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Dimensions
Length:
122mmWidth:
55mmDepth:
27mmWeight:
242g
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Palaeolithic/Neolithic axe - PH0059 (A) | ||
| £150.00 | |||
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Palaeolithic/Neolithic tool Image 3 - PH0059 (B) | ||
| £150.00 | |||
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Palaeolithic/Neolithic tool Image 4 - PH0059 (C) | ||
| £150.00 | |||
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Palaeolithic/Neolithic tool Image 5 - PH0059 (D) | ||
| £150.00 | |||
Description
Condition Report
Amazing fit to hand tool, unique thumb, grip, indent. Superb colourations to the chalcedony stone. A Good overall desert varnish. The Classic ancient appearance, has under a strong lens- a glossy surface, with extremely fine chamfer cutting edge. An intriguing and beautiful tool.
Pre Historical Note
The desert scene in the Upper Palaeolithic/Neolithic period and earlier periods was much different than the aridness of todays deserts. Millennia ago this was a verdant land of savannah. Our ancestors were hunter gatherers. Many of these artefacts were and are still today found in groups in open sites, prehistorically these sites were settlements. The implements were left, buried or lost in history as the nomadic hunter gatherers followed herds or moved to greener pastures. Over thousands of years this is how the basic theory of out of Africa explains the movement of man to Europe from southern realms of the African continent.
Historical Provenance
Saharan Neolithic artefacts traded through Africa towards more affluent North Africa.since the first quarter of the twentieth century when a great interest was resurrected in the ancient world, predominantly by the new finds of Tutankhamen by Howard Carter in the valley of the kings, Egypt, collectors have been sourcing these fine New stone age objects. Many of these tools collected in the twentieth century ended up in collections in Europe. this object is of this lineage and formed part of the collection of a European gentleman.
In the last twenty five years or so a new wave of enthusiasm has seen prices of artefacts steadily rise, this trend will continue as supply diminishes, through trading restrictions and particularly as many borders which once freely allowed nomadic movements are more and more heavily policed, restricting historically naturalistic nomadic trading further, coupled with less open site finds.
Many of these items were collected in open sites. This means found strewn across the open Saharan regions. As nomads traversed the Saharan routes, these objects revealed themselves through erosion and through storms and shifting sands.
Many items have been traded from as far south as Niger, Mali, Senegal and Mauritania, also from the more eastern North African states, Algeria, ,Tunisia and of course Egypt.
Geoffrey Moorhouse traversed the Sahara desert in 1972/3 from the coast of Mauritania to Egypt on foot [3,600 miles], on camel with one guide, an immense feat. On route his book the fearful Void tells of sightings of great Neolithic stone implements scattering the surface of the inner dessert, where the trading routes had been neglected for hundreds of years.