506 THE AGE OF BRONZE IN EGYPT. 



this tbe couchisioii tliat colors are without signification. This fact 

 demonstrates only that at that epoch some arms of bronze and others of 

 iron were employed, although the latter metal had then been long 

 knowD. 



When we examine attentively the paintings of ancient times we ob- 

 serve that arms and tools are painted there red or yellow, never blue. 

 Lepsius, who believes in the antiquity of iron in Egypt, is uevertheless 

 very much surprised at the fact (p. 57) that red or light browu is em- 

 ployed in the reproduction of axes, arrow barbs, pruning hooks, saws, 

 chisels razors, and butcher knives. 



It is in the paintings of the new empire alone that metallic objects 

 are painted blue. This can be naturally explained. Bronze, until 

 towards the fifteenth century B. c, was employed only for the fabrica- 

 tion of arms and instruments; iron was not as yet in use. Let us ex- 

 amine, finally, the last aspect of the question. The absence of objects 

 made of iron in the mortuary furniture of the ancient era could have 

 no signification or importance if those of bronze were equally wanting. 

 But it is not thus. Bronzes are met with abundantly in the tombs. 



We can now, thanks to the latter, approach the fourth of our queries. 

 Among the most remarkable discoveries of bronzes anterior to the 

 new empire, or contem[)oraneous with the early centuries of that era, 

 we may cite that of Urah-aboul-Xeggah, to the north of Thebes. In 

 1800, some Arabs exhumed from the sand a coffin, that of Queen A'hho- 

 tep. This queen had been married to Kamos, a king of the seventeenth 

 dynasty, and i)erhaps the mother of King Ahiuos I, or of his consort 

 Nofirtari. King Ahiuos was the first of the eighteenth dynasty. A'h- 

 hotep, consequently was living more than 1,500 years B. c. Her coffin 

 contained a large number of precious objects and arms, with which the 

 museum of Boula is enriched and which we are about to describe.* 

 There was gold, silver, bronze, but no trace of iron. 



Arms and bronze instruments were in use at a later period and con- 

 currently with those of iron. This is proven by numerous bronzes in 

 the Boulaq Museum and the European museums which bear the name 

 of Thoutjuos III. This king of the eighteenth dynasty lived during the 

 first half of the seventeenth century b. c. If one has carefully read the 

 group of hieroglyphics which it is assumed constitutes the term iron, 

 they were acquainted with that metal at that epoch. There are also 

 bronzes which bear the name of Queen Hatschopsitu, the sister and 

 coregeut of Thoutmos III. The inscriptions that bear these names are 

 engraved or written with ink on the bronze itself or on the wooden 

 handles of the tools (Figs. 29 and 39). It is proper to note that on sev- 



*The discovery is described by Marietta in Notice des principanx monuments dii 

 musi'e d^antiquites egnptiennes a Boulaq. (Second edition, Alexandria, 1868, pp. 257- 

 267), and by Maspero in his Gnide dti vmtetir au Musee de Boulaq, Paris. 1884, pp. 

 77-83 and 320. Compare Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de VArt vol. i, p. 297, and 

 Erman, JigypUen, p. 612. Tbe discovery is represented in tlie Revue de P Architecture, 

 1860. 



