500 niE AGE OF BRONZE IN EGYPT. 



special experiments that metal iustruments are not required in order to 

 carve a stoue as hard as that of Egyptian editices. Stone implements 

 may be employed, altbough in this manner the work progresses very 

 slowly, and requires a great deal of patience.* 



But the Egyptians had had occasion to exercise patience, and every 

 work can be accelerated by a multiplication of the forces put in opera- 

 tion. The Egyptian kings in their enterprises of construction were not 

 accustomed to spare their laborers. Moreover it must be noted that 

 Egyptian granite is so hard that our best steel instruments are soon 

 ruined when one attempts to work with them. The fine figures which 

 are foundon Egyptian monuments, and especially the hieroglyphics, may 

 rather be designated as engraved than carved. " It is in no wise im- 

 probable," says the English antiquarian, Mr. Wilkinson, who interested 

 himself very much in the ancient Egyptains, " that they were famil- 

 iar with che use of emory at the time when that substance, which is 

 met with in the islands of Archipelago, was accessible to them ; and 

 if this be admitted we can explain the perfection and admirable deli- 

 cacy of the hieroglyphics upon the monuments of granite and basalt. 

 Wo then also comprehend why implements of bronze will be preferred 

 to those of steel, which are harder and denser; for it is evident that 

 emery powder will be incrusted upon the former and that its action on 

 stone becomes greater in i)roportion to the quantity fixed on the sharp 

 edge of the chisel ; in our times, with the same view, we prefer soft iron 

 tools to those of hard steel." 



It is probable that sand — or emery, if they really possessed it — was 

 used in the sawing of stoue. We can thus more easily explain why 

 verdigris has been sometimes observed in the quarries upon places 

 where fragments of the rock have been detached by much sawing.t 



The proof that bronze implements were employed by Egyptians for 

 stone work is given by a Grecian author, Agatharchides, who lived 

 about a hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. He relates 

 that in his time bronze tools had been found in the gold mines in Egypt 

 which had formerly been used by the mining laborers. He explains 

 the utilization of bronze very correctly in stating that iron was entirely 

 unknown at the time when the first operations in mining were begun. f 



Upon the monuments in the time of the ancient empire we sometimes 

 see representations of men who are carving stone by the instrumentality 

 of chisels, whose yellow or reddish-brown color shows that they were 

 of bronze.§ 



*■ Soldi, LcsArln incconiius, Paris, 1881, p. 4i>2. Porrof. Cbii»iez, owv.cU. i, p. 755. 



t Wilkinsou : " Manncsrs aud Customs of the Ancieut Egyptians," 1st cditjon, vol. 

 II I,- pp. 250, 251. 



{ Evans: "Ancient Stone In)pleuieuts of Great Britain," p. (i. 



§ Rosellini •.Moiiumoiti ddV Egittoe dejla Nubia {Mointmcnti civili pr.. XLViii.) One of 

 these chisels is not bluish, as has been indicated (Khind : Thebes, its Tombs and their 

 Tenants, p. 222), but reddish brown. 



