Note 484 — Chapter IV

Man, iii, 1903, No. 8, pp. 147-9. Professor Montelius (ib., v, 1905, No. 7, pp. 13-4) denies that iron was used by the Egyptians before the fifteenth century B.C., and insists that the lump of iron oxide which was found at Abydos in association with copper implements of the Sixth Dynasty, or about 3200 B.C., ‘does not prove the use of iron, only the existence of that metal’. The professor doubtless wrote ‘existence’ by a slip for ‘knowledge’. But, as Mr. H. R. Hall points out (ib., No. 40, pp. 69-71), he ignores the discovery in the Great Pyramid of a piece of worked iron, which is now in the Third Egyptian Room of the British Museum (Case K 29, No. 2433), and to which a date about 300 years older ‘is assigned on good prima facie grounds’; and Mr. Hall reasonably asks whether the discovery of the lump of iron oxide does not corroborate the other. It is unlikely that an unworked lump of iron would have been deposited along with copper tools; and we may fairly suppose that the lump is the remains of an iron tool.