Note 9 — Chapter XII · How Copper-culture reached China

The opinion, suggested here by the writer, that the battles between rival miners in Sinai compelled the Sumerians to search for copper elsewhere and to discover means whereby the softer copper could be hardened, appears to accord with the view that bronze was first manufactured in Babylonia, or in some area colonized by Babylonia. In his able summary of the archæological evidence regarding the introduction of bronze, Sir Hercules Read shows that “the attribution of the discovery to Babylonia is preferred as offering fewest difficulties”.9