The earliest historical source of tin was in the Cassiterides, or ‘tin-islands’ of Britain; and there can be no doubt, geographical mystifications notwithstanding, that the tin thence derived came, directly or indirectly, from Cornwall. Not improbably, the staple of the Phœnician tin-trade was in the Isle of Wight, which accordingly became the representative tin-island.[339] But this is questionable. What is certain is, that the metal was transported overland to the Gulf of Lyons long before the Phœnicians passed the Pillars of Hercules, and was available, much earlier still, in Egypt and Assyria. The Cornish was not, then, the first source of supply to be opened, nor was the Malaccan. Tin was, in fact, an article of export from Alexandria to India down to the beginning of the Christian era. The modern discovery, however, of tin-mines in Khorassan, the ancient Drangiana, irresistibly suggests that the primitive bronze-workers derived the less plentiful material of their industry from the Paropamisus, and tends to confirm the Turanian lineage imputed to them by Lenormant.[340] Footnote 339: Blümner, _Technologie_, Bd. iv. p. 86. Footnote 340: Von Baer, _Archiv für Anthropologie_, Bd. ix. p. 266; Blümner, _Technologie_, Bd. iv. p. 84. The Homeric name for tin, _kassiteros_, is at any rate clearly of Oriental origin. The Greeks adopted it from the Phœnicians; the Phœnicians _may_, it is thought, have picked it up from Accadian bronze-smiths along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It survives in the Arabic _kasdîr_, and under the form _kastîra_ made its way into Sanskrit, on the occasion of Alexander’s invasion of the Punjâb. Pure tin ranked with Homer almost as a precious metal. Its scarcity gave it prestige; but he had evidently very little acquaintance with its qualities. As Helbig remarks,[341] difficulties of interpretation arise wherever _kassiteros_ is brought on the scene. A good deal of critical discomfort, for instance, has been created by the statement that greaves of tin were included in the warlike outfit supplied to Achilles from Olympus. And bewilderment is heightened later on by the defensive power they are made to exhibit in the hardest trials of actual battle. In point of fact, they would have been as ineffective as papier-maché against the thrust of Agenor’s spear; and their clattering would scarcely have produced the awe-inspiring effect ascribed to it in the following passage. Footnote 341: _Das Homerische Epos_, p. 285. He [Agenor] said, and hurled his sharp spear with weighty hand, and smote him [Achilles] on the leg beneath the knee, nor missed his mark, and the greave of new-wrought tin rang terribly on him; but the bronze bounded back from him it smote, nor pierced him, for the god’s gift drave it back.[342] Footnote 342: _Iliad_, xxi. 591-94; cf. Blümner, _Technologie_, Bd. iv. p. 53.