Acute-angled core for blades

Massive quantities of acute-angled blade cores such as this one have been found at the flint mining sites of Wadi el-Sheikh and Wadi Sannur (Barket and Yohe 2011; Briois and Midant-Reynes 2014, 2015; Köhler, Elizabeth Hart, and Michael Klaunzer 2017; Seton-Karr 1898; Weiner 2011). They indicate that most blade production in Ancient Egypt took place at the mining sites rather than the settlements. Such cores are only rarely found in the Nile valley, so this piece from Lisht is an important example showing that occasionally the cores themselves were transported to the Nile valley, and blades produced there. Furthermore, this piece is important because it links the supply of Lisht to Wadi el-Sheikh or Wadi Sannur.

This core was made on a large cortical flake. The edge of the flake was shaped into a bifacial ridge, and one side of this became the platform for the core. Another edge of the flake blank was probably used to guide the initial removals. A core tablet was eventually removed from the platform, probably after a series of blades had been detached from the flaking face. After a number of blade removals, a large flake was struck from the cortical side of the core. The last two blade removals both resulted in hinge terminations, one of which was also a short blade. These hinges and the small size of the core probably account for its discard. The length of the flaking face is 9cm. The last complete long blade removal was 6.5 cm long and 1.5 cm wide.

Elizabeth Hart, J. Clawson Mills Research Fellow, 2018

References


Barket, Theresa M., and Robert M. Yohe 2011. "A Technological Evaluation of the Flint Blade-Core Reduction Sequence at Wadi El-Sheikh, Middle Egypt." In Lithic Technology 36 (1), pp. 27–38.


Briois, François, and Beatrix Midant-Reynes 2014. "Sur Les Traces de Georg August Schweinfurth. Les Sites d’exploitation Du Silex d’époque Pharaonique Dans Le Massif Du Galâlâ Nord (Désert Oriental)." In Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’archéologie Orientale 114, pp. 73–98.


——— 2015. "Wadi Sannur. In: Rapport d’activité 2014-2015." In Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’archéologie Orientale 115 (Supplement), pp. 49–55.


Köhler, E. Christiana, Elizabeth Hart, and Michael Klaunzer 2017. "Wadi El-Sheikh: A New Archaeological Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Chert Mines." In PLoS ONE 12 (2), pp. 1-38.


Seton-Karr, Heywood W. 1898. "Discovery of the Lost Flint Mines of Egypt." In The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 27, p. 90.


Weiner, Jürgen 2011. "Typologie und Technologie von Steinartefakten aus dem altägyptischen Hornsteinbergbau-Revier im Wadi el-Sheikh, Ägypten." In Der Anschnitt 63 (4-5), pp. 130-156.

Excavated by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Acquired by the Museum in the division of finds.