1808.] on the Metals used by the Great Nations of Antiquity. 609 



hieroglyphic inscription above his head there is not only the king's 

 name spelt phonetically, but in the royal titles are seen two ideographs 

 which bear upon our subject. One is the necklace or ornamental 



collar f^wfl^"!, which is the well-known symbol for gold ; and the other 

 an axe , the head of which resembles that of a copper rather than 

 of a stone weapon. These titles have no reference to the metals 

 themselves, but mean "^^^ f>rm<<'\ " Gulden Horus," and | Ij " Benefi- 

 cent Divinity." Before such symbols could be used to express 

 abstract idea«, they must have been well known in their c.^.ucrete 

 form. The date assigned to Seiieferu is B.C. 3750 ; but the dis- 

 coveries of the past year have put in our possession the actual metals 

 themselves, of a nmch greater antiquity. M. de Morgan, late Director 

 (jeneral of Antiquities in Egypt, has explored an enormous royal 

 tomb at Nagada, the centre chamber of which contained the mummy 

 of the Pharaoh, with the cartouche of King Menes, the reputed first 

 King of Kgypt. If it be really his tomb, the probable date will be 

 B.C. 44 )0. What is interesting to us is that in two of the chambers, 

 among a multitude of articles made of ivory, quartz, porphyry, wood, 

 alabaster, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, obsidian, earthenware, corne- 

 lian, glass and cloth, there were found some small pieces of metal, 

 viz. two or three morsels of gold, and a long bead of that metal of a 

 somewhat crescent form, together with some art cles of copper — a kind 

 of button, a bead, aud some fine wire.* The button was analysed by 

 M. Berthelot, the well-known French chemist and politician, to whom 

 we are indebted for the examination of a very large number of ancient 

 metallic objects ; he states that it is nearly pure copper, without 

 arsenic or any other metal in notable proportion.]" 



Thcpe are the oldest metallic obj( cts in the world to which we 

 can assign a probable date. But Prof. Flinders Petrie had discovered 

 three years ago, also at Nagada, a great number of objects of the same 

 character, and among them a few small copper implements. Some 

 filings from a dagger, a celt, and a little harpoon were analysed by 

 me, and found to consist of pract'cally pure copper, without any trace 

 of tin. The remains of these filings are in the little bottles on the 

 table. The age of these tools must be com| arable with that of the 

 royal tomb, and may possibly be even older. 



Of about the same period, and perhaps even earlier, are a number 

 of tombs at and near Abydos, which have been explored by M. 

 Amelineau, bearing the names of kings unknown to history, accom- 

 panied by hieroglyphics of archaic form. J In these have been found 



* See ' Ethnographie Prehistorique et Tombeau royal de Negadah,' par 

 J. de Morgan .• Pai-i:^, 1897; pp. 162-3 and 19o-8, in wliich these articles are 

 derMTibcd and drawn. f Annales Ch. Pli. Avrd, 1895. 



t Sec ' L'Age de la Pierre et les Mc'taux,' par J. de Morgan ; Paris, 1896; 

 cliaj). viii. 



