been worked in Canaan from an early date. The Israelites were unable to
drive out the inhabitants of "the valley" because of their chariots of
iron, and when the chariot of the Egyptian Mohar is disabled by the
rough roads of the Canaanite mountains the writer of the papyrus already
referred to makes him turn aside at once to a worker in iron. There was
no difficulty in finding an ironsmith in Canaan.

The purple dye of Phoenicia had been famous from a remote antiquity. It
was one of the chief objects of the trade which was carried on by the
Canaanites with Egypt on the one side and Babylonia on the other. It was
doubtless in exchange for the purple that the "goodly Babylonish
garment" of which we are told in the Book of Joshua (vii. 21) made its
way to the city of Jericho, for Babylonia was as celebrated for its
embroidered robes as Canaan was for its purple dye.

We hear something about the trade of Canaan in one of the cuneiform
tablets of Tel el-Amarna. This is a letter from Kallimma-Sin, king of
Babylonia, to the Egyptian Pharaoh urging him to conclude a treaty in
accordance with which the merchants of Babylonia might trade with Egypt
on condition of their paying the customs at the frontier. Gold, silver,
oil, and clothing are among the objects upon which the duty was to be
levied. The frontier was probably fixed at the borders of the Egyptian
province of Canaan rather than at those of Egypt itself.

Babylonia and the civilized lands of the East were not the only
countries with which Canaanitish trade was carried on. Negro slaves were
imported from the Soudan, copper and lead from Cyprus, and horses from
Asia Minor, while the excavations of Mr. Bliss at Lachish have brought
to light beads of Baltic amber mixed with the scarabs of the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty.