So far as regards the Old World there are some who have supposed that, owing to iron being a simple and not a compound metal like bronze, and owing to the readiness with which it may be produced in the metallic condition from some of its ores, iron must have been in use before copper. Without denying the abstract possibility of this having been the case in some part of our globe, I think it will be found that among the nations occupying the shores of the eastern half of the Mediterranean—a part of the world which may be regarded as the cradle of European civilisation—not only are all archæological discoveries in favour of the succession of iron to bronze, but even historical evidence supports their testimony.
In the Introductory Chapter of my book on Ancient Stone Implements I have already touched upon this question, on which, however, it will here be desirable farther to enlarge.
The light thrown upon the subכject by the Hebrew Scriptures is but small. There is, however, in them frequent mention of most of the metals now in ordinary use. But the word כְהֹשֶה, which in our version is translated brass—a compound of copper and zinc—would be more properly translated copper, as indeed it is in one instance, though there it would seem erroneously, when two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold, are mentioned.[8] In some passages, however, it would appear as if the word would be more correctly rendered bronze than copper, as, for instance, where Moses[9] is commanded to cast five sockets of brass for the pillars to carry the hangings at the door of the tabernacle, which could hardly have been done from a metal so difficult to cast as unalloyed copper. Indeed if tin were known, and there appears little doubt that the word בְדִיל represents that metal, its use as an alloy for copper can hardly have been unknown. It may, then, be regarded as an accepted fact that at the time when the earliest books of the Hebrew Scriptures were reduced to writing, gold,[10] silver, iron, tin, lead, and brass, or more probably bronze, were known. To what date this reduction to writing is to be assigned is a question into which it would be somewhat out of place here to enter. The results, however, of modern criticism tend to prove that it can hardly be so remote as the fourteenth century before our era.
In the Book of Job, as to the date of which also there is some diversity of opinion, we find evidence of a considerable acquaintance with the metals: “Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.”[11] Lead is also mentioned, but not tin.
Before quitting this part of the subject I ought perhaps to allude to the passage respecting Tubal-Cain,[12] the seventh in descent from Adam, who is mentioned as “an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron,” or a furbisher[13] of every cutting instrument in those metals. This must, however, be regarded as a tradition incorporated in the narrative at the time it was written, and probably with some accessory colouring in connection with the name which Gesenius has suggested may mean scoriarum faber, a maker of dross, and which others have connected with that of Vulcan. Sir Gardner Wilkinson[14] has remarked on this subject that whatever may have been the case in earlier times, “no direct mention is made of iron arms or tools till after the Exodus,” and that “some are even inclined to doubt the barzel (בִַֹרֲזֶל), of the Hebrews being really that metal,” iron.
Movers[15] has observed that in the whole Pentateuch iron is mentioned only thirteen times, while bronze appears no less than forty-four, which he considers to be in favour of the later introduction of iron; as also the fact that bronze, and not iron, was associated with gold and silver in the fittings for the Tabernacle.
For other passages in Scripture relative to the employment of brass or bronze, and iron, among the Jews, the reader may consult an excellent article by the Rev. John Hodgson in the first volume of the Archæologia Æliana (1816), “An Inquiry into the Era when Brass was used in purposes to which Iron is now applied.” From this paper I have largely borrowed in subsequent pages.
As to the succession of the two metals, bronze and iron, among the ancient Egyptians, there is a considerable diversity of opinion among those who have studied the subject. Sir Gardner Wilkinson,[16] judging mainly from pictorial representations, thinks that the Egyptians of an early Pharaonic age were acquainted with the use of iron, and accounts for the extreme rarity of actual examples by the rapid decomposition of the metal in the nitrous soil of Egypt. M. Chabas,[17] the author of a valuable and interesting work upon primitive history, mainly as exhibited by Egyptian monuments, believes that the people of Egypt were acquainted with the use of iron from the dawn of their historic period, and upwards of 3000 years b.c. made use of it for all the purposes to which we now apply it, and even prescribed its oxide as a medicinal preparation. M. Mariette,[18] on the contrary, whose personal explorations entitle his opinion to great weight, is of opinion that the early Egyptians never really made use of iron, and seems to think that from some mythological cause that metal was regarded as the bones of Typhon, and was the object of a certain repugnance. M. Chabas himself is, indeed, of opinion that iron was used with extreme reserve, and, so to speak, only in exceptional cases. This he considers to have been partly due to religious motives, and partly to the greater abundance of bronze, which the Egyptians well knew how to mix so as to give it a fine temper. From whatever cause, the discovery of iron or steel instruments among Egyptian antiquities is of extremely rare occurrence; and there are hardly any to which a date can be assigned with any approach to certainty. The most ancient appears to be a curved scimitar-like blade discovered by Belzoni beneath one of the Sphinxes of Karnak, and now in the British Museum.[19] Its date is stated to be about 600 b.c.[20] A wedge of iron appears, however, to have been found in a joint between the stones of the Great Pyramid.[21]
Without in any way disputing the occasional use of iron among the ancient Egyptians, nor the interpretation of the colours red and blue on the tomb of Rameses III. as being intended to represent blades of bronze and iron or steel respectively, I may venture to suggest that the round blue bar,[22] against which butchers are represented as sharpening their knives in some of the pictures in the sepulchres of Thebes, may have been too hastily regarded as a steel instead of as a whetstone of a blue colour. The existence of a steel for the purpose of sharpening seems to imply not only the knowledge of the preparation of the metal and its subsequent hardening, but also of files or of other tools to produce the peculiar striated surface to which the sharpening property of a steel is due. Had such tools been known, it seems almost impossible that no trace of them should have come down to our times. Moreover, if used for sharpening bronze knives, a steel such as at present used would sooner become clogged and unfit for use than if employed for sharpening steel knives.
Lepsius[23] has observed that the pictures of the old Empire do not afford an example of arms painted in blue, the metal of weapons being always painted in red or bright brown. Iron was but little used under the old Empire; copper was employed in its stead where the hardness of iron was not indispensable.