508 THE AGE OF BRONZE IN EGYPT. 



geueral use. It is very important to establish that broDze arms were 

 common in the second century, and even that they were in a majority at 

 this moment, which is already an iron age. Such would not have been 

 the case if (as many authors suppose) iron liad been known and 

 employed in this country for thousands of years. This is an obser- 

 vation of which the value will be apprehended. If iron had been in 

 the service of industry from the early dynasties it would not be found 

 so rare still towards the second century. Everywhere else it is agreed 

 that when iron appears, bronze is not long in yielding place to it for 

 the fabrication of swords, axes, knives, etc. The experience acquired 

 everywhere on this sul)ject does not permit us to doubt that it would 

 not have been otherwise on Egyptian soil, or that bronze, in despite of 

 the presence of iron, would have remained so long alone or almost ex- 

 clusively utilized. 



It seems to result from the discoveries of Schliemanu at Mycene and 

 Tiryns, and which belong to the close of the second milleninm b. c, 

 that iron was not known in Egypt as early as has been asserted. 

 Amongst so many objects of every variety which have been collected 

 in the tombs of Mycene, there is no trace of iron, whilst hundreds of 

 swords and other arms are of bronze. In the royal palace at Tiryns 

 there is no iron or trace of iron.* 



Now, the antiquities of these two cities testify to a powerful influence 

 from Egypt, undoubtedly exercised through the agency of the Phceni- 

 cians, and it would then be scarcely possible that iron sliould have been 

 comjjletely unknown in Greece, if for two thousand jears it had already 

 been known in Egypt. 



From what we have just said it follows with great probability that 

 the Egyptians, during the whole time of the ancient empire, and prob- 

 ably until almost fifteen hundred years B. C, were not acquainted with 

 the use of iron, and employed only bronze for their arms and instru- 

 ments; that the age of bronze consequently continued in Egypt until 

 the epoch mentioned, and that iron, as yet, towards the close of the 

 second milleninm B. o., had not altogether replaced bronze for the con- 

 struction of arms and edged instruments. 



The most remarkable discovery in Egypt of bronze arms is, as we 

 have already said, that which was made in the coffin of Queen A'hhotep. 

 Among the great quantity of precious things which this tomb contained 

 we first mentioned were the following objects, which constituted a part 

 of the toilet of that i)rincess : Several gold bracelets, ornamented with 

 precious stones and plates of glass, rings for the legs of gold, a golden 

 chain, a diadem, a large collar and a decoration for the breast of gold 



" The lyrics of Homer speak sometimes of iron, but these songs were probably 

 not composed until long after the epoch of the Trojan war, and certainly thej^ were 

 not written in the condition in which we now have them. They cannot then be 

 in testimony of the knowledge of iron in Greece at the time of Agamemnon or of 

 Ulysses. 



