*

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 I have reason to believe was done in cutting the limestone rock of the tombs at Thebes; having found a bronze chisel 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, even if they used steel as highly tempered as our own, cannot fail to surprise the beholder, and to elicit from him the confession that our modern sculptors are unable to vie with them in this branch of art.

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

* He says Xaropidɛç xadkai, “ wedges of bronze are found," and infers

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 retempered 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.

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 fre

* I am indebted to Sir R. Westmacott for the following observations on this subject:-"Granite, as most hard materials of that nature, being generally worked with a pick 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. Carpenters' tools again, and saws, are of the best cast steel, and are tempered in oil."

quently added, one hundred and one hundred and fifty years after the erection of the 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, we find that 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: we must therefore account for it in the skill they had acquired, and endeavour 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* is not at all improbable, since, being found in the islands of the Archipelago, it was within their reach; and if this be admitted, we can account for the admirable

*It is probable that this powder was used in sawing granite, a process not uncommonly resorted to by the Egyptians; and the presence of oxyde of copper in the part where the rock was cut, which surprised De Rozière and others, may thus be more readily accounted for.

finish and sharpness of the hieroglyphics on granitic and basaltic monuments, and explain the reason of their preferring tools of bronze to those of harder and more compact steel: for it is evident the powder enters more readily into the former, and its action upon the stone is increased in proportion to the quantity retained by the point of the chisel; whence we now prefer tools of soft iron to hard steel for the same purpose.

As far as the sculpture or engraving of hieroglyphics, this explanation might suffice for their preference of bronze implements; but when we find tools used in quarries made of the same metal, we are unable to account for it, and readily express our surprise how they could render a bronze chisel capable of hewing stone. We know of no means of tempering copper, under any form or united with any alloys, for such a purpose. The addition of tin or other metals to harden it, if exceeding certain proportions, renders it too brittle for use; and that such is not the case is evident from the chisel I found at Thebes, which, though it contains an alloy apparently of tin, is far from being brittle, and is easily turned by striking it against the very stone it was once used to cut. Had it depended on the proportions of its alloys, it ought still to possess the same power as formerly, and its point should act in the same manner upon the stone; for, what is very remarkable, the summit was turned over by the blows it had received from the mallet, while the point was intact, as if it had recently left the hands of the smith who made it.

What, then, gave it the power of cutting the stone, and of resisting in this manner? for unless some medium was employed, as a sheath of steel or other protection to its point, we must confess that the Egyptians appear to have possessed certain secrets in hardening or tempering bronze, with which we are totally unacquainted. The size of this chisel is 94 inches in length; its diameter at the summit is 1 inch, and the point is 7ths of an inch in its greatest width: its weight is 1 lb. 12 oz., 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 t, 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 may be seen in the dagger of the Berlin Museum already noticed §, which probably depended on the mode of hammering the metal, and the just proportions of peculiar alloys.

Another remarkable feature in their bronze is the

* Greek bronzes of the earliest and latest times have all the same proportion of alloy. A little silver sometimes occurs, but this is supposed to have entered accidentally with the tin.

In almost all the bronzes hitherto analysed, the proportion is about twelve parts of tin in a hundred.

There is no direct proof of brass being known to the ancients, and no analysis has yet shown the presence of zinc. I have a ring apparently of brass, but it is possible that gold is there used instead of zinc.