merely from three per cent to 5.6 per cent in different areas.
Most numerous are single platform cores for bladelets (0.93
per cent of the debitage), probably on account of the fact
that in House 156a in Area XXX archaeologists working
at the site unearthed a workshop producing microdrills
from such cores. Relatively numerous are multiplatform
cores for flakes as well for blades and flakes. A substantial
number of multiplatform cores attest to the occasional
heavy exploitation of cores. The number of blades exceeds

Number Percentage

Nodules 2 0.03

Pebbles 1 0.02

Pebble & nodule fragments 205 3.52

Fragments of tabular nodules 2 0.03

Single striking platform cores for flakes 4 0.06

Single striking platform cores for flakes/blades 6 0.10

Single striking cores for blades 1 0.02

Single platform cores for bladelets 54 0.93

Multiple striking platform cores for flakes 7 0.12

Multiple striking platform cores for flakes/blades 6 0.10

Multiple striking platform cores for bladelets 24 0.42

Core caps 12 0.21

Crested blades 15 0.26

Core rejuvenation pieces 11 0.19

Non-distinct core fragments 188 3.23

Chips 1760 30.22

Shattered pieces 1768 30.36

Burin spalls 14 0.24

Flakes 532 9.14

Bifacial thinning flakes 47 0.81

Irregular bladelets 159 2.73

Irregular blades 216 3.71

Irregular large blades 96 1.65

Regular bladelets 85 1.46

Regular blades 381 6.54

Regular large blades 67 1.15

Bifacial tools 160 2.75

Total: 5823 100

Figure 29. Elephantine. Southern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of debitage types (according to Hikade 2013)

51
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Tool type Number Percentage

Flakes with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 93 12.24

Bladelets with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 25 3.29

Blades with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 39 5.13

Large blades with simple dorsal and/or ventral retouching 34 4.47

Projectile points on blades 1 0.13

Sickle blades 163 21.45

Borers 29 3.82

Crescent drills borers 6 0.79

Crescent-shaped tools 1 0.13

Microdrills 109 14.34

Burins 15 1.97

Endscrapers 14 1.84

Sidescrapers 39 5.13

Triangular scrapers 4 0.53

Bi-truncated, regular blade tools 26 3.42

Knifes 116 15.26

Axes 4 0.53

Miscellaneous bifacial tools 7 0.92

Ambiguous bifacial tools 35 4.61

Total: 760 100

Figure 30. Elephantine. Southern Group. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types (according to Hikade 2013).

the amount of flakes, the ratio of blades to flakes being
1.4: 1. Several of these blades are standardised imported
specimens, used for the manufacture of bi-truncated,
regular blade tools. The assemblage contains also bladelets
(4.19 per cent). Note that the above number of blades and
flakes is a mean amount from the entire region. Again,
characteristic chipping debris produced in the course of
preparing and repairing cores are scarce (0.66 per cent).
workshop uncovered in House 156a; retouched blades;
and scrapers. The assemblage yielded also a slightly
reduced amount of ordinary borers, while the number of
bi-truncated regular blade tools decreased almost eightfold
compared to the older, northern inventories. The quantity of
end scrapers and scrapers markedly decreased in the group
under study. Excavations produced also few arrowheads, a
number comparable to that of the northern group.

An analysis of debitage from the southern group has again
demonstrated that flint was rarely worked on site.
Debitage types are presented in Figure 29.
Seven hundred and sixty retouched tools were identified
in the southern group (Figure 30). Amongst them most
numerous were sickle blades, followed by bifacial knives,
twice more frequent than in the northern group; retouched
flakes, again three times more numerous than in the
north; microdrills, exceptionally numerous here due to the
The flint industry is generally alike throughout both
areas. The difference lies in the increasing frequency of
working flint on site. While during the earlier dynasties
the inhabitants of Elephantine received ready-made sickle
blades, manufactured in outside workshops, in later
periods imported were only half-products of sickle blades
to be finished on site. With time, the amount of scrapers
decreased, while bi-truncated, regular blade tools ceased
to be used at all. At the same time, the quantity of bifacial
knives increased (Hikade 2013).

52
 Chapter 5
Comparison of Flint Assemblages Dated to the Old Kingdom:
Sites from Dakhla Oasis, Kom el Hisn and Elephantine
Recent research at several settlement sites in different
regions of Egypt has yielded rich inventories of flint
artefacts dating from the late dynasties of the Old Kingdom.
Functioning in different environments and landscapes, the
settlements include, starting from the north, Kom el-Hisn
from western Delta, Ain Asil and Ain el-Gazzareen from
the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert and Elephantine
from the Nile valley, on the border with Nubia. In addition
to the two mentioned settlement sites of considerable size,
investigations in Dakhla, produced also archaeological
record from accompanying watch-posts and a temple.
Flint inventories from the Dakhla Oasis were compared
in minute details earlier in the book. The technology, and
largely typology of lithic materials recovered from all of
these types of sites are similar enough to treat them as a
whole. Therefore, I shall hereafter refer to the group of
sites from the Dakhla Oasis as ‘Dakhla’. As regards
Elephantine, taken into account were mainly younger
inventories, dating back to the late dynasties of the Old
Kingdom and the early First Intermediate Period, situated
south of the Khnum Temple, since they correspond better
in terms of chronology to the settlement at Kom el-Hisn
and Dakhla.
While a group of Dakhla sites exhibits considerable
similarity, there are wide differences between inventories
from distant sites. People from Dakhla and Elephantine
procured raw material in the same way, collecting local
nodules scattered on the surface, in the case of Dakhla
also tabular flint, and importing mined flint. In contrast,
the inhabitants of Kom el-Hisn only imported mined flint,
which is not surprising given the total absence of any kind
of pebbles in the Delta.
It is remarkable that flint inventories from different,
contemporaneous, well-researched Old Kingdom
settlement sites estimated at Dynasty VI differ in the type
of flint tools. Inventories from two large settlement sites
similar in terms of economy, i.e., Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain
Asil in the Dakhla Oasis and Kom el-Hisn in the Western
Delta provide an ample example. They yielded sickle
blades and bifacial knives. Nevertheless, while a multitude
of small implements, most likely produced by inhabitants
for immediate use, were found at Ain el-Gazzareen, they
are virtually absent at Kom el-Hisn. Perhaps access to raw
flint was of some significance in this case. Even if not
of the highest quality, flint was readily available in Ain
el-Gazzareen. On the other hand, the inhabitants of Kom
el-Hisn, a settlement site located on the gezira (a sand-
gravel mound), surrounded by thick layers of aggregated
silts, had no opportunities of procuring raw flint and were
dependent on the external supply. That only finished
53
products were imported to Kom el-Hisn is evidenced by an
almost complete absence of cores, so numerous in Ain el-
Gazzareen, and an almost exclusive presence of imported
mined flint at Kom el-Hisn. On the other hand, except
for imported blanks for sickle blades and sickle blades,
imported flint is entirely absent in Ain el-Gazzareen. Both
Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil have given massive sickle
inserts in both varieties, unregistered at Kom el-Hisn. The
question therefore arises whether the inhabitants of the two
settlement sites from Dakhla and Kom el-Hisn from the
Delta practiced different economic activities, which seems
improbable, or if they were able to do without many types
of flint tools and somehow replace them? If that is the
case, those people are certain not to have used metal items,
since they are unaccounted for at Kom el-Hisn. Given that
flint inventories of Ain Asil and Ain el-Gazzareen from
the Dakhla Oasis are alike, the difference between them
and Kom el-Hisn is not accidental, having arisen from
important causes, unresolved as of yet.
In all three settlement sites under study, the types of rocks
other than the above-mentioned two types of raw flint
were virtually unexploited. Obsidian, quartzite, petrified
wood or carnelian are found in minute quantities, the only
exception being a significant amount of chalcedony in
inventories from the Dakhla watch-posts.
All three sites are also alike inasmuch as they all exhibit an
evident, heavy dependency on the supply of standardised
products distributed by the state administration. In Dakhla
and on Elephantine, raw material was roughed out off-
site; with an easy access to nodular or tabular flint, of
admittedly inferior quality, simple, expedient tools of
everyday use were produced ad hoc within a household.
By contrast, manufacturing implements for immediate
use is unreadable in the archaeological record from Kom
el-Hisn, where such tools are, indeed, rare. At the same
time, all these inventories contain numerous sickle blades,
finishing and mounted in hafts in particular dwellings at
all sites.
The difference between flint inventories from Dakhla and
Elephantine lies in the use of blanks. The most common
type among a great number of cores in Dakhla are
multiplatform cores for flakes, basically never prepared
for processing. Flakes are, correspondingly, an almost
exclusive blank material. They are often very crude
specimens, fashioned into simple tools. Quality blades
found on these sites, detached from excellent quality
raw material using pressure technique, which were used
as blanks for the manufacture of sickle blades, come
exclusively from import. Frequently used, notably in
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Kom el-Hisn Dakhla Elephantine

Nodular flint from vicinity absent XXX XXX

Tabular flint absent XXX X

Mined flint XXX XXX XXX

Other raw materials X X X

Primary production out of the settlement XXX XXX XXX

Production of ordinary (ad hoc) tools X XXX XXX

Supply of tools from the outside workshops XXX XXX XXX

Finishing tools on site XXX XXX XXX

Blade technology absent absent XX

Flake technology X XXX XX

Core preparation absent absent XX

Sickle blades XXX XXX XXX

Massive rectangular sickle inserts absent XXX absent

Bifacial knifes XXX XX XXX

Scrapers X XXX XX

End-scrapers X XX XXX

Borers X XX X

Mikcroperforators absent X XXX

Scaled pieces absent X absent

Retouched blades and flakes X XXX XXX

Crescent-shaped borers absent X X

Arrow heads absent X X

Axes absent absent X

Hoes absent X absent

Chopping tools absent absent X

Figure 31. Comparison of flint inventories from Kom el-Hisn, the Dakhla Oasis and Elephantine. XXX – very frequent, XX – frequent, X –
scarce. (Elephantine according to Hikade 2013)

Ain el-Gazzareen, was tabular flint, never shaped into
cores, but ‘carved’ into necessary tools by coring. Blades
clearly predominate in the assemblages from Elephantine.
Although most of them, as in Dakhla, were supplied from
outside, the presence of cores for blades and bladelets
indicates that blade technology was well known to the
people of Elephantine and the preparation of cores for
processing was fairly extensively practiced.
On all three compared sites, sickle blades typically
constituted a very important part of the inventory. It is
remarkable that at both sites from the Dakhla Oasis, sickle
blades are accompanied by rectangular massive sickle
inserts, admittedly occurring in smaller quantities. They
are nevertheless entirely absent at Kom el-Hisn and on
Elephantine. Contrariwise, bifacial knives, often found at
Kom el-Hisn and on Elephantine, are scarce in Dakhla.
Interestingly, while particularly Kom el-Hisn yielded
merely fragments of knives, the Dakhla inventories contain
mostly complete, yet heavily re-worked (exhausted)
specimens. Dakhla and less so Elephantine gave a great
variety of types of scrapers. In contrast, such implements
are almost absent at Kom el-Hisn. Analogously, end
scrapers, also quite popular in Dakhla and on Elephantine,
occur at Kom el-Hisn in negligible amounts. Borers are
scarce on all three sites. None microperforators were
found at Kom el-Hisn and merely a few were identified
in Dakhla. Elephantine stands in marked contrast to the
foregoing sites, largely due to the discovery of a workshop
which produced microdrills necessary for making beads.

54
 Comparison of Flint Assemblages Dated to the Old Kingdom
Tool type
Bifacial knives
Scrapers
Endscrapers
Segmented blades
Bitruncated ret. blades
Retouched balades and flakes
Figure 32. The percentage frequencies of major types of flint tool from watch-posts Seth Hill and Bee’s Lookout. Compare to Figure 25.
Bi-truncated regular blade tools, absent in Dakhla and
Kom el-Hisn, are still present in minute quantities in
the southern group of assemblages on Elephantine, they
may nevertheless come from levels earlier than those
attributable to Dynasties V and VI. Scaled pieces were
recovered only from Ain el-Gazzareen. Retouched blades
and flakes, present in substantial amounts in Dakhla,
frequent on Elephantine, are almost non-present at Kom
el-Hisn.
Such tools as crescent-shaped borers and arrowheads were
found in limited quantities in Dakhla and on Elephantine,
which yielded also few massive chopping tools, axes and
picks. Ain el-Gazzareen in Dakhla yielded two massive
hoes.
The above-mentioned similarities and differences are
illustrated in the table (Figure 31).
All inventories discussed above belonged to the
agricultural population of the same type. This also applies
to sites functioning in the Dakhla Oasis (excluding
watch-posts and the temple); their location in the desert
notwithstanding, they nevertheless functioned in a large
oasis with a sufficient supply of water.
It is evident that most of the observed discrepancies
between the settlement sites arose from the difference in
the environment and resources. A lack of access to raw flint
in the Nile Delta accounts for the absence of several types
of tools at Kom el-Hisn. By contrast, an easy access to
nodular and tabular flint in Dakhla encouraged profligacy
in the management of raw material, which is particularly
evident at Ain el-Gazzareen.
55
Seth Hill Bee’s Lookout
0.00 0.00
15.00 30.76
6.20 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
27.50 12.30
As previously stated, there is a significant difference in
the technology of blank production between the sites from
Dakhla and Elephantine, inasmuch as people living in
the former exploited flint using almost exclusively flake
technology, while in the assemblage of the latter notable
is a strong preference for blades. The question therefore
arises about the reasons underlying the discrepancy. My
hypothesis is that assemblages reflect two different local
traditions. Upon colonising the Western Desert, thus also
Dakhla, during the reign of Dynasties V and VI, Egyptians
encountered a group of local pastors of the so-called
Sheikh Muftah culture (McDonald 1991, 2000; Riemer
2011a). There is no doubt whatsoever that the shepherds
used the flake technology. Having survived the invasion
‘of the Egyptians’, they succumbed to acculturation, yet
introduced their flake tradition into everyday life of the
settlements, thereby producing those unquestionably flake
inventories recovered by archaeologists from the oasis.
In contrast, the population of Elephantine had its roots
on the border of Upper Egypt and Nubia. The preceding
Predynastic period saw the popularity of blade technology
in Upper Egypt (Holmes 1989). Here, the tradition of
working flint was preserved as well, bringing into the
Pharaonic period a liking for blades.
It is difficult to account for other differences for the time
being.
The foraging remarks are further complemented by the
following table (Figure 32), which provides the percentage
frequencies of major types of flint tools at relatively
rich assemblages from watch-posts Seth Hill and Bee’s
Lookout. Compare to Figure 25.
 Chapter 6
El Kharafish
El Kharafish is, the richest thus far investigated site of the
Sheikh Muftah culture, as defined by M. McDonald (1991,
1993, 2001) following the archaeological prospection in
the Dakhla Oasis. The site of El Kharafish was excavated
in 2002 by H. Riemer on behalf of the ACACIA Project
of the University of Cologne. The following description
is based on H. Riemer’s publications (Riemer 2011a,
2011b and Riemer et al. 2008). El Kharafish is located
about 25km north of the Dakhla Oasis, on the Egyptian
Limestone Plateau, about 5km north of its southern edge,
falling with a steep escarpment into the Dakhla depression.
A concentration of flint artefacts and pottery was deposited
on a small fossil dune (02/5-1). Flint artefacts and a
number of products made from organic materials, along
with animal bones were preserved inside a small rock
shelter located above, adjacent to the dune (02/5-2). Both
of these zones were thoroughly excavated.
El Kharafish is a seasonal base camp; a place where a
groups of shepherds and hunters stayed while wandering in
the area of today’s Western Desert. They lived on hunting
gazelles, birds and poor breeding of cattle and goats and
inhabited the camp in early spring.
Two radiocarbon dates are believed to be related to the
Sheikh Muftah culture, namely 4720 ± 80 bp (B 23690) and
4310 ± 80 bp (Gd 4492) (McDonald 2001); inventories of
Sheikh Muftah type were are thought to co-occur with the
Old Kingdom materials estimated at dynasties V and VI.
Two settlement phases were identified at El Kharafish:
an older phase, dating back to circa 3000 cal. BC, which
corresponds to the period of dynasty I, and a younger
period, for which a date 2800 cal. BC was obtained, albeit
the materials attributable to this phase contain pottery
typical for dynasty IV, which rather suggests the years circa
2600-2500 BC. The presence of ‘Egyptian’ pottery most
likely testifies to the exchange between the indigenous
Sheikh Muftah people and newly arrived ‘Egyptians’ from
the Dakhla Oasis. A red polished cup dated to dynasty VI
or the early First Intermediate Period was found lying on
the surface of the site; it may nevertheless evidence a later
brief stay, non-related to the Sheikh Muftah settlement.
Here, El Kharafish lithic industry is characterised on the
basis of the richest inventory recovered in the course of
regular excavations from the area called the ‘dune camp
site’.
Raw material for the manufacture of tools included flint
in different varieties of grey and brown hue, greenish and
reddish, also of varying degrees of transparency. Flint
56
occurs both as nodular and tabular variety. By far the most
abundant is pale brown to yellowish brown red flint, glassy
to fine-grained texture, translucent, nodular or tabular.
Quartzitic sandstone, quartz and silicified limestone were
found in minute amounts. Approximately 95 per cent of
artefacts were made from local materials found in natural
outcrops near the sites. Analogously to other sites from
the period in the Dakhla Oasis and its vicinity, Middle
Palaeolithic artefacts scattered on the surface were treated
as sources of raw material, picked up and re-used (such
artefacts are referred to as double patinated).
The key, representative excavation trench at El Kharafish
produced more than 68,476 flint artefacts in total, including
0.24 per cent of cores, 0.56 per cent of retouched tools and
99.19 per cent of debitage.
Correspondingly to flint inventories from other sites from
Dakhla, be it Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil or watch-posts,
the lithic assemblage from El Kharafish is typified by the
opportunistic technology. The same applies to other sites
of this culture known from the Dakhla Oasis (McDonald
2001). The technology has nothing in common with the
earlier technologies characteristic for the beginning of the
Holocene in southern Egypt, with the Beshendi culture of
the Dakhla Oasis, known from the site of Djara or Fayum.
Present at El Kharafish are all fundamental phases of lithic
reduction, from untreated nodules through early phases
of core exploitation, the detachment of blanks to finished
tools. The inventory resembles that of Ain el-Gazzareen,
inasmuch as flintwork was very primitive. There is no
evidence whatsoever of core preparation, and the cores
themselves, small and medium in size, irregular, with one
or several platforms (Figure 92: 1-4), were typically used
for removing flakes, which constitute virtually the only
type of debitage. These mostly irregular flakes were then
fashioned into tools.
A variety of scrapes constitute the largest group (see the
table below), representing 55.6 per cent of retouched tools
(Figures 93: 1-7; 94: 1-2); among them most common
are sidescrapers and circular scrapers, amounting to 23.0
per cent each. The abundance of borers (23.3 per cent)
(Figure 94: 3-9) stems perhaps from the fact that they
were used in the mass production of the so-called Clayton
rings found at the site. Denticulates (Figure 95: 4-5)
represent 8.9 per cent, notches (Figure 95: 6-7) 4.2 per
cent; knives (Figure 96: 4-6) account merely for one per
cent and are heavily damaged and modified by extensive
use. It is likely that once broken, they served as scrapers.
The inventory contains also scaled pieces (one per cent),
 El Kharafish

Tool types on 02/5-1 Number Percentage

Arrow heads 2 0.6

Simple perforators 73 23.3

End scrapers (steep, convex retouch) 1 0.3

End scrapers (steep, concave retouch) 4 1.3

Lateral scrapers (steep, convex retouch) 12 3.8

Lateral scrapers (steep, concave retouch) 13 4.2

Sidescrapers (invasive retouch) 72 23.0

Circular scrapers (invasive retouch) 72 23.0

Denticulated pieces 28 8.9

Notched pieces 13 4.1

Knives 3 1.0

Scaled pieces 3 1.0

Blades with edge retouch (sickle blades?) 1 0.3

Truncated pieces 1 0.3

Roughouts 15 4.5

Total scrapers 174 55.6

Total: 313 100.0

Figure 33. El Kharafish 02/5-1. Absolute and percentage frequencies of tool types. (according to Riemer 2011b)

retouched blades (0.3 per cent) and truncated pieces (0.3
per cent). Two bifacially retouched arrowheads (Figure
96: 1-2) equal to 0.6 per cent of retouched tools, while
the third arrow of Ounan point type (Figure 96: 3), found
on the surface, represent, in my opinion a disturbance
from older periods, and as such it was excluded from the
analysis of El Kharafish inventory. Other retouched tools
included a single truncated blade (?) (Figure 96:8), one
retouched blade (figure 96:7), perhaps a sickle blade, and
15 roughouts, i.e., unfinished tools and as such difficult to
identify.
The frequency of particular tool types in the representative
inventory from El Kharafish 02/5-1 is given in the table
above (Figure 33).
The flint inventory of El Kharafish shares broadly
similar characteristics with well-researched inventories
of ‘Egyptian’ settlement from Dakhla such as Ain el-
Gazzareen, Ain Asil or watch-posts. Their in-depth
comparison is provided below.

57
 Chapter 7
Three Lithic Complexes
In his attempt to draw comparisons between the
Predynastic flintwork of Egypt and the Levant in the
Predynastic period, S. Rosen (2014) defines various
lithic complexes characteristic of the area at the time in
question. Likewise, flint materials attributable to the period
discussed in this book make it possible to distinguish three
distinct lithic complexes prevailing in Egypt throughout
the first six dynasties. They vary in typology, i.e., the
presence of various groups of flint artefacts, technology
and use of different châines operatoires necessary for
their production; a variety of raw materials selected for
production further points toward the diversity of existing
lithic complexes.
The first lithic complex – highly specialized production
The first lithic complex comprises tools manufactured by
highly specialised flintknappers, working in organised
workshops within the framework of a centralised
administrative system. Made from excellent raw materials
procured largely from different types of mines and supplied
by miners-specialists, these products were generally much
standardised. They include regular quality blades detached
from well-prepared, slender single platform cores using
pressure technology, which were used as blanks for the
mass-production of sickle blades; the preponderance of
bifacial knives, particularly from the Archaic Period;
bifacially retouched arrowheads; bi-truncated regular blade
tools; both varieties of massive rectangular sickle inserts;
last but not least, flint animal sculptures and bracelets
manufactured using pressure technique. Flint burning was
occasionally practiced as part of the production process.
Standardised axes should also perhaps be grouped within
this complex.
The second lithic complex – ad hoc production
The second lithic complex comprises expedient
implements, produced ad hoc, such as scrapers, rabots,
end scrapers, burins, perforators, borers, notches, strangled
58
pieces, denticulates and scaled pieces. Retouched flakes,
more rarely blades, should also be grouped here. Easy
to make, they were manufactured almost exclusively on
flakes, sometimes chunks, from a worse quality of flint,
typically found on the surface in a more or less distant
neighbourhood, sometimes weathered and internally
cracked. Usually irregular multiplatform cores very
roughly shaped or unprepared and the resultant shapes
and sizes of tools were accidental and exhibit a wide
variety, lacking any standardisation. As noted earlier,
the communities of the Western Desert occasionally
used Middle Palaeolithic (Figures 81:3; 85:3) artefacts
profusely scattered on the surface. The above-mentioned
types of tools were manufactured by ordinary people from
any raw material they managed to find, and discarded after
use.
The third lithic complex – heavy duty tools
This complex includes heavy-duty tools for architectural
work, such as pebble tools, i.e., massive products in the
type of the Lower Palaeolithic choppers or chopping tools
made of large pebbles with uni- or bifacially sharpened
working edges, along with massive hammers. As well as
being of service in working or smoothing the surfaces of
sandstone, limestone and even granite blocks, these tools
were put to use while carving out stone sculptures. This
complex comprises also massive picks, indispensible in
flint mines and hoes. It is perhaps reasonable to include also
crescent-shaped borers widely used for the manufacture of
stone vessels.
The production of the foregoing implements did not
require highly specialised craftsmen or special skills. It is
likely that some workshops were established in the vicinity
of building sites of large architectural structures such as
pyramids, mastabas, temples or near mines, where these
tools were mass produced for the tasks undertaken nearby.
At any rate, unlike the products of the first lithic complex,
these tools were not subject to central distribution.
 Chapter 8
The Importance of Flint Tools in the Culture of Early Dynasties of Egypt
8.1. Economic importance
I have already pointed out that flint was used in Egypt for
a long time, even in parallel with metals, down to the end
of the Pharaonic period. In the Archaic Period, as well as
in the Old Kingdom, flint tools still played a major role in
the contemporary economy, beliefs, or was of service in
the army. This raw material fulfilled also a social certain
function.
The role of flint tools in economic activity was manifold.
It is perhaps most evident in agriculture, which could
not function without sickles. All sickles were equipped
with flint inserts of different types and varieties. Their
profusion at settlement sites stands as a clear testimony of
their universal usage, while heavy sickle sheen evidences
an intense and prolonged exploitation (See Appendix).
Also often extensively, long used and particular important
in everyday life were different types of flint knives.
Knives, sickles and sundry other types of flint tools were
put to use in every conceivable kind of daily economy-
related activities. For example, axes and different
types of scrapers, chisels, scaled pieces (as wedges for
splitting wood), notched tools or burins were employed
in woodworking. For butchering animals and cutting the
carcass indispensible were flint knives (Figure 40), some
scrapers and probably also ordinary blades, sometimes
untrimmed by any additional retouch. Scrapers and end
scrapers were put to use in scraping and tanning leather , but
also for cutting (see Appendix). Flint arrowheads served as
an important element of armament and were likely use in
hunting (Hikade 2001). The fact that a bow constituted an
important element of the equipment is confirmed both by
grave goods, e.g., from the mastaba of Hemaka, an official
of Dynasty I (Emery 1938), as well as by depictions, such
as a Sixth Dynasty representation of a warrior carved in
sandstone at a watch-post in the Dakhla Oasis. Different
types of arrows attest to their different use. A special type of
crescent-shaped borer was fashioned in order to facilitate
the manufacture of vessels mainly from soft rocks such
as gypsum or Egyptian travertine (alabaster) (Ciałowicz
2011; Lauer, Debono 1950). Hieroglyphs on the walls of
temples or mastabas or inscriptions on rocks in deserts
commemorating the marches of the Egyptian dignitaries
(Harkuf in the Western Desert) were engraved with flint
implements. Flint tools were also used to make sculptures.
Heavy-duty flint tools were essential in architectural
works, helping workers to smooth the surface of blocks
of sandstone or limestone in order for them to perfectly
adhere to one another or to create a smooth surface of a
building. Flint chisels were more effective in working
59
hard volcanic rocks than chisels made of other rocks or
metal, as evidenced by recent experiments (Stocks 2003).
Similar massive chisel-and axe-like implements were
put to use in opencast flint mines at Wadi el-Sheikh on
the Eastern Desert and for carving burial chambers in
Thebes. Although G. Weisberger (1987) dates the mines
at Wadi el-Sheikh to the Middle Kingdom, he nevertheless
supposes that they could have been exploited as early as
in the Old Kingdom. Such tools as borers, perforators,
denticulates and numerous ordinary blades and flakes with
naturally sharp edges, sometimes further fragmentarily
retouched were put to use for manifold unrecognised daily
life activities. Finally, flint was a material of choice for
making some ornaments such as bracelets or figurines,
e.g., crocodiles and hippos (Friedman 2000).
The function of bi-truncated regular blade tools, very
common particularly in the Archaic Period has remained
an unsolved mystery. These highly standardised tools,
found both in tombs and at settlement sites, were supplied
together with half-products of sickle blades and bifacial
knives, by specialised workshops.
8.2. Ritual importance
Of extensive use in practical activities of everyday life, flint
played also an important role in ritual ceremonies, starting
from the Predynastic period, throughout the Pharaonic
period until the 1st century BC (Midant-Reynes 1984).
Well-known is the role of flint bifacial knives, especially
the fishtail type, in performing a ritual called ‘the Opening
of the Mouth’ wpt-r (upet-er). Such knives were found in
tombs of officials and in royal contexts. It is more than
likely than a knife bearing the name of Khufu, found in
Giza, was used in rituals performed during the funeral or in
the course of worship after the pharaoh’s death. The role of
the knife was to cut the umbilical cord of a new-born child
to open his/her sublunary life or allow the soul of the dead
to be-reanimated in the afterlife. The ceremony of ‘the
opening of the Mouth’ is known from the Pyramid Texts
of Dynasties V and VI (Roth 1992). Flint knives were
also used to make animal sacrifices. Bifacial knives were
abundantly represented in the inventory recovered from
the so-called ‘slaughterhouse’ in the Pyramid Complex of
Raneferef in Abusir, and in the storage rooms of the temple.
Several specimens are certain to have been recurrently
repaired and re-sharpened (Vachála, Svoboda 1989). A.
Šejnarová (2006) supposes that re-sharpening of knives
could have been a magical act in itself – the purifying of
a sacrificial knife. Using bifacial knives for butchering
animals, including animal sacrifice, is vividly illustrated
in paintings on the walls of mastabas, for example, the
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Ptahhotep’s mastaba in Saqqara (Davies 1901) (Figure
40). B. Adams and K. Ciałowicz also are of the opinion
that the knives of Dynasty I were used for sacrifices. In
their view, it is likely that blades with retouched ends,
found mainly in temple contexts, were somehow related
to sacrificial ceremonies (Adams, Ciałowicz 1997).
Furthermore, knives could have possibly in circumcision
or mummification (Aston 2000; Sudhoff 1911).
A ritual importance of bifacial knives is further attested
to by the discovery of six specimens deposited, probably
ritually, in a rock crevice in the area of the Temple of Satet
on Elephantine along with some figurines (Kaiser et al.
1977). One of the knives, made sometime during Dynasty
III, was noticeably broken prior to the deposition. Other
knives date back to roughly 100 years later, therefore a
broken knife was used for about a century (Hikade 2013).
A more precise chronology of the find is undeterminable.
Noteworthy is in this context an earlier find, namely
a deposit of two bifacial knives along with two gold
figurines found at the Eastern Kom at Tell el-Farkha in
central-eastern Delta, dating back to the late (IIIB) phase
of the Naqada culture (Ciałowicz 2012).
T. Hikade (2013) is probably right when he claims that
animal representations made of flint were sacrificial
60
figures, as is B. Midant-Reynes (1998) that longue durée
of some flint tools resulted not only from the practical
benefits of this material, but also, to some extent, from
the inner conviction of the traditional ritual prestige which
accompanied those artefacts, primarily bifacial knives.
8.3. Prestige
As well as performing ritual-related functions, some flint
knives played an important role in the social structure of
the early Egyptian dynasties. Luxurious and expensive
products, they acted as a symbol of the high status of their
owner. A nice bifacial knife of pharaoh Djer of Dynasty I,
probably from Umm el Qaab at Abydos (Hikade 2003a)
provides a good example. It is a finely manufactured
specimen, 37cm in length, typical of the Archaic Period.
Its handle was wrapped in a gold sheet, which bears Djer’s
serekh. A similar knife with a handle framed with a thin gold
sheet was found in the Archaic tomb in Gebelein (Quibel
1901). Such knives, albeit without the golden wrapping,
come from rich tombs of the then elite in Abydos, Saqqara,
Giza, Tarkhan and Naga ed Der.
Two strands of flintwork, namely ’the domestic’ and ‘the
luxurious’, occurring alongside at settlement sides of
the period indubitably testify to the existence of social
differentiation (Briois, Midant-Reynes 2008).
 Chapter 9
The Cognitive Potential of Flint Materials
9.1. Centralised rule
It has already been noted that flint inventories from
settlement sites dating back as far as the Archaic Period and
the Old Kingdom, if produced of high quality mined flint,
are frequently marked by the lack of cores or characteristic
chipping debris of this raw material. It was also observed
that certain types of tools were made from a different, good
quality raw material as compared to most of the inventory.
These observations helped to draw interesting conclusions
regarding the organisation of flint tool production in the
two earliest periods of Pharaonic Egypt.
From Dynasty I onwards, next to simple flint tools made
by inhabitants, excavations at settlement sites uncover
high-quality standardised items made of mined flint such
as for example sickle blades or quality blades for their
production. However, the inventories are marked by the
absence of characteristic cores and debitage of this kind
of flint that would have had to remain if the flintwork
had been done at the site. It follows that sickle blades and
some tools such as bifacial knives, bi-truncated regular
blade tools (so called razor blades), bifacially retouched
arrowheads and high quality blanks, mainly quality blades,
were produced elsewhere in special workshops, outside
the settlement site, and delivered to the users within the
context of a certain system.
For example, neither cores nor debitage were recovered
from the fifth-dynasty Pyramid Complex of Raneferef
in Abusir (Svoboda 2006) or from Kom el-Hisn in the
western Nile Delta, estimated to come from Dynasty VI.
Their inventories contain ready-made bifacial knives and
blanks for sickle blades. Although excavations at Ain
el-Gazzareen in the Dakhla Oasis, also a Sixth Dynasty
settlement site, produced quite a lot of cores, they were
nevertheless unsuitable for detaching appropriate blanks.
The preponderance of bifacial knives and blanks for sickle
blades must have been supplied from the outside.
The establishment of specialised workshops at least as early
as in the late Predynastic period/early Archaic Period has
been confirmed by research at such sites as Tell el Farkha
(Kabaciński 2003), Adaima (Briois, Midant-Reynes 2008)
or the complex of flint mining sites and workshops at Wadi
el-Sheikh, which functioned from prehistoric periods, at
least down to the end of the Middle Kingdom, where
quality blades were mass-produced as blanks for sickle
inserts (Negro, Cammelli 2010)
Such workshops functioned throughout the Archaic Period
and the Old Kingdom. They mass-produced standardised
products for royal estates, temples and other state
61
institutions, but also for ordinary farmers. More gifted flint
knappers were probably employed in royal residences.
Raw material was supplied by other specialists, i.e.,
‘miners’, procuring from outcast pits high quality raw
material in the form of flint nodules that were roughly
worked near the extraction sites in order to reduce their
weight for transport.
Indispensable for the manufacture of these products was
the knowledge of appropriate application of various
techniques such as the ability to assess the quality of
raw material; using different types of hammerstones and
fabricators; knowledge of the sequence of procedures
during lithic reduction; knowledge of the technology,
such as pressure technology for obtaining quality blades,
pressure retouching technique or the ability to heat raw flint
to facilitate processing. The experience, talent, imagination
and a steady hand were probably highly valued.
Nowhere else in the Middle East was the system so
centralised and controlled as in Archaic Egypt. Likewise,
in the Old Kingdom the centralisation was the fundamental
principle of rule, having been based on the fixed hierarchy
of offices. All performed activities were strictly noted by
literate officials from the beginning of the Archaic Period.
They were also responsible for the redistribution, not only
grains and other goods, but also mass-standardised flint
products (Wilkinson 2000).
The centralisation was established sometime throughout
Dynasties I-II, when, following the unification of Egypt,
the state became powerful, and survived down to the
eclipse of the Old Kingdom (Wetering 2012).
According to T. Hikade (2013), the appearance of
a considerable quantity of blades from mined flint,
manufactured in external workshops, noticeable
throughout Dynasties III-IV on Elephantine, implies the
increased interest of the central government in the island,
and its inclusion, since the early Old Kingdom, into the
general system of distribution. Since Dynasty III, the rule
was centred in the capital city of Memphis.
It has been already stated that most researchers now
incline to the hypothesis that more sophisticated tools
were produced by highly qualified specialists working
somewhere outside settlements (Hikade 2000a; Kabaciński
2012; Newberry 1893; Svoboda 2006; Tillmann, 1999;
Wilkinson, 2000). (Figure 97).
Judging by a substantial amount of high quality flint
artefacts from East Karnak, such specialised workshops
must have stayed active well into the New Kingdom. R.
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Miller (1983) speculates that they were located outside
the city, perhaps near the limestone cliffs where flint was
mined.
Although such workshop sites are undoubtedly much
more numerous, they have remained undiscovered as of
yet. This in all probability stems from the fact that they
were located outside the settlements, or somewhere
in the peripheries, thus in locations rarely subject to
archaeological prospection. The workshops are bound to
be found sooner or later.
T. Hikade (2013) is of the opinion that the distribution
system of standardised, formal tools, made of high quality
mined flint, more demanding in terms of production, was
favourable for the then Egyptians, especially those who
lived away from outcrops of good raw material. They were
not able to make such implements from small cobbles, the
only source of stone available
On the other hand, seven small flint workshops, estimated
at the Early Dynastic Period, were unearthed at the Central
Kom at the settlement site of Tell el-Farkha; they mass-
produced small borers on blades (Kabaciński 2012). Flint
knappers, unnecessarily highly qualified, manufactured
implements to satisfy local needs (supposedly the
production of beads). Likewise, a microdrill workshop
was uncovered on Elephantine, in House 156a, Area XXX
(Hikade 2013). The role and tasks of such workshops were
nonetheless at variance with that of workshops mass-
producing standardised tools. A microdrill workshop
had solely one purpose and that was fashion implements
necessary for the production of beads. Since making a
microdrill did not require particular craftsmanship and
was manageable for everyone, there was no need for such
workshops to employ qualified flint knappers.
9.2. Acculturation
Observation of events that took place in the Dakhla Oasis
in the Old Kingdom provides a very interesting example to
illustrate the possibility. The base for such ascertainment
provided studies of the rich flint assemblage excavated in
Ain el Gazzareen, El Kharafish as well as at other sites
discovered in the oasis.
M. McDonald’s explorations of the late prehistoric
settlement in the Oasis have shown that the youngest
segment of the period saw the development of the local
Sheikh Muftah culture, which took its name after the
eponymous village – the first to yield the remains of the
culture (McDonald 1999, 2001).
At variance with the culture of the inhabitants of the
Nile valley, the Sheikh Muftah culture spanned the time
from the Predynastic period down to the end of the Old
Kingdom. Its sites are located along the edges of the
then oasis, where McDonald discovered about seventy
of them, mostly in its eastern part; also on today’s desert,
up to seventy kilometers south of the Dakhla capital, Mut
62
(Riemer et al. 2005); and up to 35 kilometers north of
the city, already on the surface of the limestone plateau,
wherein discovered and excavated was El Kharafish 02/5,
the richest known archaeological site of the Sheikh Muftah
culture (Riemer 2011b).
The carriers of this culture were shepherds practicing a
nomadic lifestyle. Throughout the earlier phase, their links
with the Nile valley were negligible. Few imported vessels
dating from Naqada III/ Dynasty I found in Dakhla evince
the first such contacts (Hope 1999). Egyptian influence is
further manifested as the presence of the Egyptian pottery
attributed to Dynasty IV next to Sheikh Muftah potsherds
at the site of El Kharafish (Riemer 2011b), not necessarily
proving the personal presence of ‘Egyptians’ from the Nile
valley, since these vessels could have reached El Kharafish
by exchange. Full, face-to-face meeting of both cultures
occurred once already highly civilised and well-organised
Egyptians from the Nile valley encroached into the Dakhla
Oasis sometime during Dynasty V.
The question now arises how the relations played out
between indigenous, nomadic herdsmen of the Sheikh
Muftah culture, Neolithic in terms of the way of living, and
the newcomers from the territory upon the Nile, already
highly civilised, having the knowledge of writing, well-
organised administration, the army, and experimenting
with metallurgy. Were the shepherds expelled from
the oasis by force, exterminated, or did they remain in
place and became subjected to acculturation? Were the
inhabitants of the sixth-dynasty settlement sites, such as
Ain el-Gazzareen and Ain Asil, only settlers from the areas
upon the Nile, or was it a local population subordinate to
the ‘Egyptians’?
Investigations at such sites as the settlement of Ain el-
Gazzareen or the fortress of Ain Asil have shown them to
have been purely Egyptian, as attested to by architecture,
sacral structures and ceramics. The purposes, principles of
operation and interconnectedness of ‘Egyptian’ settlement
locations have been well-recognised, all of these being
elements of a culture entirely strange to the communities
of Sheikh Muftah. Is it possible that the autochthonous
population vanished from the oasis, having been
exterminated or driven beyond its borders? Auspiciously,
the study of flint inventories of both cultures can provide
an insight into this issue to some extent.
Upon irrupting into Dakhla and conquering its previous
inhabitants, Egyptian colonists established their ‘upon Nile-
like’ settlements, recreating their organisation, economic
fundamentals and crafts. They brought in the technologies
they were familiar with, such as pottery production. It is,
however, highly unlikely that they introduced changes
in the production of flint tools, which were in addition,
similar to the lithic industry of the previous post-Neolithic
culture.
A lithic analysis of Sheikh Muftah and ‘Egyptian’ materials
from Dakhla sites has shown a marked similarity (see

Figure 34). A comparison between the richest and most
representative inventory of the Sheikh Muftah culture
yielded by the site of El Kharafish (Riemer 2011a, 2011b;
Riemer et al. 2008) and the rich, excavated inventory
from the site of Ain el-Gazzareen, located circa thirty
kilometers southwest of Kharafish, revealed many points
of similarity between both assemblages, which manifest
themselves primarily in the same technological approach
to flintworking. Both communities exploited the same
raw materials, but with large quantities of nodular flint
concretions scattered immediately next to the site, this
variety of flint was understandably more commonly used
at El Kharafish. Other flint varieties make up only 1.5 per
cent of the assemblage. As noted by McDonald (1985),
also tabular flint played a major role at other sites of the
Sheikh Muftah culture. Generally, the lithic technology
was alike in both cases, that is to say very primitive. Just
like at El Kharafish, so too at Ain el-Gazzareen there
was very little core shaping. The irregularity of the vast
majority of the cores prevents their classification into any
of usual categories depending on the number of striking
platforms and processing methods. These are almost
exclusively cores for flakes, mostly worked with a hard
hammer. Flakes clearly outnumber other categories in
the assemblage (80.00 per cent). At both compared sites
blades are extremely scarce (amounting to two per cent
of the assemblage at El Kharafish); those made from local
raw materials were apparently formed by accident (Riemer
et al. 2008). In both cases, implements were made not only
on flakes, but also chunks.
Characteristic for both assemblages is the ad hoc
production for immediate use. Both at El Kharafish and
Ain el-Gazzareen, most popular were various scrapers. The
preponderance of drills at El Kharafish, fairly common also
in Ain el-Gazzareen, is explained by H. Riemer (2011a) by
their usage for drilling perforations in enigmatic, the so-
called Clayton rings, profuse at El Kharafish.
The similarities and differences in the use of flint are
demonstrated in the table below
In general, the materials at both sites exhibit a similarity
in the approach to flintworking, unexplainable in terms of
prodigality in flint management, resulting from an easy
access to the raw material, which could still be worked
otherwise.
There are some obvious differences between lithic
assemblages from both sites. Ain el-Gazzareen yielded
a considerable number of sickle inserts, both massive
elements and sickle blades, rather unsurprisingly given
the tasks undertaken at the site. In contrast, excavations at
a pastoral Kharafish produced only a single sickle blade.
Likewise, fairly common at Ain el-Gazzareeen, bifacial
knives are negligible at El Kharafish. Given that they are
extremely worn, it can be assumed that obtaining such a
knife must have been fairly challenging. Besides, the camp
at El Kharafish functioned prior to the mass-settlement of
the newcomers from the Nile valley. At the same time, the
63
The Cognitive Potential of Flint Materials
presence of sickle blades and knives at Ain el-Gazzareen
is unsurprising, given that its inhabitants dwelt afterwards
in an utterly Egyptian world. There is no doubt that sickle
blades along with blanks for their production were imported
into Ain el-Gazzareen along with arrowheads covered with
very precise, fine bifacial retouching and at the very least
most of the bifacial knives. These three artefact types are
not representative of the local lithic production and were
supplied from specialised external workshops.
The foregoing similarities between the lithic industry
of the Sheikh Muftah culture and flintwork at Ain el-
Gazzareen are equally relevant to the flint inventory from
Ain Asil. The flint assemblages from the last both large
sites are alike.
The above remarks corroborate the supposition that the
lithic technology of the post-Neolithic population of the
Sheikh Muftah culture, i.e., the indigenous inhabitants
of the oasis, largely survived amongst the inhabitants of
colonial ‘Egyptian’ settlements dating to Dynasty VI.
This would imply that the native population had not been
expelled from the oasis, but remained there to gradually
become acculturated by adopting the imposed new way of
living.
Antony Mills (2012) reported a discovery of a deposit of
living occupation debris with coals, rubble of stones and
Sheikh Muftah type pottery, at Ain el-Gazzareen. The find
can be read to demonstrate a kind of a mutual relationship
of both cultural groups, either their symbiosis in the
village or, alternatively, a temporary victory of Sheikh
Muftah people and their short-term reign at the settlement
site. M. McDonald (1986) notices that some sites of the
Sheikh Muftah culture yielded mixed pottery of the Sheikh
Muftah type and typically ‘Egyptian’ pottery. In the light of
the above remarks, the first hypothesis seems more likely.
Colin Hope (1999) perceives the continuation of the
tradition prevailing prior to the colonisation of Dakhla
in the ceramic tradition. This issue is probably going to
be resolved before long owing to the application of DNA
analysis.
Given that flint inventories recovered from watch-posts
surrounding the oasis are marked by typological and
technological characteristics resembling the traditional
‘pre-Egyptian’ lithic industry of Sheikh Muftah, it is
reasonable to conjecture, on the premise that the above
presuppositions are accurate, that the guards were also
of the local descend, albeit they had already succumbed
to acculturation (or coercion?), as indicated by their
employment in the service of governors of Ain Asil.
Analogously to pottery analysis, flint studies provide
insights into such issues as the continuation of population,
the movement of human groups and acculturation.
Observation of events that took place in the Dakhla Oasis
in the Old Kingdom provides a very interesting example to
illustrate the possibility. The base for such ascertainment
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
Ain el-Gazzareen.
Raw material: nodular and tabular flint
Almost total lack of blades
Vast preponderance of flakes
Cores: very primitive working. Lack of preparation
Ad hoc production
Flakes used for tool production, but also chunks and even cores
Unfamiliarity with sophisticated techniques, such as bifacial
retouch or ‘par pression’
Very numerous scrapers
A small number of end scrapers
A small number of borers
Numerous sickle blades
Bifacial knives represent 3.90 per cent of the assemblage
A small number of perforators
Figure 34. Similarities and differences between flint inventories from the sites of Ain el-Gazzareen and El Kharafish (according to H. Riemer
2011a)
provided studies of the rich flint assemblage excavated at
the site Ain el Gazzareen as well as at other sites discovered
in the oasis.
The encounter between Egyptian invaders from the reign
of Dynasty I with the residents of Lower Nubia had a
different character. The entire local population of the so-
called A Group was displaced and the area was deserted
until the end of the Old Kingdom (Bard 1999a).
9.3. External contacts
Before I proceed with exploring the role of flint implements
in the contacts of the early Egyptian civilisation with
neighbouring areas, it is necessary to adumbrate mutual
relations in this field.
In line with the current state of research, areas of mutual
interest relating primarily to commercial activities
(military actions will not be discussed herein), throughout
the periods under study, included mainly Palestine and
Lebanon in the east and Lower Nubia in the south; and to
a small extent Ethiopia.
Long-standing Egyptian-Palestine contacts are attested to
by the classic site of the Natufian culture located at the
base of the Delta in Helwan, which evidences the personal
presence of a group of people of the Middle Eastern
descent (Debono 1948).
As well as being manifested in the archaeological record,
subsequent mutual contacts are evidenced in written
sources, inscriptions and iconography at mastabas’ walls,
on the sarcophagi, or engraved on rocks.
64
El Kharafish
Raw material: nodular flint
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
As at Ain el-Gazzareen
A considerable amount of borers (for piercing Clayton rings
Merely one sickle blade
Almost total lack of knives. Extremely exhausted
A lot of perforators
Mutual contacts are well proved for Predynastic period
(Mączyńska 2013). They were primarily focused on the
exchange of goods of interest to both parties. The times
and duration of these contacts varied, depending on the
demand and political relations. The inhabitants of the Nile
valley established their earliest contacts with the area of
Palestine, where from copper, bitumen, salt, resins, sulphur
and sundry food products were imported in exchange for
corn and gold. According to T. Wilkinson (2000), the
direct influence of Egypt in Palestine was two-phased.
The first phase falls to the early Naqada II, and the second,
more interesting for us, to Dynasty I and the very early
Dynasty II. A number of sites are known in Palestine with
the marked Egyptian influence, also discernible in lithic
materials. The route of exchange with Palestine runs from
the eastern Delta, through the northern Sinai, along the
Mediterranean Sea.
The data on the external relations of Egypt based on lithic
analysis has thus far been obtained mainly for the areas of
Palestine, for the reasons listed below and to some extent
owing to the fact that Palestine is the best-studied area in
the Middle East in terms of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
settlement. Palestine yielded a considerable amount of
sites with flint inventories marked by lithic typology and
technology characteristic of Egypt. A good example is the
site Tel ’En Besor in southern Palestine, where layer III,
dating to Naqada III and the early Dynasty I, in addition
to classically Palestinian flint implements, produced also
clearly Egyptian elements, i.e., bifacial knives, Egyptian
type sickle blades and crescent-shaped borers typical
for Egypt. Some of these artefacts were imported, while
others were most likely fashioned on site from local flint,
in Egyptian style and technology (Gophna, Friedmann,

1995; Wilkinson 2000; Yeivin 1995). An assemblage of
flint implements from Tel Erani, attributable to the same
period, is similar – Egyptian type flint artefacts differ in
terms of raw material from Palestinian lithic finds (Gophna,
Friedmann 1995). The occurrence of Egyptian pottery and
flint at Tel Lod (Braun, Van den Brink 2008) speak of the
contacts with the Nile valley (Braun 2004). Similar finds
include Tel Harif and other sites, mostly from southern
Palestine (Braun 2004; Braun, Van den Brink 2008).
The conclusions drawn from the analysis of lithic
inventories is confirmed by the co-occurrence of numerous
finds of typical Egyptian pottery at the foregoing sites.
Such evident Egyptian elements lend credence to the
hypothesis of the permanent physical presence of the
Egyptians in southern Palestine in the early Archaic
Period. The colonisation of this area was likely furthered
by the Egyptian state. The presence of sickle blades of the
Egyptian type demonstrates that Egyptians who settled in
the area tilled the lands in person (Rosen 1988; Sowada
2009); they dwelt in in large Egyptian centres in the type
of colonies, which survived circa 200 years (Andelkowić
1995; Gophna 1996; Van den Brink, Braun 2000). Given
the complete lack of arrowheads in the inventories yielded
by these sites, it can be assumed that the relationships
between the local people and the settlers from Egypt was
characterised by peacefulness (Wilkinson 2000). Egyptian
centres in Palestine were probably also intermediate stops
in the long-distance trade with more distant areas of Syro-
Palestine.
In the second half of Dynasty I, Egypt’s relations with
Palestine tend to abate (Wilkinson 2000). Egyptians turned
their interest to Byblos (today Jebeil) in Lebanon to import
mostly cedar (Bard 1999b). These contacts, as with the
entire eastern Mediterranean basin, continued throughout
the period of the Old Kingdom by sea.
The issue of contacts with the Great Rift Valley via today’s
Eritrea and Ethiopia is still open to debate. It was perhaps
the region that housed the mythical Punt – a source of gold
and other precious materials and objects. It is known that
this region purveyed at least some obsidian to Egypt, via
the Red Sea and wadi in the Eastern Desert (Bavay et al.
2000).
65
The Cognitive Potential of Flint Materials
The areas of Lower Nubia were also to some extent within
the orbit of the Egyptian state, albeit military interventions
rather than trade expedition were organised to the region.
A fortress in Buhen near the second cataract, dated at
least to Dynasty IV, perhaps even Dynasty II, provides a
symptomatic example of the presence of the Egyptians in
Lower Nubia (Wilkinson 2000). Unfortunately, there is no
data available on flint implements, assuredly put to use at
the site. Their technology and typology would supposedly
evidence the personal presence of the Egyptians, as it
happened in Palestine.
As to the west, Egypt and Libya were linked only by
episodes of warfare.
Neither Nubia, nor either desert yielded any finds of flint
artefacts that could attest to the contacts with Egypt, even
though such contacts are undisputable to have existed.
A bifacial knife found at Knossos in Crete bears a
testimony to the wide-ranging distribution of Egyptian
flint tools. G. Cadogan (1996) widely dates this partly
broken specimen, to the Predynastic period until the end
of the Middle Kingdom.
Although the analysis of flint inventories has furnished
relatively extensive data on the mutual relations of Egypt
and Palestine, it is worthy of note that in other regions the
pursuit of the evidence of contacts through lithic materials
has not produced desired results. This phenomenon is easily
explained: given that all these areas are rich in raw flint,
people exploited it and fashioned into requisite tools or
weapons since time immemorial, fully satisfying their own
neeeds. There was no reason whatsoever to import flint
implements. The abundance of Egyptian style artefacts at
a number of Palestinian sites, where there was no shortage
of flint, does not reflect trade or exchange, but bespeaks of
the settlement of native Egyptians in the area, who brought
their own toolkits, their knowledge of working flint and
their technical habits they employed while shaping
necessary flint implements. In all likelihood, no other
areas were settled by Egyptian population. Contacts with
Palestine lasted longer, also throughout the Old Kingdom,
yet they are not readable in flint inventories of this time,
since permanent Egyptian centres in Palestine ceased to
exist.
 Chapter 10
Continued Interest in Flint
It is a well-known fact and one that I have already brought
attention to that in Egypt and Mesopotamia alike flint has
a very long history of use for making tools for multiple
purposes. After Dynasty VI, flint implements are still in
use until the Saite period during Dynasty XXVI (Miller
1983; Rzepka et al. 2012/2013; Stocks 2003) and the
Roman Period (Hikade 2004a). Admittedly, although
following the Old Kingdom the amount of tools in use
decreased and the quality of flint working somewhat
deteriorated, producing lithic implements still played
an important role. Lithic materials estimated at the First
Intermediate Period were found, e.g., at the site of Ain Asil
in the Dakhla Oasis (kind information of Clara Juthe) or on
Elephantine (Hikade 2013). Most data on flint inventories
from the Middle Kingdom was furnished by Polish
researchers, who conducted excavation in the vicinity of
the Qasr el Sagha temple in the Fayum depression in the
1970s and 1980s (Ginter et al 1980). Comprising pebble
tools, as well as knives, crescent-shaped borers, blades and
flakes, extensive flint inventories attributable to the period
were thoroughly examined and published in compliance
with modern standards (Dagnan-Ginter et al. 1984; Ginter
1983, 1985; Śliwa 1983). Bifacial knives and slender
blades from Kahun are dated to Dynasty XII (Petrie 1890).
This, and later, periods, still saw the intensive exploitation
of extensive flint quarries at Wadi el-Sheikh, where
uncovered were large workshops producing blades, picks,
hoe-like and axe-like tools, measuring up to more than
fifty centimetres in length (Figure 98) (Negro, Cammelli
2010; Seton Karr 1905).
Similar specimens were also found in the vicinity of
the tombs at Thebes (Seton Karr 1905). Throughout the
Pharaonic period, flint was also mined from outcrops in Abu
Roash near Giza (Tillmann 1999). From Tell el Amarna of
the New Kingdom’s Dynasty XVIII recovered were flint
artefacts such as burins, perforators, sickle blades, picks
and geometric microliths used as arrowheads. Flints were
66
also found at New Kingdom sites of Deir el-Medina and
Gurob. In Western Thebes, on the left bank of the Nile,
archaeologists discovered quarries of flint nodules and
flint workshops at the mine dated to the same period
(Debono 1971; Seton Karr 1905). Flint artefacts uncovered
at Karnak, at the site of East Karnak, in the temple of Aton
attributable to the Middle- and New Kingdom testify to a
still high level of flint working (Miller 1983). Numerous
lithic implements dating to the New Kingdom (Tillmann
1986, 1992), the Ptolemaic Period (Ciałowicz 1999;
Conard 2000; Midant-Reynes 1981; Negro, Cammelli
2010; Tillmann 1999 Stocks 2003; Tillmann 1999) and
even the Roman period (Hikade 2004a) were also found at
Qantir/Piramesse in the eastern Delta.
A large corpus of information on the importance of flint
in the Middle Kingdom is also contained in iconographic
and written sources. Wall paintings in the tombs from the
era of Sesostris I of Dynasty XII show craftsmen shaping
bifacial knives. The paintings from tombs 2 and 15 from
Beni Hassan, also of Dynasty XII, precisely illustrate
the production of bifacial knives, their fashioning and
sharpening, the position of working craftsmen and requisite
tools (Griffith 1896). It is therefore unquestionable that this
period witnessed an unceasing functioning of workshops
that employed professional, specialised flint knappers.
It is worthy of note that in extant written documents from
Tell el-Amarna of Dynasty XVIII, flints are listed as
diplomatic gifts for Babylonia.
There are assuredly many more archaeological sites
attributable to the late stages of Pharaonic Egypt, where
lithic artefacts lie buried, awaiting discovery. There is
no reason whatsoever why sites of a later date were to
significantly differ from settlement sites or graves from the
Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom in this respect. Flint
implements just need to be noticed.
 Chapter 11
Conclusions
This book has attempted to recapitulate the state of
current knowledge about the mode of production, use
and importance of flint tools in the Archaic Period and
the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Hitherto conducted studies of
available materials have enabled a more comprehensive
insight into the issue, the formulation of some conclusions,
the diagnosis of the state of research and a proposition as
regards its further desired direction. The evidence has fully
validated the claim of a small group of researchers who
proclaimed an important role of flint tools in the life of
Egyptians of the first six dynasties.
Having discussed the technology of production and
typology of flint tools on the basis of available materials,
notably analysing in minute details well-researched rich
flint inventories recovered from such sites as Kom el-Hisn,
Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil and Elephantine, I reconstructed
stages in toolmaking, starting from the procurement of
different varieties of raw flint, either by collecting nodules
available at the surface, or mining. Subsequent phases
of lithic implements production sequence were then
thoroughly examined, from the roughing out a nodule at
the mining site, through production procedures undertaken
in specialised workshops or in particular dwellings, to
their use and significance.
Just like pottery analyses, so too the study of flint
inventories offers researchers an ample opportunity to gain
insights into issues more sophisticated than just typology
and technology of toolmaking.
For a mulitiplicity of reasons, the importance of lithic
implements was still profound at the time. They fulfilled a
major role in the then economy, particularly as regards the
primary source of income, namely agriculture, in which
a sickle with flint inserts and hoes were essential tools.
Smaller implements were used for a host of different
activities of daily living such as cutting, scraping, sawing
or piercing.
Flint was also central to the conduct of some ritual
ceremonies, such as the mouth opening ceremony, vital
to Egyptian beliefs, perhaps also for mummification and
circumcision. An important ceremonial attribute, flint is
mentioned as such in different extant texts of the era.
Some flint implements could have also gained a social
significance. Luxury goods, such as some bifacial knives,
often with a carved handle adorned in gold, constituted an
external mark of power and prestige of their owners.
The analysis of lithic assemblages has provided additional
arguments in support of the existence of a central, well-
67
organised administration at the early stages of development
of the Egyptian state. It has indisputably shown that a large
quantity of implements important for the then communities
were produced and supplied by specialised, well-organised
centres. As well as having theoretical knowledge of the
varieties of flint, its origin and degree of usefulness,
the specialists employed in the workshops were skilled
in the production methods. Ordinary Egyptians lacked
such knowledge and craftsmanship and therefore more
demanding implements were supplied within the system
of central distribution.
Flint can even be used to draw an understanding of
political events. The analysis of flint assemblages from the
settlement of Ain el-Gazzareen in the Dakhla Oasis and
from the camps of post-Neolithic, indigenous peoples of
the Sheikh Muftah culture from the same oasis, permits
a conclusion that the elements of lithic technology, and
generally the approach to flintwork, were brought into
fully Egyptian settlements in the oasis, colonised during
Dynasty V, from the camps of the ‘pre-Egyptian’ Sheikh
Muftah culture. This shows that the local communities
were neither exterminated nor expelled following the
colonisation of the Oasis by people from the areas upon
the Nile. Having survived at the site, the autochthonous
population nevertheless gradually succumbed to
acculturation.
Research on the lithic industry complements to some
degree the knowledge of early Egyptian foreign relations.
Intense influence of Egyptians in Palestine in the early
Archaic Period has been validated, just as their subsequent
weakening and contacts, probably by sea, with the areas of
Lebanon. Egypt, apparently, must have had contacts with
today’s Eritrea and Ethiopia, which supplied obsidian in
small amounts.
Even though the role of flint diminished over time, there is
strong evidence to corroborate the claim that it remained
in use. Paintings in the twelfth-dynasty tombs from Beni
Hassan (the Middle Kingdom) depict in minute details a
flint working workshop, while materials recovered from a
number of sites, e.g., from the Fayum depression, further
substantiate the assertion. That flint was still important
in the New Kingdom is evidenced by flint inventories
recovered from such sites as, e.g., Kahun, Gurob, Tell el-
Amarna and Deir el Medineh. The foregoing are simply
examples, since obviously much more sites estimated
at later periods, until the Saite or even Roman periods,
yielded flint implements.
These was a regrettable, widespread and fairly recent
practice to neglect lithic materials from the moment of
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
excavation, except for specimens of outstanding artistic
merit, such as some bifacial knives. Therefore, the majority
of artefacts was not recovered and consequently published.
Smaller retouched tools, first of all, debitage, i.e., blades,
flakes, and the so-called characteristic chipping debris,
went unnoticed during excavations and still lie in heaps
which were left once field research was finished, or,
at best, forgotten in storage rooms. It is an obvious, yet
unappreciated fact that without such lithic materials, the
technology applied at a given site cannot be thoroughly
and accurately examined or comprehended; neither can
we compile a list of types of lithic implements for the
periods under study that might act as a reference for the
entire state. Studies of properly explored sites of Kom el-
Hisn, Ain el-Gazzareen, Ain Asil and Elephantine, widely-
discussed in this book, offered such a rare opportunity.
Merely bright spots in the darkness, they nevertheless shed
some light on the issue of toolmaking, thought admittedly
still insufficient.
It will therefore come as no surprise that my research
postulates the necessity to recover excavations flint
inventories in their entirety. Given the vastness and
richness of excavated Egyptian sites, this is admittedly
an impracticable objective. Archaeologists should
68
therefore select the most representative section of a site,
explore it meticulously as the model area, sifting the
whole cultural layer through a sieve. This will largely
allow us to reconstruct the stages in the lithic implement
production sequence (châine operatoire), identify,
evaluate and interpret the flint inventory of a given
feature. It is equally important to estimate the chronology
of the sample collection accurately. If these demands are
met, it would be eventually possible to create a reliable,
generic list of types that will help draw even far-reaching
conclusions from lithic materials. The possibilities of
interpretation and significance of flint artefacts would be
much stronger in Egypt or any other country in the world,
should microscopic traseological analysis, that is to say
the examination and interpretation of use wear, be applied
more frequently. This method gives a broader perspective
on the issues discussed in this paper.
This book has merely been the first attempt to provide a
general overview of the issue of the production, use and
importance of flint tools throughout the early history of
ancient Egypt. The studies are still pioneering, yet they
offer so much satisfaction that more researchers are bound
to be attracted to this fascinating topic soon.
 Figures

Figure 35. Map of sites mentioned in the text. 1 Tell el Fara’in/Buto; 2 Kom el Hisn; 3 Tell el Iswid; 4 Tell Ibrahim
Awad; 5 Tell el Farkha; 6 Abu Rawash; 7 Giza; 8 Abusir; 9 Heluan; 10 Dahshur; 11 Fayum; 12 Wadi Sheikh; 13 Beni
Hassan; 14 Abydos; 15 Umm el Qaab; 16 Elefantyna; 17 Ain el Gazzareen; 18 Ain Asil; 19 Mut el Khorab; 20 Dakhla,
strażnice w oazie; 21 Dakhla, strażnice poza oazą; 22 El Kharafish; 23 Gilf el Kebir.

69
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 36. Bifacial knife type 2 (Abydos, according to Hikade 1997).

70
 Figures

Figure 37. Bifacial knife type „fish teil” type 1 (Abydos, tomb U-127, according to Hikade 1996).

71
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 38. 1- Bifacial knife type 3 (Saqqara, according to Macramallah 1940); 2- bifacial knife type 4 (according to Kromer 1978); 3-4 bifacial
knifes worn by grainding (Abydos, according to Svoboda 2006)

72
 Figures

Figure 39. Bifacial knife type 5 (Ain Asil VI dynasty, according to Figure 40. Scene of dividing a cow’s carcass using bifacial knife.
Midant-Reynes 1998) (Saqqara, mastaba of Ptahetep, V dynasty, according to Davies
1901).

73
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 41.1-9 Rectangular sickle blades 1-4 Kom el Hisn; 5-7 Ain el Gazzareen; 8-9 Ain Asil (according to Midant-Reynes 1998)

74
 Figures

Figure 42. 1-3 half-finished sickle blades, 4 wooden sickle with visible row of sickle blades.

75
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 43. 1 Scene of harvesting by sickle with flint inserts (Tomb of Sennediem, XIX dynasty, according to Tristant 2009); 2 reconstruction
of hafting sickle inserts based on traces of bitumite (Middle east, according to Cauvin 1973)

76
 Figures

Figure 44. 1-5 masive rectangular sickle blades; 6-7 massive triangular sickle blades

77
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 45. 1-5,9 bitruncated regular blade tools („rasor blades”) older phase (Saqqara, according to Macramallah 1940); 6-8, 10
bitruncated regular blade tools („rasor blades”) younger phase (Elephantine, according to Hikade 2002);

78
 Figures

Figure 46. 1 massive scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 2 flat scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 3 scraper with denticulated edge (Ain Asil, according to
Midant-Reynes 1998)

79
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 47. 1 flat scraper (Ain el Gazzareen); 2 triangular scraper (Tell el Fara’in/Buto, according to Schmidt 1992b; 3-5 end-scrapers (3-4 Ain
el Gazzareen, 5 Ain Asil (according to Midant-Reynes 1998)

80
 Figures

Figure 48. 1 crescent shaped drill (Tell el Fara’in/Buto (according to Schmidt 1986); 2-5 microperforators (Ain el Gazzareen); 6-8 notches
(Ain el Gazzareen)

81
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 49. 1-2 nosed scrapers (Ain el Gazzareen); 3-5 tanged arrow heads (3,5 Ain el Gazzareen); 6-7 bifacially retouched arrow heads (6 –
Abydos, tomb of Djer, according to Hikade 2003; 7 – Ain el Gazzareen); 8 trapezoidal arrow head (Elephantine, according to Katthagen 1985)

82
 Figures

Figure 50. 1-5 borers (Ain el Gazzareen); 6-7 denticulates (6 – Ain Asil, according to Midant-Reynes 1998, 7 – Ain el Gazzareen)

83
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 51. 1,3 strangled pieces (1 – Ain Asil, according to Midant-Reynes 1998, 3 – Ain el Gazzareen); 2,4 scaled pieces (Ain el Gazzareen); 5-6
retouched flakes (Ain el Gazzareen);

84
 Figures

Figure 52. 1-4 burins (Elephantine, according to Katthagen 1985); 5 backed piece (Helwan, according to Hikade 2005); 6-7 bracelets of flint (6
– Tell el Fara’in/Buto, according to Schmidt 1992b), 7 – Elephantine (according to Katthagen 1985)

85
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 53. Axe (Giza, afer Kromer 1978)

86
 Figures

Figure 54. Hoe (Ain el Gazzareen)

87
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 55. Pebble tool (Dahshur)

88
 Figures

Figure 56. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 cores

89
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 57. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 cores

90
 Figures

Figure 58. Type list. 1 - bifacial knife; 2 – rectangular sickle blade; 3 – triangular sickle blade; 4 – half-finished sickle blade; 5 – massive
rectangular sickle insert; 6 – massive triangular sickle insert; 7 – massive scraper; 8 – flat scraper; 9 – end-scraper; 10 – nosed scraper; 11
– rabot; 12 – crescent shaped drill; 13 – tanged arrow head; 14 – bifacially retouched arrow head; 15 – micro-perforator; 16 – borer; 17 –
notch; 18 – denticulate tool; 19 – strangled piece; 20 – scaled piece; 21 – axe; 22 – hoe; 23 retouched blade; 24 – retouched flake.

91
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 59. Ain el Gazzareen, bifacial knife

92
 Figures

Figure 60. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 bifacial knifes

93
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 61. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 worn bifacial knifes

94
 Figures

Figure 62. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 fragments of bifacial knifes

95
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 63. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 worn bifacial knifes

96
 Figures

Figure 64. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-9 rectanglar sickle blades

97
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 65. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 triangular sickle blades; 4-6 half-finished sickle blades; 7-8 massive rectangular sickle blades

98
 Figures

Figure 66. Ain el Gazzarn, 1-8 massive rectangular sickle blades

99
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 67. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 massive triangular sickle blades

100
 Figures

Figure 68. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 masive scrapers

101
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 69. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-2 flat scrapers

102
 Figures

Figure 70. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 flat scrapers

103
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 71. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-5 end-scrapers

104
 Figures

Figure 72. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-3 nosed scrapers.

105
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 73. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-4 rabots

106
 Figures

Figure 74. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,4 crescent shaped drills; 2,5 tanged arrow heads; 3,6 bifacially retouched arrow heads, 7 retouched flake.

107
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 75. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-9 micro-perforators; 10-12 noches

108
 Figures

Figure 76. Ain el Gazzareen, 1-8 borers

109
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 77. Ain el Gazareen, 1-6 denticulate tools

110
 Figures

Figure 78. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,3 strangled pieces; 2,4-6 scaled pieces

111
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 79. Ain el Gazzareen, 1,4 retouched blades; 2,3,5 retouched flakes

112
 Figures

Figure 80. Dakhla Oasis. Location of watch-posts. 1- Seth Hill; 2 – Bee’s Lookout; 3 – Nephtys Hill; 4 – Trigpoint Hill; 5 – Meidum Hill; 6 – Darb
el Tawil; 7 – E-99/38, E-99/39; 8- El Kharafish

113
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 81. Seth Hill. 1-2 cores; 3 Double patinated Middle Palaeolithic levallois core.

114
 Figures

Figure 82. Seth hill. 1 sickle blade; 2 massive triangular sickle blade; 3 flat scraper, 4 massive scraper

115
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 83. Seth Hill. 1 end scraper; 2-3 tanged arrow heads; 4 retouched flake; 5 microperforator; 6 borer ; 7 denticulated tool; 8 notch; 9
scaled piece. 1,6-7 and 9 are double patinated Midlle Palaeolithic tools.

116
 Figures

Figure 84. Bee’s Lookout. Core of chalcedony.

117
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 85. Bee’s Lookout. 1-2 cores; 3,5 flat scrapers; 4 massive scraper; 6 mikroperforator; 7 borer. Number 4 is double patinated Middle
Palaeolithic tool.

118
 Figures

Figure 86. Bee’s Lookout. 1-2 borers; 3 crescent shaped drill; 5 denticulated tool; 6 scaled piece; 4,7 retouched flakes.

119
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 87. Kom el Hisn. 1 core; 2 obsidian core; 3 notch; 4 borer; 5-6 truncations

120
 Figures

Figure 88. Kom el Hisn. 1,3 fragments of bifacial knife; 2 – burin; 4 flat scraper

121
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 89. Kom el Hisn. 1-9 rectangular sickle blades

122
 Figures

Figure 90. Kom el Hisn. 1-3 rectangular sickle blades; 4-6 triangular sickle blades, 7-10 half- finished sickle blades

123
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 91. Kom el Hisn. 1 end scraper; 2 retouched flake; 3 retouched blade.

124
 Figures

Figure 92. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-4 cores (according to Riemer 2011a)

125
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 93. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-3 scrapers with flat retouch; 4-7 scrapers with steep retouch (according to Riemer 2011a)

126
 Figures

Figure 94. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-2 scrapers made on Middle Palaeolithic double patinated flakes; 3-9 borers (according to Riemer 2011a)

127
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 95. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-3 perforators; 4-5 denticulated tools; 6-7 noches (according to Riemer 2011a)

128
 Figures

Figure 96. El Kharafish 02/5. 1-2 bifacially retouched arrow heads; 3 Ounan point; 4-6 fragments of knifes; 7 retouched blade; 8 truncation
(according to Riemer 2011a). 4,7 and 8 seem to be rather sickle blades.

129
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 97. Beni Hasan. XII dynasty Manufacture of flint knifes: a Tomb 2; b Tomb 15, (according to Griffith 1896)

130
 Figures

Figure 98. Eastern Desert. 1-2 heavy duty tools (according to Seton Karr 1905)

Figure 99. Nodular flint Figure 100. Tabular flint

131
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 101. Dahshur. Surface concentration of pebble flint

Figure 102. Naqlun. Layer containing pebble flints

132
 Figures

Figure 104. Ain el Gazzareen. Cores

Figure 103. Ain el Gazzareen. Hammerstone of quartz

Figure 105. Ain el Gazzareen. Bifacial knife

133
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 106. Dakhla Oasis. Rite of bifacial knife on sandstone rock.

Figure 107. Ain el Gazzareen. Rectangular and triangular sickle Figure 108. Ain el Gazzareen. Half-products of sickle blades
blades

134
 Figures

Figure 109. Ain el Gazzaren. Massive rectangular sickle inserts

Figure 110. Ain el Gazzareen. Massive triangular sickle inserts

135
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 111. Ain el Gazzareen. Massive scrapers

Figure 112. Ain el Gazzareen. Flat scrapers

136
 Figures

Figure 113. Ain el Gazzareen. Nosed scrapers

Figure 114. Ain el Gazzareen. Crescent shaped drill Figure 115. Ain el Gazzareen. Tanged arrow heads

137
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 118. Ain el Gazzareen. Borers

Figure 116. Ain el Gazzareen. Bifacially retouched arrow heads

Figure 119. Ain el Gazzaren. Denticulated pieces

Figure 117. Ain el Gazzareen. Microperforators

Figure 120. Ain el Gazzareen. Scaled pieces

138
 Figures

Figure 121. Ain el Gazzareen. Strangled pieces

Figure 122. Dahshur. Pebble tool

139
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Figure 123. Stone construction on the wathpost

140
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 Appendix
Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools used during
the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
A Case Study of Kom el Hisn and Ain el Gazzareen
Małgorzata Winiarska-Kabacińska
Introduction
One of the important aspects of studies concerning stone
and flint assemblages obtained from excavations is an
attempt to identify the function of individual tools. This
is possible with the application of microscopic analysis of
microwear traces created on implements in the course of
their use. Microscopic observations are aimed to record
any alterations of edges and surfaces of the objects, visible
both under low and high magnification. Their examination
permits to determine the probable function of a given tool.
The research on lithic assemblages from Egypt has a
long history, covering different aspects of technology,
typology or raw material, however, relatively few works
have been published with regard to the function of tools.
Initially, functional studies involved only the Paleolithic or
Neolithic artefacts interpreted on the basis of ethnological
analogies and partly on the intuition of individual
researchers. Gradually also younger assemblages, dated
to the Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom, became
the subject of functional research. In the latter case the
situation seems to be slightly easier, as the analysis can be
aided by iconographic sources, and the tools themselves
are better preserved.
Use-wear studies concerning Egyptian lithics have covered
various research issues. The analysis of single objects (van
Peer et al. 2008), as well as the whole assemblages from
several Middle and Upper Pleistocene sites located in the
central and lower part of the Nile Valley and in the area of
the Red Sea Mountains, carried out by V. Rots (Rots et al.
2011) involved the aspects of production, use and hafting.
The examination of selected Late Pleistocene artefacts
from the southern Egyptian site of Qadan allowed H. J.
Jensen to verify the hypothesis about early cultivation of
cereals (Jensen et al. 1991). In addition, other assemblages
from this site were the subject of broader microscopic
observations (Becker, Wendorf 1993). On the basis of
experiments and analysis of the artefacts from the Farafra
and Fayoum, G. Lucarini (2006, 2008, 2014) discussed
the significance of tools used for cutting and processing
cereals, and their role in the development of agriculture
in the Late Neolithic and the Predynastic periods in the
oases of the Western Desert in Egypt. This author also
gave a detailed account concerning the function of chert
tools from two Predynastic sites - Hidden Valley/El-Bahr
and Sheikh/Bir El-Obeiyid - located in the Farafra Oasis,
147
placing emphasis on the interpretation of bifacial knives
(Lucarini 2012). D. L. Holmes (1987), on the basis of
experiments and observations of the artifacts from the
Predynastic Naqadian sites, proved that the degree of
both use-wear and post-depositional alterations created on
artifacts depends on the kind of the raw material. Microwear
analysis was also carried out on selected artifacts from the
Holocene site of the Tree Shelter located in the Red Sea
region (Kweakason 2008), and on lithic items from Tell
el-Farcha, the Predynastic to Old Kingdom settlement
situated in the eastern Nile Delta (Kabaciński, Winiarska-
Kabacińska 2014). In addition, use-wear examination
involved selected objects from the so called “house of the
knife” within the pyramid complex of Raneferef dating to
the Old Kingdom (Šajnerowá 2006, Šajnerowá, Svoboda
2008). The above summary shows that the scale of use-
wear studies with regard to the Prehistoric and the Early
Dynastic flint artefacts from the area of Egypt remains
limited overall.
Below are presented the results of use-wear analysis
carried out on selected artefacts from two sites: Kom el-
Hisn and Ain el-Gazzareen. The former one, situated in
the western part of the Nile Delta, in the location bordering
the desert in antiquity, counts among the most important
towns dating to the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.
Excavations conducted by a team of researchers led
by R. Wenke i R. Redding (Wenke et al. 1988) yielded
a rich collection of artefacts whose analysis allowed the
reconstruction of social and economic behaviour of Kom
el-Hisn inhabitants.
Ain El-Gazzareen is the second (after Ain Aseel) largest
and important settlement of the Old Kingdom located in
the western part of the Dakhleh Oasis. Excavations carried
out at this site under the direction of A. J. Mills (Mills
2002, 2012) brought many discoveries that have enriched
our knowledge about the activity of Egyptians in the
Dakhleh Oasis at that time.
1. Research methods
The analysis of macro- and microwear traces was carried
out with the use of microscopes at magnifications ranging
from several to several hundred times. The examination
involved the recording of all alterations in the form of
damage, rounding or polish. The results were interpreted
according to the standard procedure applying in the use-
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
wear analysis (Semenov 1964; Tringham et al. 1974; Odell
1981; Keeley 1980; Moss 1983; Plisson 1985; van Gijn
1990, 2010).
In many cases the surfaces of the analysed lithic objects
displayed post-depositional alterations caused mostly
by the exposition to specific environmental conditions,
but also by later excavation and storage practices. The
presence of the alterations, however, did not rule out the
possibility of conducting microscopic observations. The
traces of polish and rounding preserved on the surfaces
and edges of the artefacts were characteristic enough to
permit their proper interpretation.
2. The characteristics of the inventories and the results
of use-wear analysis
Kom El Hisn
Archaeological excavations carried out in the 1980s at
the Old Kingdom settlement of Kom el-Hisn (Wenke et
al. 1988), in addition to many other artefacts, yielded flint
assemblages made in large part of raw material of Egyptian
origin. Debitage recovered from the site was represented
mainly by blades, particularly broken ones, while in the
assemblage of retouched tools dominated blades with so
called “harvesting polish”. The second largely represented
group of flint items included bifacial knives.
The microscopic examination involved forty-five selected
artefacts. Apart from a single scraper, burin, and several
bifacial knives, the analysed objects included different
kinds of blades - broken along one or both sides, with
retouch on broken edges, without retouch, with retouch
along one or both edges, with denticulate retouch. In many
cases one or both side edges of the blades displayed traces
of polish, sometimes covering a large part of the artefact
and clearly visible macroscopically, and in other instances
taking up only the edge and thus less recognizable to the
naked eye.
The microscopic analysis indicated that the majority of the
examined blades with the presence of use-wear alterations
served as implements for cutting cereals and other plants
(Figure 1-4). All the blades displaying traces of use were
identified as inserts mounted parallel to the haft, except
for one specimen, which was inserted oblique to it. It is
also apparent that inserts were sometimes rearranged in
hafts (Figure 5). In several cases the transverse (Figure
1) or lateral edge was rounded, probably in the result of
polishing or other kind of activity performed in inorganic
material. The analysed blades displayed traces created by
hafts in which they were mounted.
Bifacial knives whose fragments were analysed served
various functions. One of the examined items was used
for cutting plants, while two others, with strongly rounded
and abraded edges undoubtedly had contact with hard
inorganic material. The only inspected specimen of burin
did not display any wear traces.
148
Use-wear analysis carried out on the representative
sample of flint artefacts from the site of Kom el-Hisn
has corroborated preliminary findings by the researchers
of his site (Wenke et al. 1988:28). The activities related
to cutting cereals and other plants were common and
constituted a major part of all the tasks undertaken by
the community inhabiting Kom el-Hisn. The registered
traces of use point towards extraordinary intensity of
utilizing the implements. Notably, a considerable number
of blades found at the site lacked macroscopically visible
wear traces, which suggests that they were intended for
the use as inserts mounted in hafts of tools serving for
cutting plants. These half-products were provided to Kom
El- Hisn from workshops situated outside the site.
The second functionally distinct group of lithic artefacts
from Kom el-Hisn consisted of implements (blades and
bifacial knives) used for working - smoothing, drilling
and scraping - hard inorganic material (Figure 6, 7).
Undoubtedly, the above activities were performed as
secondary to the primary function of the tools. The
analysis of plant residues (Moens, Wetterstrom 1988)
indicated the abundance of plants used as feed for animals,
and additionally, cereal straw, weeds, reeds and sedges. On
the basis of archaeobotanical analysis and the examination
of animal bones (Wenke 1988, Lehner 2010:89), Kom
el-Hisn has been described as a settlement specialised
in rearing cattle intended for export to ritual or political
centres (Wenke 1988, Lehner 2010:89). The inhabitants
of this settlement cultivated cereals and other plants not
only for their own consumption but also for the needs of
animals they reared. In addition, plants were utilised as
materials for manufacturing everyday objects, such as
baskets, mats, or containers (Wendrich 2000). Also, they
served as admixture in the production of mud bricks, and
when mixed with dung - as fuel for domestic fireplaces.
According to the use-wear analysis bifacial knives were
multifunctional implements, however, their specific
functions were not possible to identify on the basis of
the examined assemblage. Possibly, apart from serving
the function of harvesting tools, they were also used as
implements for butchering animal carcasses intended for
consumption; however, no distinct traces were recorded to
confirm the above hypothesis. The absence of sufficient
evidence may result from a small number of analysed tools.
In addition, traces created by butchering preserve poorly
and may be unreadable under microscope. This applies
particularly to the artefacts recovered from the sites, which
were exposed to the effects of extreme environmental
conditions. Additional argument explaining the lack of
butchering traces may be linked with the hypothesis that
Kom el-Hisn was the settlement specialised in rearing cattle
intended for export to other settlement centres of the Old
Kingdom for ritual killing. On the other hand, the analysis
of the bones of sheep, goats and pigs clearly indicates the
local consumption of these animals. Undoubtedly, the
above issue requires further detailed studies.
 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools
The results of use-wear studies confirm that the inhabitants
of Kom el-Hisn were involved mostly with activities
related to cutting plants, including cereals, and their
further processing. Microscopic observations carried out
on a smaller sample from another site located in the Nile
Delta - Tell el-Farcha, dating to the Predynastic and Early
Dynastic periods have permitted the formulation of similar
conclusions. Blades were imported to this settlement in the
form of half-products, which were then worked at the site
into inserts, mounted in hafts and used as implements for
cutting plants, including cereals. The analysis of traces
of use revealed the high proportion of non-cereal plants
processed with the above tools (Winiarska-Kabacińska,
Kabaciński 2014). The results of palaeobotanical analysis
of the material from Tell el-Farcha (Kubiak-Martens 2012)
correspond with the use-wear observations, pointing
towards the diversity of utilized plants (including reeds).
They were commonly used by the inhabitants of Tell el-
Farcha, serving as materials for manufacturing everyday
items of different kinds or as an element of a diet. The
functional analysis of lithic artefacts from this site did
not indicate any tools with edges altered in the result of
smoothing or drilling inorganic material. On the other
hand, flint inventory was largely represented by perforators
and drills (Kabaciński 2012, Kabaciński, Szejnoga 2007),
which were used probably for manufacturing various items
from inorganic material.
Ain el-Gazzareen
A rich collection of flint artefacts obtained from excavations
led by Anthony Mills at Ain el-Gazzareen, comprised
cores and debitage, as well as retouched tools. Use-wear
analysis involved selected retouched implements (612
items) representing almost all types as distinguished by M.
Kobusiewicz. The implements were manufactured locally,
at the site, however, some of them were made of imported
half-products (Kobusiewicz 2006).
Not all artefacts in the analysed sample displayed clear
traces of use. In the majority of cases the alterations
allowed the identification of activity performed by a given
tool, however, the worked material was not recognised.
Some of the artefacts did not have any characteristic traces
indicating their use.
Heavy duty scrapers were used for processing hide (Figure
8:1-2) and other materials (Figure 8:3, 4, 6). They also
served the function of knives (Figure 8:5), similarly as
another type of tools - flat scrapers (Figure 11:7-9; 12:1,4).
Still other objects of this group were used for scraping
(Figure 9:1-7; 11:6; 12:2-3) unspecified materials. In all
the above cases wear traces covered the retouched edges
of the tool.
Both nosed scrapers (Figure 9:8-11) and end-scrapers
(Figure10:1-7) were used mostly for processing hide,
and, to a lesser extent, other materials. The traces of use
on these implements were visible only on the retouched
fragment of the edge that forms arched working part of
149
the tool. It can be assumed that the shape of the edge was
linked with some kind of a specialized activity.
Bifacial knives (Figure 10:8-9; 11:2, 4-5) were used
mainly for cutting plants and other unspecified materials.
However, some of them displayed characteristic alterations
indicating their use for scraping (Figure 11:3), and others
- for scraping and cutting (Figure 11:1) hard materials.
Another piece was used for unspecified activities
(Figure12:12).
Massive rectangular sickle inserts served as elements
of implements used for cutting plants (Figure12:5-11;
13:1-10). In the case of these items traces of polish were
visible on the edge itself, and also beyond it, extending to
the surface of the tool. This should be related to different
ways of mounting in hafts, and with a specific activity the
tool was used for. The distribution of wear traces and their
character indicate that the inserts were mounted oblique or
parallel to the axis of the haft, most probably several in one
haft (forming a composite tool).
Another group of implements used for cutting plants,
including cereals (Figure13:11-17; 14:1-4) comprised
massive triangular sickle inserts. These items were used as
unhafted knives or as inserts mounted in a haft.
Numerously represented lamellar sickle inserts displayed
clearly visible traces of use (Figure14:5-12). Characteristic
polish and its location on the working edges indicate
evidently that these implements were mounted in sickles
(hafts) used for cutting cereals and other plants.
The presence of very intensive traces on both side edges
of some of the inserts is the evidence for their rearranging
in a haft (Figure14:5-7). In all items of this group traces of
polish run parallel to the working edge, revealing the angle
at which the inserts were mounted in a haft. This points
towards a purposeful selection of inserts of a specific
shape suitable for mounting parallel to the haft. Also
unfinished lamellar sickle inserts were used for cutting
plants (Figure14:13-14).
The bifacially retouched projectile point was used for
drilling in soft material (Figure15:1), while groovers, with
very intensive traces of abrasion on tips - for drilling in
hard materials (Figure15:2-4). Double backed perforators
(Figure15:5-6) and simple perforators (Figure15:7) served
for drilling in hard material (stone?) as well, but they are
characterised by smaller size and lesser abrasion than the
tools described above.
The macroscopically observed specimen of tanged
projectile points, denticulates, notches, retouched flakes
and blades, and scaled pieces (Figure 15:8-9) did not
display evident wear traces.
The results of the use-wear analysis have allowed the
formulation of several conclusions. In general, in the
analysed assemblage most of tools were used for cutting,
The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt
including both knives and inserts being elements of
composite tools, e.g. sickles. Another large group of
tools (classified as scrapers and end-scrapers) served
for scraping different materials and drills for making
perforations. From above it can be assumed that tools
of various morphology were used for different tasks. The
differentiation which is reflected in the types and forms of
implements used for scraping and cutting seems to have
resulted from a variety of activities for which they were
employed. Large scrapers were multipurpose tools used
to scrape different kinds of materials, while smaller end-
scrapers served as tools for processing hide. This relates
particularly to nosed scrapers, whose pronounced arched
front suggests some specialized activity. While scrapers
may have been used unhafted or as elements of composite
tools, knives undoubtedly were hafted. Those of larger
size served probably as implements for processing animal
carcasses, and also for cutting plants. Inserts, on the other
hand, were mounted in the hafts of sickles, the implements
used for cutting plants, including cereals (Figure16-18).
In many cases the distribution of traces of polish on tools
used for cutting cereals and other plants, perfectly visible
also to the naked eye, indicates different ways of mounting
the tools in hafts. Undoubtedly, some of the smaller inserts
were mounted oblique to the axis of the haft - e.g. in sickles
with a straight or bent wooden “handle”. Slightly larger
items, with traces of use parallel to the working edge, were
probably mounted singly or several in a haft. Large blades,
also displaying traces parallel to the working edge, may
have been mounted straight in bent sickles. The sickle’s
hafts were made of wood, bones, as well as of animal
mandibles (Murray 2000:521).
Possibly, some of the artefacts with irregularly distributed
traces and with damage on their working edges were
mounted or nailed into wooden frames of a threshing
sledge served for threshing grain, i.e. for separating cereals
from their straw. It was originally equipped with flint
teeth, and in later times with metal blades. In the Middle
East threshing sledge was known already in the Neolithic
Period, and used in that region until recently. Probably
the tool was also used in ancient Egypt, however, it was
mentioned only in records from younger periods (Murray
2000:524).
Drills from the analysed assemblage were used for drilling
holes in various kinds of hard raw material (Figure 19), in
the manufacturing of ornaments or everyday objects.
Functional analysis of flint items has shown that the
inhabitants of Ain el Gazzareen were intensively
involved in many activities related to everyday life. The
predominating tasks were associated with agriculture or
food processing and acquiring plants for fuel or building
purposes. Other important activity related to manufacturing
items for everyday use. Archaeobotanical analysis revealed
the presence of chaff and grains, particularly barley and, to
a lesser extent, emmer wheat (Petmann et al. 2012). Barley
grains were used for making bread, which was produced on
150
a larger scale, exceeding the needs of the community that
inhabited the settlement and perhaps also for production
of beer. Plants such as tamarisk served probably as fuel,
and others, such as acacia may have been used as feed for
domestic animals. As showed by the analysis of animal
bones, cattle and goats were the animals important in the
diet of the community and processed for consumption at
the site. Ain el Gazzareen was a local settlement, whose
inhabitants performed various activities, including ones
reflected in microwear traces of the analysed flint tools.
Summary
The microscopic observations have allowed to determine
the function of selected flint artefacts and to identify some
specific tasks in which they were employed. The examined
assemblages were obtained from two archaeological sites
located in completely different cultural-environmental
conditions, and characterized by typologically diverse
inventories. However, in the case of both sites dominated
activities were related to agriculture. The analysis of the
assemblage obtained from Kom el-Hisn suggests that the
inhabitants of this settlement placed more emphasis on the
cultivation and processing of plants for the needs of cattle
rearing, while the artefacts from Ain el-Gazzareen point
towards the dominant role of activities associated with
the production of food not only for the local needs, but
possibly also for the needs of other settlements or caravans
crossing the Dakhleh Oasis. Probably the tasks related
to processing plants, including cereals, were performed
at the two examined sites with slightly different tools. It
seems that sickles were the most common implements
used by the inhabitants of the two settlements. However,
the analysis of inserts revealed differences regarding the
size and shape of sickles used at Kom el-Hisn and Ain el-
Gazzareen. In the case of the latter, the presence of various
kinds of inserts with plant polish and intensive abrasion
on the edges suggests the use of different tools in the
processing of plants, including cereals. Other implements
with identified wear traces were used by the inhabitants of
the two settlements to perform everyday tasks.
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Appendix: Figure 1. Kom el-Hisn. Blade for smoothing non-organic material (a – microscopic photo, magnification 12x) and for plant
cutting (b – microscopic photo, magnification 100x)

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Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 2. Kom el-Hisn. Blade

with edge polish (a – microscopic photo,
magnification 12x) used for cereal cutting
(b, c – microscopic photos, magnification
100x)

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Appendix: Figure 3. Kom el-Hisn. Blade used for cereal cutting (a - microscopic photo, magnification 12x, b - microscopic
photo, magnification 100x)

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 4. Kom El-Hisn. Blade used for plant cutting (a - microscopic photo, magnification 12x, b - microscopic photo,
magnification 100x)

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 5. Kom el-Hisn. Blade used for cereal cutting (a, b – microscopic photos, magnification 100x)

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 6. Kom el-Hisn. Blade with modified edges caused by hard material processing (microscopic photo, magnification 12x).

Appendix: Figure 7. Kom el-Hisn. Bifacial knife with modified edges caused by hard material processing (microscopic photo, magnification
12x)

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 8. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 6 heavy duty scrapers

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 9. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 7 heavy duty scrapers; 8 - 11 nosed scrapers

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 10. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 7 end scrapers; 8 - 9 bifacial knifes

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 11. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 5 bifacial knifes; 6 - 9 flat scrapers

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Appendix: Figure 12. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 4 flat scrapers; 5 - 11 massive rectangular sickle inserts; 12 bifacial knife

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 13. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 10 massive rectangular sickle inserts; 11 - 17 massive triangular sickle inserts

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 14. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 - 4 massive triangular sickle inserts; 5 - 12 lamellar sickle inserts; 13 - 14 half-products of lamellar
sickle inserts

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 15. Ain El-Gazzareen: 1 bifacially retouched projectile point; 2 - 4 groovers; 5 - 6 double backed perforators; 7 perforator;
8 - 9 scaled pieces

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 16. Ain el-Gazareen. Massive triangular sickle inserts with traces of use-polish (a, b – microscopic photos, magnification
12x)

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 Appendix Contribution to the Functional Identification of Flint Tools

Appendix: Figure 17. Ain el- Gazareen. Massive rectangular sickle inserts with traces of use-polish (a, b – microscopic
photos, magnification 12x, c- microscopic photo of plant processing photo, magnification, pow. 200x)

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The Production, Use and Importance of Flint Tools in the Archaic Period and the Old Kingdom of Egypt

Appendix: Figure 18. Ain el-Gazareen, Lamellar sickle insert (microscopic photo, magnification 200x)

Appendix: Figure 19. Ain El-Gazzareen. Groovers and perforator with traces of boring hard material

168