The townlet had preserved, at the time of its destruction, the technological use of stone, which, indeed, was found in the four lower strata, and even in the Acropolis of Athens. It occurs, however, in conjunction with gold and silver, copper, bronze, and traces of iron, but no tin.[614] The people were, like most barbarians, very expert metallurgists; and if Dr. Schliemann’s diorite be true diorite,[615] they must have worked with highly-tempered tools. Copper, either pure or slightly alloyed, was the most common metal: we read of a key, a large double-edged axe, a vase-foot, nails, clothes-pins (ἔμβολα), a curious instrument like a horse’s bit (p. 261); a bar, a big ring, a chauldron (λέβης), a ridge (φάλος) for the helmet-crest (λόφος), two whole helmets, three crooked knives, and a lance with a mid-rib (p. 279). Upon the so-called ‘great Tower of Ilios’[616] was found a large mould of mica-schist for casting twelve different articles, axes and daggers. Thus we learn something about the long copper knives which the Homeric heroes carry besides their Swords and use in sacrifice: also we may now reasonably conclude that the Iliad-poets could not, as has often been asserted, have ignored the fusion and the casting of metals.[617] Near this important mould appeared a fine lance (p. 279), and long thin bars, either with heads or with the ends bent round, determined to be hair- or breast-pins. Iron showed only in a sling-bullet, although Dr. Schliemann often mentions ‘loadstone.’[618] The ‘upper Trojan stratum’ yielded other moulds for bar-casting and a four-footed crucible, in which some copper was still visible. The gates supposed to be the Scæan or left-handed[619] had two copper bolts (p. 302). The so-called ‘Palace of Priam’[620] produced a dozen long thin pins for hair or dress; and one of a bundle of five, fused together by fire, had two separate heads, the upper lentil-shaped, and the lower perfectly round (p. 312). Thick nails, fitted for driving into wood, were rare; the labour of two years produced only two. Finally, there were fragments of a Sword, a lance, and other instruments. [Illustration: FIG. 200.—COPPER SWORD WITH SHARP END, FROM THE ‘TREASURY OF PRIAM.’]