Note 511 — Chapter XII · WESTERN ASIA.
Reading edition
Herodotus (ii. 86) mentions that, in his day, the Egyptians, after extracting the brain with an iron instrument, cut open the body they intended to embalm with an Ethiopic stone, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson ('Ancient Egyptians,' iii. 262) found two flint knives in a tomb which might have been used for such a purpose.