Fig. 82.—Fine Specimen of Egyptian Dagger in possession of Mr. Hayns, brought by Mr. Harris from Thebes.
The material is bronze, and still is slightly elastic. There is a mid-rib, but not strongly marked. The tang, which is continued to the pommel, measures 4 inches long by a minimum of 5/12. The handle, of two slices of hippopotamus hide, has 26 ridges for firmer grasp, and there are rivets of bronze at the 6th and the 23rd ridges. There is no pommel, but here the handle is rounded off between two slices of hide, and the tang goes right through.
The result of Egyptian metallurgy is admirable, both in material and finish. At what period bronze was introduced we ignore; a cast cylinder, however, bearing the name of Pepi, dates from b.c. 3000 in the Sixth Dynasty of Middle Egypt, which includes Nitaker (Nitocris). Knives appear in the sculptures dating from before that time. A bronze dagger in the Berlin Museum, found by Sig. Passalacqua in a tomb at Thebes, retains a spring which might be of steel. My friend, Mr. W. P. Hayns, of the Alexandrian Harbour Works, showed me a specimen brought from Thebes by the late Mr. Harris, made of bronze still slightly elastic. The total length measures one foot, of which the blade is half; the latter, slightly leaf-shaped, has a minimum breadth of one inch and three-twelfths, and one inch at the shoulder. The tang, which is prolonged to the handle-end (four inches), has a minimum width of five-twelfths. The grip of two plates, hippopotamus hide (?), probably boiled, and not unlike wood, has twenty-six ridges for firmer hold, and there are bronze rivets at the sixth and the twenty-third ridges: it is without pommel, the end being simply rounded off.
It is held that mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried with bronze sabres; and there is a bronze dagger of Thut-mes[270] III. (Eighteenth Dynasty), circa b.c. 1600. As late as Mene-ptah II. of the Nineteenth Dynasty (b.c. 1300–1266), we read in the list of his loot, after the Prosopis battle, of bronze-armour, Swords, and daggers. Among the Etruscans, before the foundation of Rome, bronze statues were known; and Romulus is said to have placed a statue of himself, crowned by Victory, in a bronze quadriga taken at Comertium. According to Pausanias (iii. 12, § 8), Theodorus of Samos invented casting in bronze (b.c. 800–700): this author discredits the Arcadian legend that Neptune dedicated a bronze statue to Poseidon (the Sidonian?) Hippios (Wilkinson, ii. chap. vii.). But the Samians cast a bronze vase in b.c. 630.
The importance of the Uchatius re-discovery, that is, of hardening bronze as well as copper by hydraulic pressure, not by phosphorus,[271] becomes evident by Wilkinson’s reflections. ‘We know of no means of tempering copper, under any form, or united with any alloys for such a purpose’ (as hollowing out hieroglyphics). He suggests that the old Egyptian letters, sometimes exceeding two inches in depth, and the alt-reliefs nine inches high, on granite coffins, may have been worked with wheel-drill and emery powder.[272] The Egyptians had also the secret of gilding bronze, as many of their remains prove; moreover, they produced by acids a rich patina of dark and light greens.
METALLURGY IN ASSYRIA.
The Assyrians rivalled in metallurgy their ancient instructors the Egyptians: and the art passed eastwards to Persia, which inherited Assyrian and Babylonian civilisation. Diodorus Siculus, following Ctesias the oft-quoted contemporary of Xenophon, describes immense works of bronze decorating the gardens of Semiramis. In Assyria, again, the proportion of the alloy greatly varied. Layard[273] quotes the following assays of Assyrian bronze:
| No. 1 | No. 2 | No. 3 | No. 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copper | 89·51 | 89·85 | 88·37 | 84·79 |
| Tin | 0·63 | 9·78 | 11·33 | 14·10 |
| ——— | ——— | ——— | ——— | |
| 90·14 | 99·63 | 99·70 | 98·89 |
No. 1 shows the proportions found in a bronze dish from ‘Nimroud’; No. 4 in a bell; and the fore-leg of a bull[274] yielded 11·33 tin to 99·70 copper. The Mesopotamians were able to cast their bronze extremely thin, which is no small difficulty; they fashioned it into weapons, temple utensils, and domestic articles, and they skilfully ‘elaborated it by chasing and by curious ornamental tracery.’ They used it in their most sumptuous decorations, as the thrones prove; and the beautiful workmanship of their vases shows abnormal skill in the toreumatic treatment of bronze. Gilt specimens of bronze from Nineveh are in the British Museum.