The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

36 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
over most parts of Europe which were not too remote from the sea to be affected by
sea-borne commerce. Thus a considerable minghng 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 beheve that copper was almost if not quite as early a discovery. Professor
Elliot Smith has made interesting suggestions in both cases. He beheves 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.' 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
locahty. 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.*
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 apphed to their eyes. Green powder thus applied is said to save the wearer from
the ill-effects of glaring sunUght, and perhaps served also to keep away the flies, which
are a constant source of ophthalmia. Professor Elliot Smith suggests that an
Eygptian, 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.^ 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,
5 Smith, G. Elliot (1919) 143, 150-153.
' Smith, G. Elliot (1919) 221-225.
7 Smith, G. Elliot (191 1) 4.