The upper status of barbarism, in so far as it implies a knowledge of smelting iron, was never reached in aboriginal America. In the Old World it is the stage which had been reached by the Greeks of the Homeric poems[29] and the Germans in the time of Caesar. The end of this period and the beginning of true civilization is marked by the invention of a phonetic alphabet and the production of written records. This brings within the pale of civilization such people as the ancient Phoenicians, the Hebrews after the exodus, the ruling classes at Nineveh and Babylon, the Aryans of Persia and India, and the Japanese. But clearly it will not do to insist too narrowly upon the phonetic character of the alphabet. Where people acquainted with iron have enshrined in hieroglyphics so much matter of historic record and literary interest as the Chinese and the ancient Egyptians, they too must be classed as civilized; and this Mr. Morgan by implication admits. [Footnote 29: In the interesting architectural remains unearthed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenae and Tiryns, there have been found at the former place a few iron keys and knives, at the latter one iron lance-head; but the form and workmanship of these objects mark them as not older than the beginning of the fifth century B. C., or the time of the Persian wars. With these exceptions the weapons and tools found in these cities, as also in Troy, were of bronze and stone. Bronze was in common use, but obsidian knives and arrow-heads of fine workmanship abound in the ruins. According to Professor Sayce, these ruins must date from 2000 to 1700 B. C. The Greeks of that time would accordingly be placed in the middle status of barbarism. (See Schliemann's _Mycenae_, pp. 75, 364; _Tiryns_, p. 171.) In the state of society described in the Homeric poems the smelting of iron was well known, but the process seems to have been costly, so that bronze weapons were still commonly used. (Tylor, _Anthropology_, p. 279.) The Romans of the regal period were ignorant of iron. (Lanciani, _Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries_, Boston, 1888, pp. 39-48.) The upper period of barbarism was shortened for Greece and Rome through the circumstance that they learned the working of iron from Egypt and the use of the alphabet from Phoenicia. Such copying, of course, affects the symmetry of such schemes as Mr. Morgan's, and allowances have to be made for it. It is curious that both Greeks and Romans seem to have preserved some tradition of the Bronze Age:-- [Greek: tois d' en chalkea men teuchea, chalkeoi de te oikoi, chalko d' eirgazonto; melas d' ouk eske sideros.] Hesiod, _Opp. Di._ 134.