514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
Von Luschan thus does not consider that the Egyptians themselves 
were the inventors of ironworking, but rather attributes to them a 
secondary réle, and in so far I agree with him as against that group 
of scholars who, notwithstanding all the proofs brought forth, still 
maintain that the origin of the iron industry is to be sought in Egypt. 
If von Luschan’s view be correct, the following conditions must first 
of all be fulfilled: 
1. There must be proof of the existence of an iron industry among 
the Negroes in the very ancient period assumed by von Luschan. 
2. It must be proven that ironworking was in very ancient time 
imported from the Negro territories into Egypt, and there practically 
employed. 
3. It must be proven that, and the manner how, the industry spread 
from Egypt to Asia and Europe. 
As to the first proposition, Schweinfurth, like von Luschan, also 
considers the iron industry of the Negro peoples as native (not 
imported) and of probably considerable antiquity, although he hardly 
seems to be inclined with von Luschan to ascribe to it an age of from 
4,000 to 5,000 years or even more. Von Luschan offers no proof for 
such a high antiquity of that dustry among the Negroes, and we 
may concede to him that on this question conclusive proofs can 
scarcely be expected. Von Luschan therefore tries verivimilar proof, 
pointing out: 
On the old Egyptian mural paintings are often seen dark people presenting to the 
Pharaoh blue-colored objects (weapons, knives, etc.). I assume with many other 
investigators that the dark people represent Negroes, and the blue-colored weapons 
are iron ones, hencé the Negroes were then in possession of an iron industry. 
This method of proof involves some serious errors; for, on the one 
hand, it assumes two premises which are by no means generally 
conceded, and on the other hand, the derived conclusion is false. 
(a) There is thus far no proof that the dark people represented 
Negroes, African Negroes, and if one should wish to recognize them as 
the likewise dark inhabitants of the Arabian west coast and of part 
of the Sinaitic peninsula, he could scarcely be convinced of being 
wrong. We may call to mind the tradition of the ancients (compare 
Herodotus i, 1, and vii, 89), according to which the Punt-Punians- 
Phenicians had, previous to their immigration into Phenicia, lived at 
the Red Sea, and they received their name from the dark-reddish 
color of theirskin. In my opinion we have in the relation by Herodo- 
tus an historic account of great importance which, very agreeably, 
is supported and corroborated by Biblical data, for this same state- 
ment is indirectly but distinctly made. TI refer, in the first place, to 
I Kings ix, 26-28, where it reads: 
And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on 
the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his 
