Reisner's publication when it appears. The only drawback to this method
is that general interest in the particular excavations described tends
to pass away before the full description appears.
Prof. Petrie has explored other prehistoric sites at Abadiya, and Mr.
Quibell at el-Kab. M. de Morgan and his assistants have examined a large
number of sites, ranging from the Delta to el-Kab. Further research has
shown that some of the sites identified by M. de Morgan as prehistoric
are in reality of much later date, for example, Kahun, where the late
flints of XIIth Dynasty date were found. He notes that "large numbers
of Neolithic flint weapons are found in the desert on the borders of
the Fayyum, and at Helwan, south of Cairo," and that all the important
necropoles and kitchen-middens of the predynastic people are to be found
in the districts of Abydos and Thebes, from el-Kawamil in the North to
el-Kab in the South. It is of course too soon to assert with confidence
that there are no prehistoric remains in any other part of Egypt,
especially in the long tract between the Fayyum and the district of
Abydos, but up to the present time none have been found in this region.
This geographical distribution of the prehistoric remains fits in
curiously with the ancient legend concerning the origin of the ancestors
of the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, and supports the much discussed theory
that they came originally to the Nile valley from the shores of the Red
Sea by way of the Wadi Hammamat, which debouches on to the Nile in the
vicinity of Koptos and Kus, opposite Ballas and Tukh.
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