facility of working it, might be a reason for preferring the latter whenever it answered the purpose instead of iron. Bronze tools might also be made available for sculpturing and engraving stone; though there is great difficulty in accounting for their use in mines and quarries, where the stone was frequently hewn with them; as Agatharcides informs us in his account of the gold mines, and as was evidently done in cutting the limestone rock of the tombs at Thebes; a bronze chisel having been found amidst the chippings of the stone, where it had been accidentally left by the workmen. The hieroglyphics on obelisks and other granitic monuments are sculptured with a minuteness and finish which is surprising, even if they had used steel as highly tempered as our own. Some are cut to the depth of more than two inches, the edges and all the most minute parts of the intaglio presenting the same sharpness and accuracy; and I have seen the figure of a king in high relief, reposing on the lid of a granite coffin, which was raised to the height of nine inches above the level of the surface. What can be said, if we deny to men who executed such works as these the aid of steel, and confine them to bronze implements? Then, indeed, we exalt their skill in metallurgy far beyond our own, and indirectly confess that they had devised a method of sculpturing stone of which we are ignorant. In vain should we attempt to render copper, by the addition of certain alloys, sufficiently hard to sculpture granite, basalt, and stones of similar quality. No one who has tried to perforate or cut a block of Egyptian granite will scruple to acknowledge that our best steel tools are turned in a very short time, and require to be re-tempered and the labour experienced by the French engineers, who removed the obelisk of Luxor from Thebes, in cutting a space less than two feet deep, along the face of its partially decomposed pedestal, suffices to show that, even with our excellent modern implements, we find considerable difficulty in doing what to the Egyptians would have been one of the least arduous tasks. The use of tools on granite is thus described by Sir R. Westmacott: "Granite, as most hard materials of that nature, being CHAP. VII. HARDNESS OF GRANITE. 157 generally worked with a piek of various strength, until reduced to a surface, the duration of the tool depends on its form; the more obtuse the longer it will work, remaining longer cold. In jumping (as it is termed) holes for the admission of bolts into fractured parts of granite, the tools are usually of strong tempered iron, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, which resist the heat sometimes half an hour, seldom longer. One man holds, and turns, or moves the tool, whilst the other strikes it with a heavy hammer, the hole being supplied with water. Tools of less diameter are formed of steel, but these will not resist more than 300 strokes, when the points fly, and require to be fresh battered. Sculptors generally use tools formed of blistered steel, or of cast steel, the finer sort highly tempered by immersing them, when heated to a proper degree, into cold water." Some have imagined that the granite, being somewhat softer at the time it is taken from the quarry, was more easily sculptured when the Egyptians put up the obelisks than at present, and thus satisfy themselves that the labour was considerably less; but this argument is entirely overthrown by the fact of other sculptures having been frequently added, one hundred, and one hundred and fifty, years after the erection of a monument, as in the lateral lines of hieroglyphics on obelisks; which are sometimes found more deeply cut and more beautifully executed than those previously sculptured. Others have suggested that the stone being stunned, as it is termed, in those places where it was to be sculptured, yielded more readily to the blow of the chisel; but neither is this sufficient to produce the effect proposed, nor an advantage exclusively enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians. Thus, then, the facility they possessed of sculpturing granite is neither attributable to any process for bruising the crystals, nor to its softer state on coming from the quarry, and we have still to discover the means they employed with such wonderful success. The hieroglyphics on the obelisks are rather engraved than sculptured; and, judging from the minute manner in which they are executed, we may suppose they adopted the same process as engravers, and even in some instances employed the wheel and drill. That they were acquainted with the use of emery powder 158 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. is not at all improbable, since, being. found in the island Archipelago, it was within their reach; and if this be a we can account for the admirable finish and sharpnes hieroglyphics on granitic and basaltic monuments, and the reason of their preferring tools of bronze to those of and more compact steel: for it is evident the powder ent readily into the former, and its action upon the stone is i in proportion to the quantity retained by the point of the whence we now prefer tools of soft iron to hard steel same purpose. As far as the sculpture or engraving of hieroglyphi explanation might suffice for their preference of bronze ments; but when we find tools used in quarries made of t metal, we are unable to account for it, and readily expr surprise how they could render a bronze chisel capable of We know of no means of tempering copper, und form or united with any alloys, for such a purpose. of tin or other metals to harden it, if exceeding certain tions, renders it too brittle for use; and that such is not the evident from the above-mentioned chisel I found at Thebes contains very little alloy, 100 parts being 94 0 copper, stone. The a 5-9 tin, 100.0; and its point is instantly turned by striking it against th stone it was once used to cut. And yet when found the s was turned over by the blows it had received from the mallet the point was intact, as if it had recently left the hands smith who made it. It is difficult to say how it could have been used for cutting and unless some medium was employed, as a sheath of steel of protection to its point, the Egyptians must have possessed secrets in hardening or tempering copper, with which w totally unacquainted. The size of this chisel is 9 inch length; its diameter at the summit is 1 inch, and the po CHAP. VII. BRONZE TOOLS. 159 and in general form it resembles those now used by the masons of modern Europe. The skill of the Egyptians in compounding metals is abundantly proved by the vases, mirrors, arms, and implements of bronze, discovered at Thebes, and other parts of Egypt; and the numerous methods they adopted for varying the composition of bronze, by a judicious admixture of alloys, are shown in the many qualities of the metal. They had even the secret of giving to bronze, or brass, blades a certain degree of elasticity; as in the dagger of the Berlin Museum; which probably depended on the mode of hammering the metal, and the just proportions of peculiar alloys. (See vol. i. p. 148.) Another remarkable feature in their bronze is the resistance it offers to the effect of the atmosphere; some continuing smooth and bright, though buried for ages, and since exposed to the damp of European climates. They had also the secret of covering the surface with a rich patina of dark or light green, or other colour, by applying acids to it; as was done by the Greeks and Romans, and as we do to the iron guns on board our men-of-war. The colour of their bronze depended on the alloys. It generally had from twelve to twenty parts tin to eighty or eighty-five copper. When half tin it had a whitish appearance; and some Roman bronze was of a "liver colour," probably like our urns. Lackered brass has even been found, of Roman time. Yellow brass was a compound of zinc and copper; and a white and finer kind had a mixture of silver, which was used for mirrors, and is one quality of the so-called "Corinthian brass." Another, which was yellow, and very like gold in appearance, was partly made of that metal with copper; and its beauty has been proved by the discovery of a cup, still capable of receiving some portion of its original polish. In Egypt, as in Greece, bronze ornaments were often gilt, but statues were preferred plain, or inlaid, or damaskened with gold or silver. Those of the Navarchai were, therefore, said by Plutarch to be blue from exposure to the air; and Pliny thinks the large colossus of Nero improved by the gilding having been scraped off in spite of the scratches caused by the ration It is not known at what period they began to cast statues and other objects in bronze, or how long the use of beaten copper preceded the art of casting in that metal. No light is thrown on this point by the earlier paintings, nor is there any representation in later times, among the many subjects connected with the trades, arts, and occupations of the Egyptians, which relates to this process:—one of the many proofs that no argument against the existence of a custom ought to be derived from the circumstance of its not being indicated on the monuments. Many bronzes have been found, evidently, from their style, of a very early period. A cylinder, with the name of Papi, of the 6th Dynasty, has every appearance of having been cast; and other bronze implements of the same age bear still stronger evidence of having come from a mould; all of which date more than two thousand years before our era. Pausanias, in speaking of the art of casting metal, says the people of Pheneum in Arcadia pretended that Ulysses dedicated a statue of bronze to Neptune Hippius, in order that he might recover the horses he had lost, through the intervention of the Deity; "indeed," he adds, "they showed me an inscription on the pedestal of the statue offering a reward to any person who should find and take care of the animals; but I do not give credit to the whole of their statement, and no one can persuade me that Ulysses erected a bronze statue to Neptune. The art of fusing metal and casting it in a mould was not yet known; a statue was made in those times like a dress, successively, and in pieces, not at one time, or in a single mass, as I have already shown in speaking of the statue of Jupiter, surnamed the Most High. In fact, the first who cast statues were Rhocus the son of Philæus, and Theodorus the son of Telecles, both natives of Samos; the latter the same who engraved the beautiful emerald in the ring of Polycrates." The Samians were noted at an early period for their skill in this branch of art; and before the foundation of Cyrene, or B.C. 630, they made a bronze vase, ornamented with griffins, supported on three colossal figures of the same metal, for the temple of Juno. The art was also known at a very remote period in Italy. |