where no one stops. It portrays Antef V and his vizier Khati worshipping Mentuhotep IV and his wife. Near it is another, smaller, tablet with the worship of the same king; and up the valley we discovered a tablet with the worship of Sankh-ka-ra, all of the eleventh dynasty. All over this district are many rude figures of animals, marked on the rocks by hammering: they are of various ages, some perhaps modern, but the earlier ones certainly before the eighteenth dynasty; and, to judge by the weathering of the rock, it seems probable that they were begun here long before any of the monuments of Egypt that we know. The usual figures are of men, horses, and boats, but there are also camels, ostriches and elephants to be seen.
57. Animal Figures at Silsileh.
On the desert hills behind Esneh I found what is—so far—the oldest thing known from Egypt. In prehistoric days the Nile used to fill the whole breadth of the valley, to a depth of a couple of hundred feet, fed with the heavy rainfall that carved back the valleys all along the river by great waterfalls, the precipices of which now stand stark and arid in the bleaching sun. Many parts of the valley are above the present river, and are now desert, so that at Esneh the hills are several miles from the Nile, and on a spur of one—where probably no man sets foot for
58. Oldest Tool in Egypt. 1:2.