Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/477

] hieroglyphs, a fact which is proved by the discoveries made in their turquoise mines in the Sinaitic promontory by Mr. Bauerman and others. It is very probable that all the hieroglyphs were carved with flint, since neither bronze nor iron will cut the hard rocks on which they are generally engraved. Steel, however, was known in Egypt in a later period of its history.

The influence of such a people as the Egyptians was felt far and wide in the Mediterranean, and their wealth invited invasion at a time when great movements of population were taking place. The first mention of a European people in the Egyptian annals is the attack of the Sardones and the Tyrrhenes (Etruskans) on the Delta of the Nile, and their defeat by Ramses II., in the fifteenth century before Christ. This invasion was again repeated, about seventy years afterwards, by a more formidable confederation, in which the two above- mentioned peoples were joined by the Sikels, Lykians, Achaians, and Lybians. The allies advanced to the attack by sea and land, conquered part of the Delta, and were defeated after a desperate struggle by Meneptah I. Among their spoils it is interesting to remark bronze knives and cuirasses. From this account it is clear that the maritime peoples of the Mediterranean were sufficiently civilised at this early period to organise powerful armies and fleets, and to deliver a combined attack on the mistress of the world; and it places prominently before us the intercourse and commerce which could alone render such a combination possible. The Sardones and Etruskans may not have been then in