Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/349

 Metallurgy. 311 quantities in Mesopotamia than in the Nile valley. Nowhere in Egypt has any find been made that can be compared to the room full of instruments found at Khorsabad, to the surprise and delight of M. Place. 1 There were hooks and grappling irons fastened by heavy rings to chain-cables, similar to those now in use for ships' anchors ; there were picks, mattocks, hammers, ploughshares. The iron was excellent. The smith employed upon the excavations made some of it into sickles, into tires for the wheels of a cart, into screws and screw-nuts. Except the Persian iron, which enjoys a well-merited reputation, he had never, he said, handled any better than this. Its resonance was remarkable. When the hammer fell upon it it rang like a bell. All these instruments were symmetrically arranged along one side of the chamber, forming a wall of iron that it took three days to dig out. After measurement, Place estimated the total weight at one hundred and sixty thousand kilogrammes (about 157 tons). 2 According to the same explorer some of these implements, resembling the sculptor's sharp mallet in shape, were armed with steel points (Fig. 192). 3 Until his assertion is confirmed, we may ask whether Place may not, in this instance, have been deceived by appearances. Before we can allow that the Assyrians knew how to increase the hardness of iron by treating it with a dose of carbon, we must have the evidence of some competent and careful analyst. It is certain, however, that in the ninth and eighth centuries this people used iron more freely than any other nation of the time. Thus several objects which appear at the first glance to be of solid bronze have an iron core within a more or less thin sheath of the other metal. Dr. Birch called my attention to numerous examples of this manufacture at the British Museum, in fragments of handles, of tires and various implements and utensils, from Kouyundjik and Nimroud. The iron could be distinctly seen at the fractures. The Assyrians clung to the bronze envelope because that metal was more agreeable to the eye and 1 Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 84-89, and plates 70, 71. 2 A certain number of iron implements are exhibited in the British Museum (Kouyundjik Gallery, case e) ; they were found for the most part at Nimroud, by Sir H. Layard {Discoveries, pp. 174 and 194). Among objects particularly mentioned by him are feet of chairs, tables, &c, mattocks and hammers, the heads of arrows and lances, and a double-handled saw 62 inches long. 3 Place, Ninive, vol. i. p. 264 and plate 71 ; figs. 5, 6 and 7.