STR JOHN EVANS — THE BEOXZE AGE. d 



memorial of this use of bronze surviviui;; in the Greek language. 

 A blacksmith, a man who works in iron, is called, even in classic 

 times, a c/ialkeus, a man who works in bronze, showing that the 

 name still survived wlien iron had supplanted bronze. In religious 

 ceremonies we hnd numerous instances of bronze surviving. 

 The Tuscans, when they laid out the boundary of a new city, 

 employed bronze for the ploughshare ; the knives and shears 

 used in ceremonial performances by the Romans were made of 

 bronze ; and ]\Iedea and Elissa are said to have reaped their 

 harvests with bronze sickles. Though iron came into use in Italy 

 at least 600 years before Christ, bronze survived for battle-axes 

 and spears to a much later period. It is hard to say when iron 

 was first introduced into Egypt, but its use does not go back to the 

 earliest period of Egyptian history, and probably to not farther than 

 1300 or 1400 years b.c. It was in use in Egypt earlier than in 

 Greece. An early Greek writer, writing b.c. 100, gives an account 

 of bronze wedges being used in ancient Egyptian gold mines, and 

 he subse(iuently i"efers to other bronze antiquities. It is now 

 thought that bronze and copper were in use in Egypt probably 

 nearly 4000 years before Christ. In the course of my remarks 

 I shall call attention to a very remarkable spear -head of bronze 

 from Egypt, belonging to a period somewhere between the days 

 of Joseph and of Moses. 



But between the Bronze and Iron Ages we have a certain tran- 

 sitional period, from which some examples have been found in 

 Austria, in the neighbourhood of Ilalstatt. About 2U00 graves 

 have there been examined, and in them were found implements, 

 not only of bronze but also of iron, which in form and character 

 had apparently been modelled on those of bronze. 



Except in the metal, there is no difference between the bronze 

 sword and the iron one which succeeded it. In our own country 

 we have antiquities to which Mr. (now Sir WoUaston) Franks has 

 given the name of Late Celtic, which belong to a time when 

 iron had come into general use, but prior to the Eoman occupation 

 of this country. 



Bronze, as I have said before, is a composite metal of copper 

 and tin, and a natural inference would be that at some period of 

 the world's existence there must have been a Copper Age. Of 

 that Copper Age we have in Europe but very little trace. However, 

 in India, where it seems probable that the bronze civilization of 

 Egypt and Europe originated, a number of copper implements have 

 been found, consisting of axes and other tools or weapons in their 

 simplest form. Some copper tools have occasionally been found in 

 other countries, and the question has arisen whether this is not 

 due to the scarcity of tin rather than to the fact that copper was 

 in use prior to bronze. A Copper Age has been claimed for 

 Hungary, but there the copper implements belong to a late period 

 in the Bronze Age, and it appears that the softer metal was 

 probably preferable to bronze for the particular purposes to which 

 these implements were applied. 



