Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/698

692 'The gold you sent was very little and alloyed' and in a later letter he says: 'A testing of a delivery of gold, undertaken before the whole royal court, has revealed the fact that what was sent was not gold at all.'

The chief uses of the metal among the ancient Egyptians were for ornament and decoration, and, to a limited extent, as a measure of value, but this use was probably not common except when very large sums had to be paid over. For use as money, it was fashioned into broad, centrally perforated discs or rings about five inches in diameter, but of one standard thickness or weight, and all payments necessitated the use of the balance. Among the commoner articles made of gold were articles of personal adornment—diadems, necklaces, armlets, bracelets, finger rings, earrings and various kinds of jewels. Domestic utensils, except those for the royal household, were seldom made of gold. Vases and other decorative vessels, images of the deities, statuettes of the kings and other royal personages, and images of the sacred animals were commonly made of hammered or cast gold. It was extensively used for temple and altar decorations, particularly during the New Empire, after the conquest of Nubia and Syria in the eighteenth dynasty. The Syrian goldsmiths were superior craftsmen, and much of their work found its way into the temples of Egypt. The decoration of the temples was an act of the most worthy piety, and it was the duty of the king's convoyers of gold from the mines to make an offering of gold in the temples.

When wrought into jewels and chains, it was used by the ruler as a means of bestowing rank and favor upon his worthy officials and court favorites. A victorious general was called into the king's presence, and 'before all the people, in the sight of the whole country,' the 'decoration of the gold' was conferred. The king commanded the royal treasurer to place about the neck and body of the honored servant a certain number of gold chains, and to present him with jewels and gifts, frequently of symbolic character. These might be in the form of bees, lions, bracelets, necklets, hatchets, vessels for ointment and ornament, all worked from the finest gold. The persons receiving this honor were afterwards known as 'the creatures of the gold.'

There is good reason to believe that the Egyptians used unalloyed copper in their arts and manufactures for centuries before they discovered that the addition of a little tin would greatly increase its hardness, make it more responsive to heat, and greatly widen its field of usefulness. But within the period covered by authentic history, copper alone seems to have had a much more limited use than bronze, and the archeologist finds that objects made of copper are not very numerous among the relics of any period of Egyptian history. It is held by some that the name used in the inscriptions for bronze sometimes refers to copper.