Many of you know about my interest in ancient Egypt. In the years before the war in Libya that overthrew Gaddafi, it was possible to travel into Egypt’s deserts – though even back then, these trips needed a lot or planning - official permits and armed police as security.
Deserts are amazing places – so different from what we’re used to in our urban lives – and though you might think that there’s nothing to see except mile after mile of featureless sand, you’d be very wrong.
One of the highlights of my desert trips came during a stop in the White Desert - an area of chalk-like limestones that have been shaped into these weird, mushroom-like features.
Maybe the mushrooms are appropriate, Mother Nature must have been on something when she made this place!!!
I was slowly walking across the white limestone, head down looking for nice fossils to photograph when I almost tripped over the hand axe (top image) – lying as if it had just been put there!!
Now, the laws in Egypt about antiquities are pretty simple – anything you find must be reported to the authorities, who will then take charge. So, I called over to the officials were travelling with us, and they decided it needed to be taken back to the antiquities office in the nearest oasis – a few days journey away. So we were able to spend a little time with this incredible piece of mankind’s pre-history.
It's not just its age that makes this characteristic pear-shaped hand-axe so amazing – it’s over 200,000 years old!!! What really blew my mind is that it wasn’t made by modern man. These tools were carefully fashioned by our extinct ancestors – in Africa, by Homo erectus.
So, on that day in the White Desert, I’d stumbled across a link to one of mankind’s extinct relatives – people who used to hunt and forage this area of North Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago…..and like me, the person that made this hand axe was right handed!!!
How could I tell......?
No idea! Because it’s not covered in shite?? I’m intrigued now
Very interesting and informative