Note 6 — Introductory material

At p. 16, note No. 4, of his “Dawn of Civilization,” New York, 1894, Mr. G. Maspero says that the well-known French archæologist, Charles Théodule Deveria (1831–1871), was the first to prove that the Egyptians believed the sky to be made of iron or steel. This was done in his monograph entitled “Le fer et l’aimant, leur nom et leur usage dans l’ancienne Egypte,” published originally at Paris during 1872 in “Mélanges d’Archéologie,” Vol. I. pp. 2–10; also by M. Charas, in “l’antiquité Historique,” first edition, pp. 64–67, and at pp. 339–356, Vol. V. of the “Bibliothèque Egyptologique,” issued in Paris during 1897. So well established was the belief in a sky-ceiling of iron, says M. Charas, that it was preserved in common speech by means of the name given to the metal itself, viz. Bai-ni-pit (in the Coptic, Benipi, benipe)—metal of heaven. Reference is thereto made in “The Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,” Vol. XIV. second series, p. 291, by Mr. J. Offord, Jr., who speaks of the splendid and exceedingly valuable papyrus in the Louvre “Catalogue des Manuscripts,” Paris, 1874, pp. 170–171 of M. Deveria, who frequently referred to it in the preparation of the monograph above alluded to upon Iron and the Loadstone in Ancient Egypt (“Zeitschrift für Ægyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde”—Review founded by M. le Docteur H. Brugsch). Deveria says: “Cette matière céleste (dont parle Plutarque) devait être l’aimant, la substance d’Horus, la siderites des Romains, plutôt que le fer non-magnétique, substance typhonienne.... Ils disent aussi que la pierre d’aimant est un des os de Horus et le fer un des os de Typhon: c’est Manathon qui nous l’apprend.” For Deveria, see “La Grande Encyclopédie,” H. Lamirault et Cie., Paris, n. d., Vol. XIV. p. 375.