DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0120
METALLURGY.—FLAX. —LOOMS.
103
enjoy is too great to make it necessary to claim for them an ori-
ginality, and antiquity, at variance alike with history and truth.
The skill of the Egyptians in metallurgy was very great;
and we have ample proof of the working of metals at the
earliest times of which any monuments remain; nor is it too
much to say that some of the secrets they possessed, parti-
cularly in the manufacture of bronze, are still very imperfectly
known to us.
In connection with this art, the paintings notice the forceps,
the blow-pipe, and the bellows, which
last even appear to show an acquaint-
ance with the principle of the valve; *
and though they give very few of the
inventions of Egypt, they prove the
early use of siphons,t and many efficient
tools of different crafts. The syringe
was also known; and one instrument
occurs, even on the monuments of the
fourth dynasty, which has the appearance
of a hand-pump (woodcut 74). And if
many of their arts, as well as their skill
in mensuration, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and various
branches of science are unnoticed, we are not surprised at the
omission of subjects so little suited to sculpture, or the embel-
lishment of a tomb.
The process of growing flax, steeping and beating the stalks,
making it into thread, string, and ropes, and also into a piece
of cloth, are all pictured, as well as the looms they worked on,
which were of the most simple kind. Some were vertical,
others horizontal; and the mode of taking up the piece as
(W. 74.)
* P. A. of Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 174 ; ii.
+ lb., vol. i. p. 174 ; ii. pp. 317, 318.
316 (woodcut 457).
103
enjoy is too great to make it necessary to claim for them an ori-
ginality, and antiquity, at variance alike with history and truth.
The skill of the Egyptians in metallurgy was very great;
and we have ample proof of the working of metals at the
earliest times of which any monuments remain; nor is it too
much to say that some of the secrets they possessed, parti-
cularly in the manufacture of bronze, are still very imperfectly
known to us.
In connection with this art, the paintings notice the forceps,
the blow-pipe, and the bellows, which
last even appear to show an acquaint-
ance with the principle of the valve; *
and though they give very few of the
inventions of Egypt, they prove the
early use of siphons,t and many efficient
tools of different crafts. The syringe
was also known; and one instrument
occurs, even on the monuments of the
fourth dynasty, which has the appearance
of a hand-pump (woodcut 74). And if
many of their arts, as well as their skill
in mensuration, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and various
branches of science are unnoticed, we are not surprised at the
omission of subjects so little suited to sculpture, or the embel-
lishment of a tomb.
The process of growing flax, steeping and beating the stalks,
making it into thread, string, and ropes, and also into a piece
of cloth, are all pictured, as well as the looms they worked on,
which were of the most simple kind. Some were vertical,
others horizontal; and the mode of taking up the piece as
(W. 74.)
* P. A. of Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 174 ; ii.
+ lb., vol. i. p. 174 ; ii. pp. 317, 318.
316 (woodcut 457).