Exploration of Kharga Oasis, 1932–33

Abstract

A SUMMARY report of the expedition of the Royal Anthropological Institute to Kharga in 1932-33 appears in Man of November. This report covers the third and final season's work of the expedition as originally planned. Miss Caton-Thompson did not accompany the expedition on this occasion and Miss Gardner's attention was devoted mainly to the further geological exploration of the oasis and also to clearing up certain points from previous year's work. More than two hundred miles were carefully surveyed and in addition comparative studies were made in the Nile Valley from three bases. One of the most important of the results in relation to the main object of the expedition was the dating of the top tufa terrace at Refuf both by advanced Acheulean hand-axes in a scree deposit beneath the tufa and by core and flake tools without hand-axes inter-bedded in the tufa itself. This is the first time that implements have been found in such a situation. A number of shells new to Kharga were collected. An unmapped pass was discovered in lat. 25-5°. In a note commenting on the work of the expedition and the results, Miss Caton-Thompson directs attention once more to the difficulties attendant on archaeological work in Egypt owing to the unsatisfactory state of the antiquities laws. In this instance, the difficulty arises from the fact that the Egyptian Department of Antiquities has enforced on an expedition for geological and prehistoric research conditions which were framed to meet the requirements of dynastic and predynastic excavation. The Kharga expedition has provided unprecedented material for the typological study of early palaeolithic industries, but as Miss Caton-Thompson points out, their scientific value is entirely destroyed if picked specimens from a series forming a related whole are selected for retention in Egypt. She urges the immediate introduction of fresh regulations permitting the temporary export for purposes of study of such series, unmutilated by capricious selection.