though it was probably more frequent, since communities had a narrower
range, and some must have been living in regions where suitable raw
material was scarce or non-existent. Some well favoured regions also
had begun to develop regular commerce. The inhabitants of the island
of Santorin, the ancient Melos, had before metal was known organised
an export trade in obsidian goods, for they held a monopoly of that
excellent volcanic glass in the Ægean region[78]. It seems likely, too,
that the people of the Lipari islands traded in the same material with
south Italy, Sicily and Malta.[79] Some of the natives of the French
department of Indre-et-Loire, finding themselves possessed of great
quantities of beautiful honey-coloured flint in the neighbourhood of Le
Grand-Pressigny, exported implements, both finished and in the rough,
to many distant places in France,[80] and the same is probably true
of the dwellers on Pen-maen-mawr, if we may judge from the extensive
remains of their industry recently discovered at Graig Llwyd.[81] The
industry of Le Grand-Pressigny seems, however, like the obsidian trade
in the Mediterranean, to belong to the closing phases of the neolithic
age, while the Graig Llwyd factory may well date from the bronze age.
So long as these products of local industry were distributed by land,
as in the case of Le Grand-Pressigny and Graig Llwyd, the old method of
barter from tribe to tribe was possible and doubtless still continued.
But when an island, such as Santorin, was the scene of production, such
methods were ineffectual, and a definite organisation for export became
necessary. To carry goods from one island to a neighbouring isle or to
the mainland requires a ship and a crew, besides some representatives
of the makers to effect the sales. When the ship has been equipped it
is economical to provide a full cargo, and this would be more than one
small community would need or could afford to purchase. This leads
to trading voyages of some days’ or weeks’ duration, when the ship
can call at a number of ports to meet the needs of many communities.
The inland inhabitants have also to be catered for, and the most
serviceable ports became in their turn fresh centres of distribution,
and need a depôt under the supervision of a representative of the
makers.
Thus, even before the close of the stone age, we see developing,
especially in the Mediterranean region, the beginnings of an
organised commerce, involving visits paid by ships and their crews
to distant ports and foreign communities, and sometimes leading
to the establishment of small foreign trading settlements. With
the introduction of metal these features increased rapidly, and,
as we shall see, before the bronze age had been in existence for
many centuries, an extensive trade had grown up, mainly by sea, but
sometimes by land as well, so that bronze became known and used over
most parts of Europe which were not too remote from the sea to be
affected by sea-borne commerce. Thus a considerable mingling of peoples
and cultures took place, not by the sudden arrival of large numbers of
invading hordes, but by the constant infiltration of small bodies of
merchants and seamen.
The origin of the discovery of metal is still unknown, though many
ingenious suggestions have been made. All investigators are agreed that
gold, being the most strikingly conspicuous metal, was the first to be
noticed and used, though there are those who believe that copper was
almost if not quite as early a discovery. Professor Elliot Smith has
made interesting suggestions in both cases. He believes that somewhere
on the African shore of the Red Sea a cult arose which involved the
use of the cowry shell as an amulet for fertility; such cults are
well-known and widely spread.[82] For some reason the shells did not
ultimately satisfy the people, or the supply diminished, and they made
models in gold, deposits of which were found in that locality. Thus
the virtue of the amulet, residing originally in its form, became
transferred to the material, and gold became and has since remained a
lucky and fortunate possession.[83]
Copper, on the other hand, he believes to have been discovered in
Egypt. The inhabitants of this country had, in neolithic days, been in
the habit of mining malachite in the Sinaitic peninsula, and grinding
this mineral on slate palates into a powder, which they applied to
their eyes. Green powder thus applied is said to save the wearer from
the ill-effects of glaring sunlight, and perhaps served also to keep
away the flies, which are a constant source of ophthalmia. Professor
Elliot Smith suggests that an Egyptian grinding his lump of malachite
on his decorated slate palate, one day met with an unusually hard
lump, which he could not grind satisfactorily. In a fit of temper he
threw the offending morsel into the fire, doubtless with words of
objurgation; later on in the ashes he found a small red bead of copper.
A repetition of this action, no doubt with the same formula, produced
an identical result, and so the discovery of the reduction of copper
from its ore was made.[84] I must admit that at one time I doubted the
possibility of this explanation, as I questioned whether the heat of
a fire of dung, now and probably then also, the only available fuel,
would be sufficient to reduce the ore. To satisfy me on this point, Mr.
R. H. Rastall of Cambridge kindly made a laboratory experiment upon a
piece of malachite, and as a result assured me that the heat of a dung
fire would be ample for the purpose.
While admitting that Professor Elliot Smith’s theories are both
possible and suggestive, I feel inclined to offer another, albeit
more prosaic solution to these problems. Primitive men, whether in
prehistoric times or among backward peoples to-day, and, dare I say
it, this is perhaps more true of primitive women, have a habit, not,
I believe, quite extinct even in more advanced circles, of collecting
small objects with natural perforations, or through which holes could
readily be drilled, and stringing them upon a thread or wire to make
necklaces or bracelets for the adornment of their persons. Such customs
carry us back a long way. The old Grimaldi woman from the _Grotte des
enfants_ wore two bracelets composed of perforated shells, while her
son, if indeed he were her son, had worn on his head a chaplet of
the same materials.[85] The Alpine inhabitants of the North Italian
lake-dwellings used the vertebræ of pike for the same purpose.[86]
Whether the use of strings of beads originated in some religious
practice I know not, for it may be that such religious associations,
though found to-day among Buddhists, Moslems and Christians, may be
relatively modern. That in later days it proved a safe and convenient
way of storing accumulated wealth seems more certain, and for this
purpose the custom is still practised. Perhaps after all the Preacher
was right and this, like everything else, was vanity.
Leaving the cause unsolved, we may be content to note that the practice
dates from the first arrival of modern man in Europe, and may be much
older. But shells and the vertebræ of fish are easily damaged, and
store would have been set by perforated stones, which would have been
much more durable. Pebbles of clear quartz, with natural perforations,
were worn sometimes by our Saxon forefathers,[87] but such stones are
scarce and would have been prized accordingly.
I picture to myself the first discoverer of gold as a young man wishing
to obtain the favour of a maid, or perhaps to purchase her from her
father. I imagine such a youth going in search of some object, rare
and durable and capable of being strung on a necklace. Walking down
to a clear stream, perhaps to wash, though more probably to drink
or to fish, he noticed in its bed a brilliant yellow stone of quite
exceptional beauty. Picking it up and examining it he found he could
bend it where it was thin, so that with the aid of a stone he was able
to fashion it into the much sought-for bead. Here he had something
which was perforated, strong, rare and also beautiful. We can imagine
that his success would have been assured. Then would have followed the
first gold rush.
Now copper, too, is found in a native state, and is also malleable and
easily modelled with a stone hammer; it, too, is capable of exhibiting
a bright metallic lustre when clean. Though it could not compare
with gold for beauty, or in the permanence of its natural lustre,
it could well take second place, and being less rare it soon came
to be used freely for decorative purposes. At first it was obtained
only in a native state, and was hammered, not melted, as was the
case until recent times around Lake Superior.[88] Later some copper
ornaments probably fell into the fire, and it was thus discovered
that it could be melted. Later still experiments were made with other
metallic-looking ores, such as chalcopyrite, and the metal age had come.
Where these discoveries were made is still a matter of uncertainty.
Copper objects have been found not uncommonly in tombs of the
second predynastic period in Egypt, and sometimes in those of the
first.[89] So rare, however, are they in the latter, that, since the
two cultures must to some extent have overlapped, it seems possible
that the knowledge of this metal was introduced into Egypt by the
second pre-dynastic people. It has been suggested recently that these
people, with a copper culture, bringing the knowledge of wheat and the
cult of Osiris, came from North Syria, from somewhere between Damascus
and Beyrut,[90] and if Breasted’s views upon the Egyptian calender
are sound, we may expect that they entered the Delta 4241 /B.C./ or
thereabouts.[91]
In Mesopotamia we are not very sure of our dates at so early a period,
nor have we got any clear evidence of the earliest copper civilisation
of that region, but the beautiful copper lions brought back from
Tell-el-’Obeid, near Ur, by Dr. H. R. Hall[92], show that at the time
when they were made the art of working copper must long have been
known, and Dr. Hall tells me that their date may be placed with fair
certainty between 3500 and 3000 /B.C./ Small foundation figures,
cast solid in copper, have been found which date from the time of
Ur-Ninâ, about 3000 /B.C./[93], while Mr. Raphael Pumpelly, describing
his excavations at Anau in Turkestan, states that he found copper
implements in a deposit, which on other grounds he dates between 8000
and 7000 /B.C./[94] While there is no doubt that copper was found in
the lowest layer of the Anau village site, there are few people who
agree with the early date claimed for it by Mr. Pumpelly. Taking all
the available evidence into consideration, it seems likely that copper
was known and used in western Asia as early as 4500 /B.C./ and might
conceivably have been known as early as 5000 /B.C./; that it was known
before that seems unlikely as far as we can judge from the evidence
available at present.
Gold, as we have seen, seems to have been the first metal to be
discovered, though we have no sufficient reason for believing that its
discovery preceded that of copper by any considerable period. Objects
of gold have been found in graves of the second pre-dynastic period in
Egypt, as well as some of silver and of lead,[95] so that before 3500
/B.C./ the metal age had passed its infancy.
It will be seen from what has gone before, that the discovery of metal
must have taken place somewhere in western Asia; in Asia Minor, Armenia
or Persia. The knowledge spread first of all from tribe to tribe and
from city to city, and the objects were traded like the stone axes
of Le Grand-Pressigny and Graig Llwyd; but about 4241 /B.C./ this
knowledge was carried into Egypt with an invading people. So far,
then, there is no evidence of organised trade, for the gold, silver
and lead, which have been found in the pre-dynastic tombs, may have
arrived in the same way. Gold, it is true, was found in quartz veins
in the granite mountains by the shores of the Red Sea, and in the Wadi
Foakhir,[96] but it is not clear that these sources were tapped before
the fourth or fifth dynasties; in later days the principal source of
supply was Nubia which had, however, been inaccessible to traders until
Mernere had made the first cataract passable for navigation about
2570 /B.C./[97] Silver was always imported from abroad, probably from
Cilicia.[98]
There are reasons for believing that some, at any rate, of the gold
used during the period of the Old Kingdom was of foreign origin.
Professor Flinders Petrie tells me that Dr. Gladstone made for him an
analysis of the gold object found in the tomb of King Khasakhemui, of
the second dynasty, who reigned, according to the chronology we are
using, about 3200 /B.C./ He found on this gold object a red crust,
which he stated was antimoniate of gold. Now it appears that antimony
will only combine with gold in the presence of tellurium, and Professor
Petrie tells me that he has been advised that there is no known source
of this ore, telluride of gold and antimony, except in Transylvania. I
have been informed that all the gold found within the Carpathian ring
is of this nature, but as the richest sources lie in Transylvania,
where gold was worked by the Romans, the conclusion is the same, that
before 3200 /B.C./ the Egyptians were obtaining gold from Central
Europe.
As it seems unlikely that gold would be carried between such distant
points as the valleys of the Danube and the Nile by the old method
of bartering from tribe to tribe, especially since there are so many
physical obstacles on the route, including the Taurus range, it seems
more likely that we should see here evidence for an organised sea
commerce. Not that I would imply a direct sea traffic from the Danube
to the Nile, but that some intermediate people, probably some islanders
in the Ægean, the people perhaps of Melos or Crete, traded on the one
hand with settlements near the mouth of the Danube and with those in
the Delta as well. The obsidian trade of Melos may well be as early as
this, in fact it seems to have been on the decline by 3000 /B.C./, and
we find Cretan trade flourishing only a few centuries later. Either or
both of these islands might well have been responsible for this traffic.
Oversea trade, then, was in existence, if not very highly developed,
during the early days of metal, the centuries preceding 3000 /B.C./
The knowledge of copper, and the possibility of making copper nails
and wire, must have given a great impetus to ship building, which must
at this stage have passed from the use of rafts and dug-outs to that
of boats built as we know them now. But a new discovery, greater even
in some respects than those which I have been describing, was still
further to encourage oversea traffic.
The manufacture of implements of flint and obsidian had reached a high
pitch of perfection during the early days of metal, and although the
new materials were valuable for ornaments, copper knives were, in many
respects, less serviceable than stone ones, as the metal is soft and
its edge easily turned. It is true that many men, particularly those
who wished to display their wealth, preferred copper daggers to those
made of flint, for they were more ornate, more novel and had a scarcity
value. Those, however, who were poor, or untouched by the fashionable
snobbery, preferred the well-tried flint article, which was probably
more effective for its purpose.
But with the discovery that the addition of about ten per cent. of tin
to the copper produced an alloy of considerable hardness and no little
toughness as well, from which could be made implements which seldom
chipped or turned, and which could have their edges quickly renewed by
hammering or grinding did such an accident happen, the days of copper
came quickly to an end, and the traffic in flint implements, even in
obsidian, fell upon evil days. It was this discovery, which made metal
not merely a luxury, but a really serviceable article to man, which
brought the stone age to an end and ushered in the true metal age.
How, when and where this discovery was made is still a mystery. At one
time I was disposed to think that it was perhaps in Spain, where both
these metals are found, that the discovery was accidentally made, but
evidence which has come to hand quite recently has disposed of this
idea. Professor Sayce has recently published an extract from a tablet
found in the royal library of Assur.[99] It is from a document drawn
up in the reign of Sargon of Akkad, whose date has now been finally
fixed at 2800 /B.C./ It is a geographical description of that monarch’s
empire, giving a list of the provinces, at the close of which it is
said that his conquests had extended “from the lands of the setting
sun to the lands of the rising sun, namely to the tinland (Ku-Ki) and
Kaptara (Crete) countries beyond the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean).”
At first there was a tendency to interpret this passage as though
Ku-Ki was beyond the Mediterranean, and must refer either to Spain or
Brittany; but this is to misunderstand the passage. As Professor Sayce
says: “the western extension of the empire ended with the Syrian coast;
beyond that were Kaptara or Krete and the Tinland.” Ku-Ki may well have
been Cyprus, or some other island in the Mediterranean, or some region
easily accessible from it.
Now the importance of this passage is that it shows us that as early
as 2800 /B.C./ the Babylonians were cognisant of the existence of tin,
and doubtless aware of its value as an ingredient of bronze; this can
only mean that they were using it to harden the copper, which they had
worked so well centuries earlier. The passage implies that Sargon’s
rule extended to Ku-Ki, which may perhaps mean no more than that some
of his subjects had a trading post there. What seems important is that
the discovery of the value of tin and bronze had been made before 2800
/B.C./, somewhere in western Asia, though at what sites is at present
uncertain. Copper mines, which are known to have been worked at an
early date, exist south of Trebizonde, near Erzeroum, in Armenia and at
Diarbekir in the upper valley of the Tigris; ancient tin workings have
been found further east in Khorazan.[100] But the local supply of tin
was apparently insufficient, and merchants from the Persian Gulf were
carrying on a trade in this commodity with a place in the Mediterranean
region, even if they had not already, as seems probable, established a
definite trading post in Ku-Ki.
Thus we see that a definite organised trade, both by sea and by land,
had been established in the eastern Mediterranean region before 2800
/B.C./, and that this included a new and important feature, the
search for and importation of raw materials as well as the export of
manufactured articles.
Now, as I have shown elsewhere,[101] at a date which cannot be very
much later, during a period which closed about 2200 /B.C./, the
eastern Mediterranean was in close trade relations with Spain, and
was exploiting the mineral resources of that peninsula. At present it
is uncertain who these traders were, but they seem to have been in
touch with Crete, the Cyclades and the second city of Hissarlik, and
perhaps too with Cyprus. Though we have no evidence that these traders
were from the Persian Gulf, they were trading between Spain and the
area in which Ku-Ki probably lay, and if they were not subjects of the
Babylonian Empire, they were at least carrying on the metal trade first
organised by the people from the Persian Gulf.
Quite recently it has been stated that there is no clear evidence that
the Spanish copper mines had been worked at so early a time,[102] but
the data cited by Siret[103] seem to me to prove conclusively that the
early settlements of El Argar had direct or indirect trade relations
with Hissarlik II., and the discovery throughout the Spanish peninsula
of clay balls of a certain type,[104] which exactly resemble some found
by Schliemann in the burnt city,[105] seems to me to place this early
connection beyond all reasonable doubt.
How early this Spanish trade began we cannot yet say with certainty,
beyond the fact that it must have been in existence for some time
before the destruction of Hissarlik II. in 2225 /B.C./[106] How long
it continued in the same hands is also uncertain. But, as I have shown
elsewhere,[107] there is evidence that while it lasted, and certainly
before 2000 /B.C./, the eastern traders not only passed through the
Pillars of Hercules and discovered the tin fields in the north-west of
the peninsula, but learned also that both tin and gold were to be found
in the rivers of the south of Brittany. Before the close of the third
millennium, probably several centuries before its close, this Levantine
trade had reached the Morbihan, where stone axes have been found which
repeat the shapes of copper axes from Cyprus.[108]
Now, if we compare the copper and bronze axes found throughout the
Mediterranean, from Cyprus to Spain, and those found along the west of
Europe from Spain to Brittany, we find a gradual change in form from
the triangular axes of Cyprus to the western type, with semi-circular
butt and widely splayed edge. The earliest types are found only in
the east, the more developed only in the west, for in the east they
followed a different line of development. It is true, however, in a
general way that the type develops as we pass westward and northward,
two or more varieties overlapping at many points en route. This can
better be understood by reference to the series of axes shown in Plate
I., which could probably be made more perfect, were it possible to get
drawings of all the specimens in local museums and private collections.
If again we take the copper daggers, with broad butts and slightly
ogival blades, several of which have been found in Crete, and compare
them again with those found at Scurgola in South Italy and Monteracello
in Sicily,[109] and with other types from Malta,[110] Spain, Brittany
and the west, we shall find the type gradually narrowing at the butt
and lengthening in the blade, till we come in later centuries to
the type commonly known as the rapier, but which I think might more
correctly be termed a dirk (see Plate II.).
The gradual evolution of the axe and the dagger as they pass westwards
and northwards seems to indicate a line of trade, spreading further and
further to the north-west as the centuries pass. At present we must
be content with an outline of the movement, but if illustrations of
all the specimens found in these regions were available, I doubt not
but that the evidence would be more convincing and the details and the
dates more minute and exact.
Thus we find these early traders seeking for copper, tin and gold, or
any other precious commodities, on the north-west of Europe before
2000 /B.C./, and it has been shown by various authorities that among
the gold-fields explored at that time none was richer than the
Irish gold-fields in the Wicklow Hills.[111] It is needless here to
recapitulate all the evidence which has been adduced to establish
the early working of these deposits. The wealth of gold ornaments of
this period found in the island, most of which have passed into the
melting pot, but hundreds of which are still in the National Museum at
Dublin,[112] would alone be sufficient evidence; but we know also that
certain ornaments, known as _lunulæ_ or crescents, were exported and
reached Brittany, Denmark and Germany.[113] It is likely, too, that
gold objects of Irish origin reached to more distant places.[114] This
shows us that Ireland was in touch with the trade routes we have been
discussing, and this in turn accounts for the vast numbers of bronze
implements of early types which are to be found in all museums and
private collections, not only in Ireland itself, but throughout Great
Britain.