THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

'
IRON. 615
Egypt, and not the reverse, and it is also clear that she did
not learn its use from the Libyans.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the Libyans in
Xerxes' host "wore a dress of leather and carried javelins made
hard in the fire\" whilst the western Ethiopians, from above
Egypt, who served in the same army, not only had stone arrowheads
(a thing quite compatible with the use of iron for
cutting weapons),
but also had lances with heads formed of
antelopes' horns siiarpened'-.
Nor on the other hand could the Egyptians have got iron
from the Indian Ocean, or Persian Gulf For not only shall we
presently see that the coast tribes of Beluchistan had no iron
in the time of Alexander, but Procopius-' (sixth century A.D.),
speaking of the Erythrean Sea and the regions on either side of
it, tells us that the fashion of building ships without iron was
due to the fact that neither the Indians nor Ethiopians possessed
iron, nor ccnild they purchase it from the Romans, for
this was explicitly forbidden by
a law, and death was the
penalty for the trader who contravened it.
From this it is plain that even to late times the ])epU'S of
those regions, so far from sii])plying Egy])t with iron, had themselves
to obtain that metal from their more westei'lv neighbours.
Let us now tui'u to Assyria, Tlie earliest reference in the
documents of that country as yet known is in the 'l\'l-t'l-
Amania tablets {circa H.(,'. 14(){)), wliere rings of iron covt-red
{j)late(l with gold occni'. These may be armlets, and their
treatment ])robably shows the value set on iron. Although
inni is here writt(;n with the same ideogram as that of the god
Ninip, yet there seems to be no (|uestion
that iron is meant\
'
"
(TrLTrjOflwv
H.Toil. VII. 71.
I)i- I'li'Ud I'cisirii, 1. Ill: d\\' iiTL oi'Tt aui-iytov
\i>ool rj .MtHoirfS f'xoi'O'ic.
oi''
-
I'l. VII. (17.
ovn ciWo tl tu:^ ('s tovto
/.I'qu
ovot tt/ius I'w^ac'cji' ijorfiallai tovtu!i>
TL oio'i tI (:L(Tlv, vltaui airuiTi ()ia/i//v;i)?7i' dnnpTjiUvini. Ihivaros -/aii tlo ciXui'tl i]
i'rj/j.ia
f(T7(.
*
-Trl-cl-Ainania ral.lrts,- Srliiadn. Krili ii.rhrl lllirhr li,},lu,thrh. I'l. v..
No. >'.)'). II. 2S, ji.
.H'.IC). Cf. II. Wiiirklcr, J Iturii'iitnl isriir I'orsi-huiiiun . X". vi.,
Snics 1..
]i.
i:)S .v,/.
for tliis icfi'ituci' ami the rxtiai-ts iniDtril tVoni A'^syrian talilcis 1 am
in