Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/152

114 As early as three thousand years before the Christian Era Egyptian seagoing ships (p. 32 and Fig. 14) began to issue from the Nile and cross the Mediterranean northward. The copper which these ships brought into the Ægean (p. 14) then slowly spread, through the Mediterranean, from people to people. It finally crossed Europe as the trader carried it with his pack trains up the Rhone and the Danube, or over the Alpine passes into the valley of the Elbe and there shifted his cargo to river boats, in which he floated downstream to the northern seas—where by 2000 B.C. copper became common as far north as Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. In return the trader carried back amber to the Mediterranean ports.

Stone implements had, however, by no means disappeared in Europe, but the northern craftsman, pleased with the form of