129 : 15. Iron in Egypt. Some authorities think that iron in Egypt came in about the same time as bronze, or even earlier. A piece of worked iron was found in the Great Pyramid, to which a date of about 3500 B. C. has been assigned. But, according to the archæological investigations of Professor Flinders Petrie, iron came into general use only about 800 B. C. Myres, in _The Dawn of History_, is quoted from p. 60 for the following neat summary, although any of the authorities on Egypt, such as Petrie, Maspero, Hall, Breasted, Elliot Smith, Reisner, Meyer, etc., should be consulted as original investigators: “The presence of iron, rare though it is, as far back as the first dynasty, puts Egypt into a position which is unique among metal-using lands; for, apart from these rare, but quite indisputable finds, Egypt remains for thousands of years a bronze-using, and for long, a merely copper-using, country.... In Egypt iron was known as a rarity, worn as a charm and an ornament, and even used, when it could be gotten ready made, as an implement; and it does not seem to have been worked in the country, and probably its source was unknown to the Egyptians. In historic times they still called it the ‘metal of heaven’ as if they obtained it from meteorites; and it looks at present as though their earliest knowledge of it was from the south; for central Africa seems to have had no bronze age but direct and ancient transition from stone to iron weapons. Yet when they conquered Syria in the sixteenth century, they found it in regular use and received it in tribute. At home, however, they had no real introduction to an ‘Age of Iron’ until they met an Assyrian army in 668 B. C. and began to be exploited by Greeks from over sea.” In this connection see also Ridgeway, _The Early Age of Greece_, pp. 613–614. The same author, pp. 154 _seq._, discusses the value of iron in these early times. Deniker, p. 315 of his _Races of Man_, says Italy had iron as early as 1200 B. C. Montelius assigns 1100 for iron in Etruria.