502 THE AGE OF BRONZE IN EGYPT, 



(2) What are the most ancient inscriptions in which iron is mentioned ? 

 Can we be fully enlightened through them in respect to the signification 

 of the hieroglyphics which are supposed to designate iron? 



(3) What are the most antique monuments representing arms and 

 instrnments of iron? 



(4) Up to what epoch did they continue in Egypt to employ arras and 

 instruments of bronze? Can we perceive upon these objects marks left 

 as a consequence of long usage, whether in the reparation of the sharp 

 edges, or otherwise, proving that they were used, and that they were 

 not fabricated solely for the tomb? 



To the first interrogatory it is easy to respond: Fragments of iron 

 instruments have been found in a few pyramids; and if they date from 

 the time of these mausoleums they fully establish the great antiquity 

 of iron in Egypt. The best known of these fragments is the one dis- 

 covered by an Englishman, Mr. Hill, in 1837, in the great pyramid at 

 Gizeh, built abont 3,000 years before Christ. It is supposed that it was 

 a fragment of an instrument with which the surface of hewn stone was 

 polished, but it is also believed that it is not of steel, but of iron. It 

 may have been discovered near the orifice of one of the narrow atmos- 

 pheric canals which traverse the body of the pyramid as far as the mor- 

 tuary cavern, and in articulation of the stones, but not until after the 

 two layers of exterior blocks forming the cap of the pyramid has been 

 removed. No fissure was observed or aperture of any description, 

 through which this iron after the construction of the pyramid might 

 have been introduced at the point where it was found. For this reason 

 several persons, having explored this locality immediately after the dis- 

 covery, have publicly attested their conviction that the fragment of iron 

 had been left between the stones during the construction of the pyra- 

 mid, and that it could not have been inserted there after this period.* 



Similar discoveries have been made more recently. Thus M. Maspero, 

 in 1882, collected several parts of iron hoes in the black pyramid at 

 Abonkir, probably built during the sixth dynasty; that is to say, in the 

 third millenium before the Christian era. He discovered, moreover, a 

 few fragments of iron instruments in the mortar between two stones, 

 in a pyramid in the vicinity of Esneh.t This pyramid is not anterior to 

 the seventeenth dynasty, and its construction consequently immediately 

 preceded the inauguration of the New Empire. Mr. Maspero, as I be- 

 lieve, has given no information more precise in regard to the situation 

 and the bearing of these fragments of iron. 



Reasons that we are about to assign authorize us to doubt the con- 

 clusions which have been drawn from these discoveries. The presence 

 of these iron fragments is certain ; but are we equally assured that they 

 date from the erection of the monuments that contained them ? The 



* Vyse. "Pyramids of Giseh," i, pp. 275, 276. Transactions of the second session of 

 the International Congress of Orientalists, held in London, 1874, pp. 396-399. 

 t Maspero, Guide da Visitetir au Muse'e de Boulag (Paris, 1884), p. ^^ 



