Dishna

Dishna is a settlement west of Qena, on the north bank of the Nile in Qena Governorate, Egypt, about 453 kilometres from Cairo. Its Arabic name comes from the Coptic word for the tree garden. The surrounding Dishna plain is known to archaeology: an expedition of the Southern University of Texas explored the Sebilian culture there, and the Esnan industry, also called Mesnian, of the Dishna plains has been dated to about 12,300 years before present. That industry used a non-Levallois technique and produced mostly end-scrapers, with a much smaller number of arch-backed bladelets and trapezoids, and similar assemblages were found at several sites between Wadi Kubbaniya and the plains. A 1974 study by Fekri Hassan describes a late Palaeolithic settlement on the Dishna Plain.