DISCOVERERS OF THE ART OF IRON MANUFACTURE—BELCK. 519 
smiths and locksmiths, armorers, etc... He merely maintains that 
the ancient Egyptians had a knowledge of iron. 
And here we come at last to the core of the whole discussion. It 
is entirely unimportant in the development of the iron industry 
among the peoples of ancient civilizations, whether the Egyptians had 
occasionally or often seen, or even sometimes used an iron instrument. 
The main question is rather, whether they knew how to manufacture 
iron objects and actually spread this knowledge in a practical manner 
among other peoples. For a knowledge which one neither himself 
practically employs, nor communicates to other people for practical 
use, but rather keeps ‘‘under a bushel,” is of no value in the cultural 
development of mankind. And this would be the case with the 
ancient Egyptians if they really had obtained a knowledge of iron- 
working from their southern Negro neighbors, for it has not yet been 
proven, and is strongly disputed by Schweinfurth and others, that there 
were early Egyptian iron makers and workers. And that they did 
not communicate to other peoples a knowledge of ironworking, which 
is falsely ascribed to them, can be shown by two instances. On the 
one hand, the Jews bring no knowledge of iron from Egypt, nor do 
they designate the Egyptians as the masters and inventors of bronze- 
work and ironwork, but rather the Canaanite Tubal-cain (Genesis iv, 
22). On the other hand, the Greeks, likewise, who gratefully enumer- 
ate the benefits the Egyptians have bestowed on mankind and them- 
selves, are absolutely silent about the Egyptians as propagators of a 
knowledge of ironworking and rather name the Cretans as the oldest 
iron manufacturers and mechanics. 
Thus it is seen that all the asserted proofs as to the mediatorship 
of the Egyptians in the spread of a knowledge of the iron industry 
fail when put to the test of a keen scrutiny. In the face of this main 
result of our investigatior it is of little importance, whether or not 
the Egyptians in hoary antiquity came across an iron object which 
was the product of a chance manufacture. The question raised by 
me was as to the actual “inventors of ironworking,”’ and the isolated 
appearance of such iron objects as owe their existence to a chance 
production, are not to be considered. Ironworking begins with the 
purposeful manufacture of articles of iron, whose inventors we endeavor 
to discover. It would be very encouraging if other investigators 
would follow up the traces pointing to Crete, as indicated by me— 
especially by careful excavations—which in the meantime have been 
most auspiciously corroborated by the traditions of the Greeks and 
Romans. 
Let us consider the Hindus a moment longer. 
1 Schweinfurth, however, very energetically disputes such an hypothesis; compare Zeitschr. Ethnol., 
1908, pp. 61-62. 
