CHAP, xiii.] THE EGYPTIANS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 449 



ting hieroglyphs, a fact which is proved by the dis- 

 coveries made in their turquoise mines in the Sinaitic 

 promontory by Mr. Bauerman l and others. It is very 

 probable that all the hieroglyphs were carved with flint, 

 since neither bronze nor iron will cut the hard rocks on 

 which they are generally engraved. Steel, however, 

 was known in Egypt in a later period of its history. 



The influence of such a people as the Egyptians was 

 felt far arid wide in the Mediterranean, and their wealth 

 invited invasion at a time when great movements of 

 population were taking place. The first mention of a 

 European people in the Egyptian annals is the attack of 

 the Sardones and the Tyrrhenes (Etruskans) on the 

 Delta of the Nile, and their defeat by Ramses II., in the 

 fifteenth century before Christ. This invasion was again 

 repeated, about seventy years afterwards, by a more 

 formidable confederation, in which the two above- 

 mentioned peoples were joined by the Sikels, Lykians, 

 Achaians, and Lybians. The allies advanced to the 

 attack by sea and land, conquered part of the Delta, and 

 were defeated after a desperate struggle by Meneptah 

 I. 2 Among their spoils it is interesting to remark 

 bronze knives and cuirasses. From this account it is 

 clear that the maritime peoples of the Mediterranean 

 were sufficiently civilised at this early period to organise 

 powerful armies and fleets, and to deliver a combined 

 attack on the mistress of the world ; and it places pro- 

 minently before us the intercourse and commerce which 

 could alone render such a combination possible. The 

 Sardones and Etruskans may not have been then in 



1 Dawkins, Proceed Manch. Lit. and Phil. Soc., Dec. 14, 1869, p. 43. 



2 Chabas, op. cit. pp. 186, 224. Stuart Poole, Contemporary Review, 

 Jan. 1878, 347. 



2 G 



