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. Pétrie 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 Dêr 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