A hollow scraper from Armant

This large crescent-shaped piece of flint is flaked all over. It has one concave edge 100 mm across and some cortex (the outside of the original flint pebble or slab) is visible. Hollow scrapers are usually found in the Thebes area and seem to be Middle Palaeolithic (around 300,000 years old). This example is from Armant, 12 miles South of Thebes. The brown patina shows it to be Palaeolithic.

From Seligman 1921, p. 124

Such items were described by General A. H. Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers in 1882. In 1921 Seligman suggested that these were probably prepared cores with the hollow retouched. One can imagine that they may have been used to scrape cylindrical hafts for other artefacts. However, what these were actually used for and why they have only been found around Thebes remains a mystery.

Hérisson et al 2016, fig. 22

Outside of Egypt there is a similar example from the Acheulean of La Grande Vallée at Colombiers (Hérisson et al 2016, fig. 22).

  

References

David Hérisson, Jean Airvaux, Lenoble Arnaud, Daniel Richter, Emilie Claud and Jerome Primault ‘Between the northern and southern regions of Western Europe: The Acheulean site of La Grande Vallée (Colombiers, Vienne, France)’ Quaternary International, 2016, 108–131.

Pitt Rivers, L. F. 1882, ‘On the Discovery of Chert Implements in Stratified Gravel in the Nile Valley Near Thebes’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 11, 382–400.

Seligman, C.G. ‘The Older Paleolithic Age in Egypt’, Journal Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1921, 51, 115–153.