CHAPTER IX METAL WORK

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Here we shall deal with the useful metals, apart from the ornamental work of jewellery previously described. Copper was worked from the beginning of the prehistoric civilisation. In one of the earliest graves a little copper pin was found, used to fasten over the shoulders the goat-skin, which was worn before the weaving of linen. Not long after, a small chisel appears, then an adze and harpoon, then needles, and larger sizes of tools come at the close of the prehistoric age. All of this copper was shaped by hammering. Polished stone hammers were used, and the work was so exquisitely regular that a polished surface still remains on an adze, which shows no trace of the method of manufacture; certainly it was not ground. The mode of hammering is shown in some early historical sculptures; a stone hammer was held in the palm of the right hand, which was swung overhead, and brought down on the metal. How such work could be done without hurting the hand by concussion is not clear to us. It is strange that down to Greek times the Egyptians never used a long handle to a hammer.

Ewer (drawing)

In the beginning of the kingdom, copper ewers and basins were made; these are known from the sculpture of Narmer, and examples are found in the royal tombs. They were skilfully hammered out, with cast spouts inserted. The main example of early copper-work is the life-size statue of King Pepy, and the smaller figure of his son (fig. 110). The trunk and limbs are of hammered copper, riveted together; the face, hands, and feet are cast doubtless by cire perdue. The ease and truth of the whole figure shows that there must have been long practice in the artistic working of copper; yet no traces of such figures are found earlier, nor for over a thousand years later, and we may thus realise how scattered are the points we have, in the view of the art as a whole.

The IXth dynasty has left a coarse example of cast copper tooled with a graver, the brazier of Khety, now in Paris. Of the XIIth dynasty there is not much copper work, except for tools. The moulds for casting tools were found at Kahun. They were open moulds, cut out of a thick piece of pottery, and lined smooth with fine clay and ash.

Down to this age copper was used with only small amounts of hardening mixture; after this, bronze of copper and tin came into general use. The earlier copper of the Ist dynasty usually contains one per cent. of bismuth, and later than that one or two per cent. of arsenic, and is “underpoled,” in modern terms, that is, a good deal of unreduced oxide of copper is left in the metal. Both of these mixtures harden it; and by strong hammering it is made still harder. Copper so treated at present can be made as hard as mild steel. Thus the metal was fit for the wood-cutting tools, and for the chisels used for cutting limestone. The harder stones were worked with emery.[1]

[1] The earlier source of copper was Sinai, where there yet remain thousands of tons of copper slag in the Wady Nasb. In the XVIIIth dynasty and onwards, Cyprus—the Kupros island of copper—came into regular connection with Egypt, and probably supplied most of the metal.

METAL STATUARY

110. Merenra (VIth dynasty)

111, 112. Takushet (XXVth dynasty)

Bronze has been found in one case as far back as the IIIrd dynasty, but this was only a chance alloy. It began to be regularly used in the XVIIIth dynasty, 1600 B.C.; and the source of the tin for it is a point of interest in early trade. Cornwall and the Malay States are the only modern sources of importance; but probably other surface sources have been exhausted, as in the case of gold deposits. Now bronze is found in Central Europe about as early as in Egypt, and it is unlikely to have been imported there from Egypt, or to have been traded there as soon as it would be to a great state like Egypt. The presumption would be that it originated about Central Europe. As a district in Saxony is known as Zinnwald, and crystallised oxide of tin is still brought from there and from Bohemia, it is very likely that there may have been stream tin deposits capable of supplying Europe and Egypt.

METAL VASES

113. Bronze pouring vase

114. Bronze fluted vase

115. Silver anti-splash bowl

In the XVIIIth dynasty bronze vessels were wrought very skilfully by hammer-work. The flask (fig. 113) for washing the sandals of Amen, inscribed with the owner’s name and titles, is 9 inches high and has a body 4 inches across; it has been hammered on anvils introduced through the neck, which is only 1¼ inches wide. By the weight of it (7 ounces) it cannot average more than ?40th inch in thickness. A general mode of stiffening the thin metal vases was by fluting the surface (fig. 114), a method also used in prehistoric Greece.

The casting of bronze was generally done by the cire perdue method. A core of blackened sand is usually found in the casting. This was probably sand mixed with a little organic matter; as it is never reddened, probably no clay or mud was used. Over the core the wax was modelled, and the traces of the modelling tool can be seen clearly on unfinished bronzes. On an ibis there was a rolled pellet of wax put between the beak and the breast, so as to induce the flow of the metal along the beak; this would be easily cut away in finishing. An example of a kneeling figure shows the legs completely modelled before putting the pleated dress over them, and then the whole was cast. How the core was fixed within the outer mould is a difficult question. On the many unfinished bronzes that I have examined I have never found a definite connection above the base, but only casual blowholes. Yet the metal was often run as thin as ?50th so that a shift of the core by as little as ?100th inch would throw the casting out, and make a flaw. How the core was retained so firmly in position against the flotation of the melted metal is not clear. No metal bars were put through the core to steady it, as Cellini did in his large castings. A system was used of stiffening bronze-work by casting it over iron rods; by the free use of iron, this must be of the Greek period. Solid bronze castings come into use in Ptolemaic and Roman work.

A favourite decoration of copper-work in later times, from about 700 B.C., was by inlaying lines of gold or silver in it. This is a common system in India now, where it is known as Keft work; the name suggests that it was introduced from Egypt, where Keft was the starting-point of the Indian trade route from the Nile. One of the finest examples of this is the statue in the Athens Museum (figs. 111, 112); another is the hawk-head and collar with the name of Aahmes II in the British Museum. The lines were first chiselled or punched in the copper, and then the gold was beaten into the grooves.

No instance of using soft solder to copper or bronze is known till Roman times.

Lead is found in the prehistoric times in the form of small figures and little objects; it was probably brought from Syria. It next appears as a rather common metal in the XVIIIth dynasty, when net-sinkers were generally made by bending a piece of sheet lead round the edge lines of the net, much as at the present day. In the filling of bronze weights it is found both in the XVIIIth and XXVIth dynasties. And an alloy of copper and lead—now known as pot-metal—was commonly used for statuettes in Greek and Roman times. In Coptic times pewter bowls and ladles were made; the bowls are apparently formed by spinning.

Tin is first known in a piece of bronze rod from Medum, of the IIIrd dynasty. But this was only a freak, and bronze did not come into use till about 1600 B.C., probably introduced from Hungary, as we have noticed. At about 1400 B.C. there is a finger-ring of pure tin, known by its crackling when bent. The metal is, however, scarcely known separate otherwise.

Antimony occurs in the form of beads about 800 B.C.; as it was familiar to the Assyrians also, it may have been traded from them.

Iron working is an important subject in the history of culture, and the appearances of this metal in Egypt are curiously sporadic. The notion, often suggested, that it might rust away and disappear, is absurd; nothing is more permanent and noticeable than iron rust. The early examples are: (1) a piece of sheet iron said to be found between the stones of Khufu’s pyramid; (2) a lump of iron found wrapped up with copper axes of the VIth dynasty form, and placed at the corresponding level in the foundations of the Abydos temples; this is absolutely certain and not open to any doubt; (3) iron ferules said to be found in the masonry of a pyramid at Dahshur; (4) an iron falchion said to be found beneath the base of a statue of Ramessu II. The certainty about the second example—which was found by trained workmen, levelled at the time, and is stuck together with tools of known date—prevents our needing to hesitate about accepting the less precise authentication of the other examples.

Yet iron continued so scarce until about 800 B.C. that we find then a thin iron knife with a handle of bronze cast on it as being the cheaper metal. The explanation of this intermittent use of iron lies in an observation of Professor Ridgeway’s, that all the sites of native iron in the world are where carboniferous strata and ironstone have been heated by eruptions of basalt, and thus produced iron by natural reduction of the ore. Exactly this combination is found in Sinai. Carboniferous sandstone has beds of pure black haematite with it, and a thick flow of basalt has extended over the country. Probably, therefore, occasional pockets of native iron were found there by the Egyptians at long intervals, and thus the use of it was intermittent.

The artificial production of iron seems to have been known earliest in Assyria; it probably arose among the Chalybes at the head of the Euphrates, from whom the Greek name of the metal was derived. Large quantities of iron and steel tools have been found in the Assyrian ruins, but were neglected by excavators. A set of armourer’s tools was found at Thebes with a copper helmet of Assyrian form, and therefore probably left by the expedition under Asshur-bani-pal in 666 B.C. These tools comprise flat chisels, mortise chisels, saws, a punch, a rasp, a file, a twist scoop, and two centre-bits. The forms of most of these tools have already attained to the modern types; but the file is only slight and irregular, and the centre-bits are only fit for hard wood. The edges of these tools are of steel, probably produced by case-hardening the iron.

We next find iron tools brought in by the Greeks at Naukratis. Chisels, flat and mortise, with both tang and socket handles, borers and axe-heads, were all familiar to the Greek before the Egyptian adopted them. One instance of an iron adze of Egyptian type is known, but otherwise it is not till Coptic times that we find a free use of iron for knives, chisels, flesh-hooks, hoes, pruning hooks, and other tools, probably due to Roman influence. To go further in this subject would lead into the general history of tools, which is beyond our scope here.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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