Note 66 — Chapter VII

When El-Makrīzy speaks of white and yellow copper, he means of course brass or bronze. The greater number of the inlaid objects I have seen are of brass, and not of copper; though of course the word En-Nahās may be taken to include “yellow copper” (or brass) as well as pure red copper. In the South Kensington collection, which has had the advantage of the chemical tests of Dr. Hodgkinson (F.R.S.E., Professor at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and of the Royal College of Chemistry), there are 20 brass objects to 8 of bronze, while what copper there is has a coating of an alloy of lead and antimony, which gives a grey appearance to the bowls thus treated. Some of the bronzes are zinc bronzes, i.e. contain zinc as well as tin, but as a rule they contain a large proportion of tin.