n Egypt,"
in _Man_ (the organ of the Anthropological Society of
London), iii (1903), No. 86.

** Prof. Montelius objected to these conclusions in a review
of the British Museum "Guide to the Antiquities of the
Bronze Age," which was published in Man, 1005 (Jan.), No 7.
For an answer to these objections, see Hall, ibid., No. 40.

It would thus appear that though the Egyptians cannot be said to have
used iron generally and so to have entered the "Iron Age" before about
1300 B.C. (reign of Ramses II), yet iron was well known to them and had
been used more than occasionally by them for tools and building purposes
as early as the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C. Certainly
dated examples of its use occur under the IVth, VIth, and XIIIth
Dynasties. Why this knowledge was not communicated to Europe before
about 1000 B.C. we cannot say, nor are Egyptologists called upon to find
the reason. So the Great Pyramid has played an interesting part in the
settlement of a very important question.

It was supposed by Prof. Petrie that the piece of iron from the Great
Pyramid had been part of some arrangement employed for raising the
stones into position. Herodotus speaks of the machines, which were used
to raise the stones, as made of little pieces of wood. The generally
accepted explanation of his meaning used to be that a small crane or
similar wooden machine was used for hoisting the stone by means
of pulley and rope; but M. Legrain, the director of the works of
restoration in the Great Temple of Karnak, has explained it differently.
Among the "foundation deposits" of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Der el-Bahari
and elsewhere, beside the little plaques with the king's name and the
model hoes and vases, was usually found an enigmatic wooden object like
a small cradle, with two sides made of semicircular pieces of wood,
joined along the curved portion by round wooden bars. M. Legrain has now
explained this as a model of the machine used to raise heavy stones from
tier to tier of a pyramid or other building, and illustrations of
the method of its use may be found in Choisy's _Art de Batir chez les
anciens Egyptiens_. There is little doubt that this primitive machine
is that to which Herodotus refers as having been used in the erection of
the pyramids.

The later historian, Diodorus, also tells us that great mounds or ramps
of earth were used as well, and that the stones were dragged up these
to the requ