DISCOVEREES OF THE ART OF IRON MANUFACTURE BELCK. 519 



smiths and locksmiths, armorers, etc. 1 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 Schweinf urth 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 Schweinf urth, however, very energetically disputes such an hypothesis; compare Zeitschr. Ethnol.. 

 1908, pp. 01-02. 



