OF THE LAKE OF NEUCHATEL. 405 



nizes tlie trace of the Phenicians not only in ancient monuments, but also in (he 

 usages and superstitions of the country, as well as in the names of different 

 localities which relate, for the most part, to the worship of Baal, the god of the 

 sun or the Apollo of the Phenicians. The navigator Pythias would thus have 

 been a Pheuician of Marseilles, visiting the stations and colonies strung along 

 the Scandinavian coasts. 



This is not the place to discuss the weight of the arguments on which 31. 

 Nilsson relies. We are quite disposed to admit his conclusions respecting the 

 part which the Phenicians have played in the north ; but it is not necessary on 

 that account to transport these Phenicians back to the age of bronze, especially 

 if there is any probability that the bronze objects of Scandinavia, and the tombs 

 which cover them, date from the age of iron, as is the case with the antiquities 

 of Hallstadt and those of the Etruscan sepulchres of the Romagna, which form 

 at this time objects of exploration and study to M. Gozzadini. The Phenicians 

 certainly knew the use of iron, and it can scarcely be conceived why they should 

 have excluded it from their commerce on the Scandinavian coasts. 



Neither are the Etruscans to be passed by in silence in the present discussion. 

 Occupying Tuscany and Umbria, they had there arrived at an advanced degree 

 of civilization which could not fail to react on their neighbors, and to extend itr 

 self, at all events, to the inhabitants of the plain of the Po and foot of the Alpa. 

 We have inspected, with this idea in view, the different collections of Etruscan 

 antiquities in Italy. It is impossible to mistake a certain general resemblance 

 with many of our lacustrian objects ; but this resemblance does not extend its^jif 

 to details. The antiquities of Etruria attest a civilization much more advanced, 

 and particularly processes in metallurgy, which were unknown to the people of 

 our stations of bronze. The Etruscans, moreover, were acqxtainted with iron as 

 well as the Phenicians, and it has already been seen that the composition of 

 their bronzes is different, since it contains lead, which is entirely a stranger to 

 our bronze epoch. Now, it can scarcely be admitted that, if the Etruscans were 

 the purveyors of the lacustrian stations of the Lago Maggiore, no traces of that 

 manufiicture should be found at those stations, nor any objects in iron, while at 

 that epoch iron was very widely in use.* 



We must look, then, beyond both the Etruscans and Phenicians in attempfs- 

 ing to identify the commerce of the bronze age of our palatittes. It will be the 

 province of historians to inquire whether, exclusive of Phenicians and Cartha- 

 genians, there may not have been some maritime and commercial people who 

 carried on a traffic through the ports of Liguria with the populations of the age 

 of bronze of the lakes of Italy, before the discovery of iron. We may remark, 

 in passing, that there is nothing to prove that the Phenicians were the first navi- 

 gators. History, on the contrary, positively mentions prisoners, under the nanre 

 of Tokhari, who were vanquished iti a naval battle fought by Rhamses III, in 

 the thirteenth century before our era.t and whose physiognomy, according to Mor- 

 ton, would indicate the Celtic type. Now, there is room to suppose that if these 

 Tokhari were energetic enough to measure their strength on the sea with one of 

 the powerful kings of Egypt, they must, with stronger reason, have been in a 

 condition to carry on a commerce along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and 

 perhaps of the Atlantic. If such a commerce really existed before the time of 



* According to Homer, Pseudomentes couducted a commerce of brass and iron, (Odyssy 

 I, 184.) The Bible mentions iron in several places: Chariots of iron, in Judj^es I, v, 19; a 

 bed of iron in Deuteronomy V, v, 11; the use of iron is even considered a profanation in 

 monuments consecrated to worship, Exodus XX, v, 21; Deuteronomy, XXVII, v, 5; 

 Joshua VI, V, 24, where it is said that after the taking of Jericho, utensils of brass and iron 

 were carried away. Indeed, agreeably to the Mosaic tradition, the age of iron would ascend 

 beyond the deluge, since Tubal-Cain even then worked in iron. According to this chronol- 

 ogy, there remains but very little margin for the ages of bronze and of stone, which, never- 

 theless, by the acknowledgment of every one, embraced very long periods of time. 



t Nott and Gliddon, Types of mankind. 



