A Published Egyptian flint Homo Erectus Hand Axe from the Thebaid, Late Paleolithic to Mesolithic Period, ca. 30,000 - 15,000 BCE

A large and substantial example, percussion flaked from a piece of reddish-brown flint into a hand axe, with almost the entire upper portion retaining the original flint skin and remaining unaltered from the flint nodule. Percussion flaking was used to detach small flakes of flint from the upper surface by striking the flint with a hammerstone or other implement.  Rustafjaell collection sticker, number 273 attached to the front. Published: De Rustafjaell, R. (1914). The stone age in Egypt: a record of recently discovered implements and products of handicraft of the archaic Nilotic races inhabiting the Thebaid. New York: W.E. Rudge. p. 46 #273. for related examples see: Payne, Joan Crowfoot, Catalogue of the Pre Dynastic Egyptian Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, (Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 162 - 166, nos. 1338 - 1384; and Needler, W. Predynastic and Archaic Egypt in the Brooklyn Museum (The Brooklyn Museum 1984), pp. 278 - 279, nos. 176 - 178. Dimensions:   Height: 8 inches (20.3 cm