Knives, never said to be used in war, agricultural and pastoral implements, and axes, though occasionally of bronze, are usually of iron in the Epics.[13] No graves opened in Greek soil have as yet yielded iron tools accompanied by bronze weapons alone. Mr. Arthur Evans, however, who accepts the view that Homer describes an actual period of bronze for weapons, iron for tools, writes, "This corresponds with a distinct phase of archaeological evidence. Thus in the Cypro-Minoan tomb at Enkomi the weapons were of bronze, but small iron knives also occurred (Murray, _Excavations in Cyprus_, p. 25)."[14] The Homeric state of affairs is illustrated by Mr. MacAllister's diggings in a certain stratum of the ancient city of Gezer in Palestine. _All weapons_ are of bronze, _all implements_ are of iron. Gezer was in touch with Aegean art; a bronze sword-blade of the Cnossian "horned" type (the hilt turning up like two horns) was found there.[15] Gaza also had "her Minoan traditions and the cult of the Cretan Zeus." Jewellery of late Aegean taste has been found at Gezer; and the Philistines are suspected of being settlers from Crete, whether Aegean or Achaean. In the present state of knowledge we can say safely that Homer, with his bronze weapons and iron tools, has not invented a state of culture that never existed. The relative uses of excellent bronze for spears and swords, and of dubious iron for implements, were perfectly natural. Homer probably saw this stage in actual life; nobody could invent it; but no Homeric cairn with buried weapons and tools has ever been discovered, and if any had been found, they would long ago have been plundered. There are two lines, or rather one line is twice repeated in the _Odyssey_, which give the _démenti_ to the uniform descriptions in both Epics. Odysseus bids Telemachus hide the weapons in the hall, and, if asked why he does it, reply that the Wooers in their cups may quarrel, and use the arms, and "shame the feast, and this wooing, for iron of himself draws a man to him."[16] This is a proverbial expression of the age when iron is, at least, the dominant if not the only metal for weapons. If, then, this line be as old as the rest of the _Odyssey_, in which weapons are always of bronze, its maker has let out that all the other makers have been saying what they do not mean; and in an age of iron, or overlap of bronze-and iron, have consistently maintained that all weapons are of bronze, while tools are of iron, as a rule.