Iron suits of armour (taken by the warriors), and
Five iron storm-caps (?).
HEBREW IRON-AGE.
Mr. Francis Galton[342] first discovered in the ancient copper-diggings of the so-called ‘Sinaitic’ peninsula, a blackish mass, not unlike iron-slag, which he conjectured to date before Moses’ days. A score of years afterwards (early 1873), Mr. Hartland[343] examined the junction of the Wadys Kemeh, Mukattab, and Maghárah, and found the iron-ore imperfectly extracted: assays and analyses of the slags that lay in heaps about the ruined works produced fifty-three per cent. of metal. He determined that the mines at Serábit El-Khádim had been constructed on the principle of the Catalan (or rather the Corsican) forge;[344] and he discovered near them a temple and barracks for the soldier-guards.[345]
It is hard to believe with Mr. Proctor that Abraham, a wandering Chaldæan Shaykh, taught the Egyptians astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic; or with Mr. Piazzi Smyth, that Melchisedek, the petty chief of a village in Palestine, built the Pyramid. Yet it is only reasonable to suppose that the Israelites set out upon their exodus or exodi, for there were probably many, provided with some of the technological wisdom of the Egyptians. Joseph, according to Brugsch (‘Hist.’ I. chap. xii.), rose to the honour of Zaphnatpaneakh (Governor of the Sethroitic home), and Ro-hir or Procurator, under the Shepherd-kings or ‘Hyksos,’ a word which he renders Hek-Shasu,[346] lord of the Shasu (Arabs); he makes the Pharaoh of the Oppression, Ramses II. (b.c. 1333–1300), and Mene-Ptah II. the Pharaoh of the Exodus (b.c. 1300–1266). The Pentateuch, whatever be its date, well knew the use of Barzil (ברזל), the Chaldæan Parzil or Parzillu. According to Sir John Lubbock (‘Prehistoric Man’), ‘iron’ is four times mentioned, and ‘brass’ (copper, bronze?) thirty-eight times in ‘the Law.’[347] From other sources we gather that the metal was either עשות (ashúth, that is, ‘the worked,’ from the rad. ashah), or מוצק (muzak, ‘the melted,’ fused, cast; from the root zak). The Lord threatens that He will make ‘the skies as iron and the earth as copper’ (Levit. xxvi. 19). In Deuteronomy (iv. 20), Egypt is compared with an iron furnace; and mention is made of iron shoes (xxxiii. 25). Job includes among riches, cattle, silver, gold, brass (copper?), and iron; he tells us (xxviii. 2) that ‘iron is taken out of the earth and copper is molten out of the stone,’ and he speaks of lithic writing (xix. 24), ‘graven with an iron style and lead in the rock for ever.’ But commentators are not agreed about the age of this author, and in the hands of the Rabbis he seems gradually to be growing younger—more modern—with every generation.
The Hebrews found the Iron-age wherever they went. ‘Barzil’ was among the metals taken from the Midianites by Moses (Numb. xxxi. 22). The ‘bedstead,’ or rather divan, of Og, the King of Bashan, measuring nine cubits of man (each = sixteen inches) in length by four broad, was of iron (Deut. iii. 11). Joshua shows that the Canaanites owned ‘chariots of iron’ (xvii. 16). These tribes, displaced by the Jews, seem to have been accomplished workers in metal.[348] Traces of iron-smelting occur on the Libanus,[349] where I found copper-stone,[350] and where, during the present century, coal and asphalte have been mined. Many parts of the country, as Argob in ancient Bashan, produce an abundance of ironstone.[351] The old Phœnician Sanconiathon, a name which may denote a history or its historian, tells us through the Greek translator Philo of Byblus, that the people were famous for their Technites, artisans and blacksmiths. The warlike Hittites, as will appear, were also iron-workers.
From Egypt the use of iron would spread through Asia Minor[352] eastward to Naharayn,[353] the two-river-land, Mesopotamia. But the date is disputed. The excavations of the late Mr. George Smith yielded no iron articles older than b.c. 1000–800. Mr. Day remarks that ‘whilst Mesopotamia has not, up to the present time, produced any solid evidence in the form of material iron relics belonging to the oldest monarchies; nevertheless, the monuments of those earliest times are numerous, and they yield abundance of testimony to the acquaintance of the contemporary people with iron.’ In later ages he alludes to the rings and bangles of iron in the British Museum, which were possibly chain-links; and particularly to the ‘ombos of a shield,’ as the most exquisite piece of their hammered iron-work he has met with: he doubts if it can in some respects be surpassed by the productions of to-day. The cuneiforms speak of iron fetters, and the people of the great Interamnian plain knew the art of casting bronze over iron,[354] only lately introduced into our metallurgy.
IRON IN ASSYRIA.
According to Mr. G. Smith there is no pure Assyrian word for ‘iron.’[355] Its cuneiform symbol is
