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Read online textbook Duisternis 04 Verlichte Duisternis Hannah Hill ebook all chapter pdf
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Fig. 192.—Iron mattock; from
Place.
If, when the Chaldæans built their first cities, they already knew
how to put metals to such varied uses, they could hardly have failed
to take farther strides in the same direction. In order to measure the
progress made, we have only to establish ourselves among the
Assyrian ruins and to cast an eye over the plunder taken from them
by Botta, Layard, and Place. Metal is there found in every form, and
worked with a skill that laughs at difficulties. Silver and antimony are
found by the side of the metals already mentioned,[379] and, stranger
than all, iron is abundant. The excavations at Warka seem to prove
that the Chaldæans made use of iron sooner than the Egyptians;[380]
in any case it was manufactured and employed in far greater
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.[381] 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).[382]
According to the same explorer some of these implements,
resembling the sculptor’s sharp mallet in shape, were armed with
steel points (Fig. 192).[383] 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 more easily decorated than iron, but it was
upon the latter substance that they counted to give the necessary
hardness and resistance. The contact and adhesion between the two
metals was complete. From this, experts have concluded that the
bronze was run upon the iron in a liquid state.[384]
It is easy enough to understand how the inhabitants of
Mesopotamia came to make such an extensive use of iron in the
instruments of their industry; it was because they were nearer than
any other nation to what we may call the sources of iron. By this we
mean the country in which all the traditions collected and preserved
by the Greeks agreed in placing the cradle of metallurgy—the region
bounded by the Euxine, the Caucasus, the Caspian, the western
edge of the tableland of Iran, the plains of Mesopotamia, the Taurus,
and the high lands of Cappadocia. To find the deposits from which
Nineveh and Babylon drew inexhaustible supplies, it is unnecessary
to go as far as the northern slopes of Armenia, to the country of the
Chalybes, the legendary ancestors of our mining engineers. The
mountains of the Tidjaris, a few days’ journey from Mossoul, contain
mineral wealth that would be worked with the greatest profit in any
country but Turkey.[385]
Bronze was reserved for such objects as we should make of
some precious metal. Botta and Place found numerous fragments of
bronze, but it is to Layard that we owe the richest and most varied
collection of bronze utensils. It was found by him in one room of
Assurnazirpal’s palace at Nimroud.[386] The metal has been
analysed and found to contain ten per cent. of tin, on the average.
[387] These proportions we may call normal and calculated to give
the best results. In one of the small bells that were hung to the
horses’ necks the proportion was rather different; there was about
fifteen per cent. of tin. By this means it was hoped to obtain a clearer
toned and more resonant alloy.
Pure copper seems to have been restricted to kitchen utensils,
such as the large cauldrons that were often used as coffers in which
to keep small objects of metal, like the little bells of which we have
spoken, rosettes, buttons and the feet of tables and chairs not yet
mounted, etc.[388] It is probable that these vessels were also used
for heating water and cooking food.
All these metals, and especially iron and copper, were dearer
perhaps in Chaldæa than in Assyria, because Babylon was farther
from the mineral region than Nineveh; but the southern artizans were
no less skilful than their northern rivals. In our review of the metal
industries we shall borrow more frequently from the north than from
the south, but the only reason for the inequality is that Chaldæa has
never been the scene of exhaustive and prolific excavations like
those of Assyria.
§ 3. Furniture.