692 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



' The gold you sent was very little and alloyed/ and in a later letter 

 he says : ''A testing of a delivery of gold, undertaken before the whole 

 royal court, has revealed the fact that what was sent was not gold 

 at all.' 



The chief uses of the metal among the ancient Egyptians were for 

 ornament and decoration, and, to a limited extent, as a measure of 

 value, but this use was probably not common except when very large 

 sums had to be paid over. For use as money, it was fashioned into 

 broad, centrally perforated discs or rings about five inches in diameter, 

 but of one standard thickness or weight, and all payments necessitated 

 the use of the balance. Among the commoner articles made of gold 

 were articles of personal adornment — diadems, necklaces, armlets, brace- 

 lets, finger rings, earrings and various kinds of jewels. Domestic 

 utensils, except those for the royal household, were seldom made of gold. 

 Vases and other decorative vessels, images of the deities, statuettes 

 of the kings and other royal personages, and images of the sacred 

 animals were commonly made of hammered or cast gold. It was ex- 

 tensively used for temple and altar decorations, particularly during the 

 New Empire, after the conquest of Nubia and Syria in the eighteenth 

 dynasty. The Syrian goldsmiths were superior craftsmen, and much 

 of their work found its way into the temples of Egypt. The decoration 

 of the temples was an act of the most worthy piety, and it was the duty 

 of the king's convoyers of gold from the mines to make an offering of 

 gold in the temples. 



When wrought into jewels and chains, it was used by the ruler as 

 a means of bestowing rank and favor upon his worthy officials and court 

 favorites. A victorious general was called into the king's presence, 

 and ' before all the people, in the sight of the whole country,' the 

 ' decoration of the gold ' was conferred. The king commanded the 

 royal treasurer to place about the neck and body of the honored servant 

 a certain number of gold chains, and to present him with jewels and 

 gifts, frequently of symbolic character. These might be in the form 

 of bees, lions, bracelets, necklets, hatchets, vessels for ointment and 

 ornament, all worked from the finest gold. The persons receiving this 

 honor were afterwards known as ' the creatures of the gold.' 



There is good reason to believe that the Egyptians used unalloyed 

 copper in their arts and manufactures for centuries before they dis- 

 covered that the addition of a little tin would greatly increase its 

 hardness, make it more responsive to heat, and greatly widen its field 

 of usefulness. But within the period covered by authentic history, 

 copper alone seems to have had a much more limited use than bronze, 

 and the archeologist finds that objects made of copper are not very 

 numerous among the relics of any period of Egyptian history. It is 

 held by some that the name used in the inscriptions for bronze some- 

 times refers to copper. 



