A large Pre-Dynastic Egyptian Flint Hand Axe, ca. 4500 - 3500 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.  Old collection sticker, number 273 attached to the front.

for related example 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)

Condition:  Intact and in very good condition overall. With museum-quality custom mount.  A most impressive piece.

Provenance: Collection of Colonel Robert de Rustafjaell F.R.G.S., acquired prior to 1909, purchased at one of the Rustafjaell sales held in 1906, 1913, and 1915 by Gustave Maurice Heckscher who then donated to the museum founded by his father; deaccessioned by Heckscher Museum of Art, Long Island, New York, in 2012. Robert de Rustafjaell (1876-1943) was a British collector and author who worked in Egypt as a geologist and mining engineer. After World War I, de Rustafjaell moved to the United States, where he lived under the name Col. Prince Roman Orbeliani.