Of recent years great strides have been made towards the establishment of a definite chronology linking the historic with the prehistoric periods in the Aegean, in Egypt and in Babylonia, and as the estimates of various authorities differ sometimes by a thousand years or so, the subjoined table will be of use to indicate the chronological schemes most commonly followed; the dates are in all cases merely approximate.
The Iron Age.
It has often been pointed out that there is no reason why iron should not have been the earliest metal to be used by man. Its ores are more abundant and more easily reduced than any others, and are worked by peoples in a low grade of culture at the present day[92]. Iron may have been known in Egypt almost as early as bronze, for a piece in the British Museum is attributed to the fourth dynasty, and some beads of manufactured iron were found in a pre-dynastic grave at El Gerzeh[93]. But these and other less well authenticated occurrences of iron are rare, and the metal was not common in Egypt before the middle of the second millennium. By the end of the second millennium the knowledge had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean[94], and towards 900 at latest iron was in common use in Italy and Central Europe.
Chronological Table.
| Egypt[95] | Babylonia[96] | Aegean[97] | Greece[98] | Bronze Age in Europe[99] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3300 | Dynasty I | ||||
| 3200 | |||||
| 3100 | |||||
| 3000 | Dynasty of Opis | ?Early Minoan I | ?Pre-Mycenean | ||
| 2900 | Dyn. of Kish | ||||
| 2800 | Dyn. III, IV | Dyn. of Erech Dyn. of Akkad[100] | |||
| 2700 | |||||
| 2600 | Dyn. V | 2nd Dyn. of Erech | |||
| 2500 | Dyn. VI | Gutian Domination | Early Minoan II | Period I. Eneolithic | |
| 2400 | Dyn. of Ur | (implements of stone, copper | |||
| 2300 | Dyn. IX | and bronze, poor in tin) | |||
| 2200 | Dyn. of Isin | Middle Minoan I | |||
| 2100 | Dyn. XI | Mid. Minoan II | |||
| 2000 | Dyn. XII | 1st Dyn. Babylon | Mycenean I | ||
| 1900 | 2nd Dyn. | Mid. Minoan III | Period II | ||
| 1800 | |||||
| 1700 | Dyn. XIII | 3rd Dyn. | Late Minoan I | ||
| 1600 | Dyn. XV | Period III | |||
| 1500 | Dyn. XVIII | Late Minoan II | Mycenean II | ||
| 1400 | Late Minoan III | ||||
| 1300 | Dyn. XIX | Period IV | |||
| 1200 | Dyn. XX | Homeric Age | |||
| 1100 | 4th Dyn. | ||||
| 1000 | Dyn. XXI | 5th to 7th Dyn. | Close of Bronze Age[101] | ||
| 900 | Dyn. XXII | 8th Dyn. | Hallstatt | ||
Hallstatt.
The introduction of iron into Italy has often been attributed to the Etruscans, who were thought to have brought the knowledge from Lydia. But the most abundant remains of the Early Iron Age are found not in Tuscany, but along the coasts of the Adriatic[102], showing that iron followed the well-known route of the amber trade, thus reaching Central Europe and Hallstatt (which has given its name to the Early Iron Age), where alone in Europe the gradual transition from the use of bronze to that of iron has been clearly traced. W. Ridgeway[103] believes that the use of iron was first discovered in the Hallstatt area and that thence it spread to Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Aegean area, and Egypt rather than that the culture drift was in the opposite direction. There is no difference of opinion however as to the importance of this Central European area which contained the most famous iron mines of antiquity. Hallstatt culture extended from the Iberian peninsula in the west to Hungary in the east, but scarcely reached Scandinavia, North Germany, Armorica or the British Isles where the Bronze Age may be said to have lasted down to about 500 B.C. Over such a vast domain the culture was not everywhere of a uniform type and Hoernes[104] recognises four geographical divisions distinguished mainly by pottery and fibulae, and provisionally classified as Illyrian in the South West, or Adriatic region, in touch with Greece and Italy; Celtic in the Central or Danubian area; with an off-shoot in Western Germany, Northern Switzerland and Eastern France; and Germanic in parts of Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Posen.
La Tène.
The Hallstatt period ends, roughly, at 500 B.C., and the Later Iron Age takes its name from the settlement of La Tène, in a bay of the Lake of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. This culture, while owing much to that of Hallstatt, and much also to foreign sources, possesses a distinct individuality, and though soon overpowered on the Continent by Roman influence, attained a remarkable brilliance in the Late Celtic period in the British Isles.