THE AGE OF BRONZE IN EGYPT. 505 



lu the tombs the rusted object, or the trace of the rust upon neighbor- 

 ing objects, would have been discovered.* 



Now never in my knowled<ie has a vestige of iron been found more 

 or less rusted, never even has the stain of rust been found in the tombs 

 prior to the fifteenth century B. c. 



This is all the more important as among the discoveries of the first 

 milleniuni b. c. botli in Egypt and elsewhere, numerous iron objects, 

 among which are several well preserved, have been met with (Rhind, 

 TItehes, p. 218). Now, if an object made of iron can be preserved almost 

 intact during two or three thousand years, there is no reason why this 

 object should have disappeared without leaving any trace if it had 

 remained a little longer in the earth and under identical conditions. 



Inasnuich as today almost all the hieroglyi)hic inscriptions can be 

 read without difficulty, it might be supposed that it was easy to respond 

 to the second inquiry above made and specify the group of characters 

 that constitute the name of iron. Now, erudite men differ in this par- 

 ticular ; with one it is such a term, with a second another. 



It does not appertain to me, who am uotan Egyptologist, to examine 

 if the various and contradictory opinions do not i)roceed from the fnct 

 that some have imagined they discovered the word "iron" in inscrip- 

 tions of an epoch when this metal was as yet unknown. 



I do not know, further, if the group of hieroglyphics w hich is reputed 

 to signify the term iron on a recent occasion referred to has the same 

 signification in the inscriptions of the New Empire. It does not suffice 

 that the word exists; it is necessary to prove also that this term at a 

 remote period did not signify anything else; and for example, that 

 there was instead of the meaning iron the meaning bronze or some 

 other metal in general. 



A striking example of such a change of signification is the following: 

 In India in the early era of the Vedas ayas, designated bronze, and then, 

 after the introduction of iron it was applied to the new metal. The 

 Latin has preserved the primitive sense of the word ws. The problem 

 is very essentially cleared u]) if recourse be had to another catagory of 

 instruction: this is our third standpoint. 



Among the mural paintings, so numerous and so often admirably 

 preserved, there are a great many arms and modelled instrntiients, the 

 greater part red or yellow, the rest blue. Surely one will not deny 

 that the red and the yellow represents copper and bronze and the blue 

 iron or steel. 



In a tomb comparatively modern, that of Rameses III, some arms are 

 red, others blue. Rhind {Thebes^ p. 221) has erroneously drawn from 



"Lepsius: Les metaux,]}p. 52 aud following. He says (p. 63) tliat the iron has not 

 yet been found represented under bis uanio. Perrot and Cbipiez: IJistoire de Vart, 

 vol. I, p. 75:^; Cbabas : Sur le nom de fer chez les anciens fjjiyptiens in the Comptcs ren- 

 du s (\ti rAcad(;nnc des Inscriptions (January 23, 1874). Briigscb: Ificrofjlyphisch- 

 Demotisches Worterbtich, vol. v, p. 413, and following. 



