A Published Egyptian Flint Spearhead from the Thebaid, <br><em>Neolithic - Pre Dynastic Period, ca. 7500 - 3700 BCE</em>

A very fine lower paleolithic petaloid blade of classic drop form, bifacially knapped with pressure-flaked, sharpened edges. In Egypt, people usually made stone tools from chert, a siliceous rock with properties that allow the stone worker to control the way it breaks. Chert occurs both as pebbles and in rock outcrops. It is often possible to identify the exact outcrop that was the source of specific tools, and this can show how far from their campsites early groups went to collect suitable stone. Chert is broken by striking it with a pebble called a hammerstone; good hand–eye coordination is needed to strike the chert in the right place and with the right amount of force so that it fractures as the tool-maker wants. Levallois tools may look easy to make, but modern experimental replication shows that the technique is extremely difficult to achieve without many hours of practice.Published: De Rustafjaell, R. (1914). The stone age in Egypt: a record of recently discovered implements and