Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/120

 toî A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ea. polis of Tharros. In all probability, however, its presence in the island, in its manufactured state, is not earlier than the commence- ment of the Roman conquest ; although the Phoenicians had been acquainted with it long before they landed in Sardinia. The difficulty of reconciling the discrepancy involved by the absence of iron in native art, with Punic patronage under whose shadow it grew and was fostered, led to the somewhat hasty conclusion that bronze monuments were much older than had been at first supposed. An assumption which we deem unsubstantiated by evidence. 1 For although iron mines exist in Sardinia, great ex- penditure of money and labour are required to reduce the ore ; hence the beds were left untouched in the old days, even as they are now. Innumerable examples, too, might be brought forward in proof of the obstinacy shown by certain nations, in their pre- ference of goods or weapons with which they are familiar, rather than betake themselves to better articles close to hand. It is a well-known fact that the introduction of iron into Egypt was effected at a very late period ; whilst bronze was used, to the exclusion of any other metal, in Northern Europe to the beginning of our era. According to Herodotus, in the fifth century b.c., the arms of the Massagetes were bronze. 2 With the Gauls and Britons, bronze was not replaced by steel weapons until long after their intercourse with nations from whom, had they desired, they might have borrowed them. 3 Again, we read in Strabo, that the Lusitanians employed none but bronze lance-heads, albeit they were in very early days on an amicable footing with the Phoeni- cians. The case equally applies to most Oriental nations. Whoever has visited Albania and other parts of the Turkish empire, must have observed how conservative these people are in the matter of their old, ill-constructed, albeit picturesque blunderbusses, when needle-guns might be obtained from any European centre. Only a few years back, the Sardinian peasant was not to be persuaded to part with his long carbine, or " canetta," of native manufacture, for a good rifle, such as was in the hands of every sportsman of the more populated localities. This, he was wont to view with 1 We wish to note that throughout this portion of our volume, we do no more than summarise M. Pais's views upon the subject under discussion. 2 Herodotus, i. 215. 3 Alex. Bertrand, La Gaule avant les Gaulois, pp, 149-172, 1884. Evans, L'Age du Bronze, p. 512 and following,