happily explained by the ingenious Champollion; as the bowl in which the metal was washed, the cloth through which it was strained, and the dropping of the water, united into one character, at once indicative of the process and the metal.

Much cannot, of course, be expected from the objects found in the excavated tombs, to illustrate the means employed in smelting the ore, or to disclose any of the secrets they possessed in metallurgy; and little is given in the paintings beyond the use of the blow-pipe, the forceps †, and their mode of concentrating heat, by raising cheeks of metal round three sides of the fire, in which the crucibles were placed. Of the latter, indeed, there is no indication in these subjects, unless it be in the preceding wood-cut‡; but their use is readily suggested, and some which have been found in Egypt are preserved in the museum of Berlin. They are nearly five inches in diameter at the mouth, and about the same in depth, and present

No. 375. Blowpipe, and small fireplace with cheeks to confine and reflect the heat. Thebes.

*Or the frame over which the cloth was laid. Vide wood-cut, No. 374.a. fig. a.

+ Bronze forceps, tongs, and tweezers have been found, retaining their spring perfectly.

Wood-cut, No. 374. c.

the ordinary form and appearance of those used at the present day.

From the mention* of earrings and bracelets, and jewels of silver and gold, in the days of Abraham, it is evident that in Asia, as well as in Egypt, the art of metallurgy was known at a very remote period; and workmen of the same countries are noticed by Homer † as excelling in the manufacture of arms, rich vases, and other objects inlaid or ornamented with metals. His account of the shield of Achilles proves the art of working the various substances of which it was made, copper, tin, gold, and silver, to have been well understood at that time; and the skill required to represent the infinity of subjects he mentions, was such as no ordinary artisan could possess; and unless similar works had been already made, the poet would not have ventured on the description he has given.

The ornaments in gold, found in Egypt, consist of rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, earrings, and numerous trinkets belonging to the toilet; many of which are of the early times of Osirtasen I. and Thothmes III., the contemporaries of Joseph and of Moses. Gold and silver vases, statues, and other objects of gold and silver, of silver inlaid with gold, and of bronze inlaid with the precious metals, were also common at the same time; and besides those manufactured in the country from the pro

*Gen. xxiv. 47. 53.

+ Hom. Il. xxiii. 741. A silver cup, the work of the Sidonians, Od. iv. 618, &c. Vide Il. ii. 872. vi. 236., the armour of Glaucus.

Hom. Il. xviii. 474.

duce of their own mines *, the Egyptians exacted an annual tribute from the conquered provinces of Asia and Africa, in gold and silver, and in vases made of those materials.

I have frequently had occasion to notice the elegance of the Egyptian vases, whether of gold or other materials. Many other objects were equally graceful in their form, and the devices which ornamented them; and among these I may cite the golden baskets in the tomb of Remeses, which in

No. 376. Golden baskets represented in the tomb of king Remeses III.

Thebes.

their shape call to mind our European bread baskets.

At Beni Hassan, the process of washing the ore, smelting or fusing the metal with the help of the blow-pipe, and fashioning it for ornamental purposes, weighing it and taking an account of the quantity so made up, and other occupations of the goldsmith, are represented; but, as might be supposed, these subjects merely suffice, as they were intended, to give a general indication of the goldsmith's trade, without attempting to describe the means employed.†

* Diodorus mentions the silver mines of Egypt which produced 3,200 myriads of minæ, but I am not aware of their position. Vide Diodor. i. 49., and suprà, Vol. I. p. 113. and 234.

+ Vide wood-cut, No. 374.

The gold mines of Egypt, though mentioned by Agatharcides and later writers, and worked even by the Arab Caliphs, long remained unknown, and their position has only been ascertained a few years since, by M. Linant and Mr. Bonomi. They lie in the Bisháree desert, or, as Edréesee and Aboolfeda call it, the land of Bigá* or Bojá, about seventeen or eighteen days' journey to the south-eastward from Derow; which is situated on the Nile, a little above Kom Ombo, the ancient Ombos.

Those two travellers met with some Cufic funereal inscriptions there, which from their dates show that the mines were worked in the years 339 A. H. (951 A.D.), and 378 A. H. (989 a. D.); the former being in the fifth year of the Caliph Mostukfee Billah, a short time before the arrival of the Fatemites in Egypt, the latter in the fourteenth of El Azeéz, the second of the Fatemite dynasty.

They continued to be worked till a much later period, and were afterwards abandoned, the value of the gold, as Aboolfeda statest, barely covering the expenses; nor has Mohammed Ali, who sent to examine them and obtain specimens of the ore, found it worth while to re-open them.

The matrix is quartz; and so diligent a search did the Egyptians establish, throughout the whole of the deserts east of the Nile, for this precious metal, that I never remember to have seen a vein

*Bigahor Begga is the name which the Bisháreeh Arabs give themselves.

+ Aboolfeda's Description of Egypt, s. 68.

E

of quartz in any of the primitive ranges there, which had not been carefully examined by their miners; certain portions having been invariably picked out from the fissures in which it lay, and broken into small fragments. At a spot near the quarries of Breccia Verde, on the road from Coptos to Kossayr, the working of quartz veins has been carried on to such an extent, and on so grand a scale; the houses of the miners are so numerous ; the consequence of the place so strongly argued, by the presence of a small stone temple bearing the name and sculptures of Ptolemy Evergetes I.; and the length of time the workmen inhabited it, so distinctly proved by the large mounds of broken pottery found there (from which the valley has derived the name of Wadee Foäkheer), that I cannot suppose their labours to have been confined to the mere cutting of tazzi, sarcophagi, fonts, vases, columns, and similar objects from the breccia quarries, which, too, are distant three miles from this spot; and the number of one thousand three hundred and twenty huts, which I counted in the different windings of the Wadee Foäkheer, containing far more workmen than the quarries would require, appears conclusive respecting the object they had in view, and suggests that they had succeeded in finding gold here also, though probably in far less quantities than in the mines of the more southerly district.

The gold mines are said by Aboolfeda to be situated at El Allaga (or Ollagee); but Eshuranib (or Eshuanib), the principal place, is about three