DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12249#0264
228 SEPULCHRAL EVIDENCE ON EARLY METALLURGY.
tion, mere constructive circumstantial evidence of
antiquity is too dubious to be conclusive. Another
object, to which an exactly parallel difficulty is attached,
was a cutting instrument, of the shape of a modern
sickle, found by Belzoni among a group of sphinxes at
Karnak. For, although the sickle was under a sphinx,
the sphinxes themselves were lying in an " irregular and
confused manner, as if hidden in a hurry," * and so the
evidence as to age halts again. No other article of iron,
he leads us to infer, ever came under his notice; and
Dathanasi not less plainly declares that, " after eighteen
years of laborious research, and after having opened
so many tombs in Thebes and in Abyclus, I have not
met with the most trifling article of iron-ware of Egyp-
tian origin." t A very few relics of iron have been
brought from Egypt at all, nearly the whole of them
belonging certainly to what is called late time in the
archaeology of the Nile Valley, such as keys, one of
which I possess ; and I believe it is the case that there
is no recorded personal observation of the finding of
any iron objects under circumstances, or in connexion
Avith other remains, which, would satisfactorily prove
their having been contemporaneous with remains of the
older date in question. For example, Colonel Vyse, in
a note illustrative of the fragment in the Pyramid,
intimates that the Duke of Northumberland was stated
to have brought an iron weapon from Egypt. But the
Duke of Northumberland informs me that he knows of
* Belzoni's Narrative, p. 162.
f Dathanasi's Account of Besearches, p. 67.
tion, mere constructive circumstantial evidence of
antiquity is too dubious to be conclusive. Another
object, to which an exactly parallel difficulty is attached,
was a cutting instrument, of the shape of a modern
sickle, found by Belzoni among a group of sphinxes at
Karnak. For, although the sickle was under a sphinx,
the sphinxes themselves were lying in an " irregular and
confused manner, as if hidden in a hurry," * and so the
evidence as to age halts again. No other article of iron,
he leads us to infer, ever came under his notice; and
Dathanasi not less plainly declares that, " after eighteen
years of laborious research, and after having opened
so many tombs in Thebes and in Abyclus, I have not
met with the most trifling article of iron-ware of Egyp-
tian origin." t A very few relics of iron have been
brought from Egypt at all, nearly the whole of them
belonging certainly to what is called late time in the
archaeology of the Nile Valley, such as keys, one of
which I possess ; and I believe it is the case that there
is no recorded personal observation of the finding of
any iron objects under circumstances, or in connexion
Avith other remains, which, would satisfactorily prove
their having been contemporaneous with remains of the
older date in question. For example, Colonel Vyse, in
a note illustrative of the fragment in the Pyramid,
intimates that the Duke of Northumberland was stated
to have brought an iron weapon from Egypt. But the
Duke of Northumberland informs me that he knows of
* Belzoni's Narrative, p. 162.
f Dathanasi's Account of Besearches, p. 67.