The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

40 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
passable for navigation about 2570 B.C." Silver was always imported from abroad,
probably from Cilicia.^'
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 trafific from the Danube to the
Nile, but that some intermediate people, probably some islanders in the Mgeaja, 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
possibihty 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
M Breasted (1912) 136.
" Breasted (1912) 94.