Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Yitzhak,

Sorry about the double mailing.

> Dear Harold,
>
> I really want to thank you for your references.  However, I would like
> to request that
> when the link is to an external site, it is not necessary to quote at
> length.  It means
> I might put off replying to you because of the necessity of reading through 
> your
> entire mail, and hence, that I might end up not reading any of the
> information you
> quote.  It also makes it harder for me to follow your own argument
> because it is
> within all lengthy sections.
>
> I have, however, looked through the sources you provided.  They are
> all problematic
> in one way or another, it seems to me.  Thus, Hoover's page is dated almost a
> century, but you can read it in full here:
> http://www.farlang.com/gemstones/agricola-metallica/page_457/view
>   

HH: The footnote is interesting on this page above that you gave. The
author accepts early Egyptian use of iron but thinks that it disappeared
later. He or she writes:

Despite this evidence of an early knowledge of iron, there is almost a
total absence of Egyptian iron objects for a long period subsequent to
that time, which in a measure confirms the view of its disappearance
rather than that of ignorance of it. Many writers have assumed that the
Ancients must have had some superior art of hardening copper or bronze,
because the cutting of the gigantic stonework of the time could not have
been done with that alloy as we know it; no such hardening appears among
the bronze tools found, and it seems to us that the argument is stronger
that the oldest Egyptian stoneworkers employed mostly iron tools, and
that these have oxidized out of existence. The reasons for preferring
copper alloys to iron for decorative objects were equally strong in
ancient times as in the present day, and accounts sufficiently for these
articles, and, therefore, iron would be devoted to more humble objects
less likely to be preserved. Further, the Egyptians at a later date had
some prejudices against iron for sacred purposes, and the media of
preservation of most metal objects were not open to iron. We know
practically nothing of very early Egyptian metallurgy, but in the time
of Thotmes (1500 b.c.) bellows were used upon the forge.




> The other pages are not dependable for accuracy, and I tend not to
> accept arguments
> by those with novel new theories about Egyptian pyramid architecture
> that are not
> subject to peer review (by Egyptologists, in this case), such as Keith 
> Squires.
> So Keith Squires' article is not "good."  It is good maybe if you want
> to make a
> certain point, but I have no way of checking up on his facts, nor do I know 
> how
> qualified he is to make those conclusions.
>   

HH: Squires has written some books, but I could not find any information
about his qualifications. I told him that he needed to put that
information on his website.

HH: Did you notice that one of the articles I gave you a link for and
that contended iron production was early in Egypt was published in the
/Journal of Materials Processing Technology/.  That appears to be a
peer-reviewed journal.

> I suggest you carefully read through the books I provided.  Jane Waldbaum's
> article on the coming of iron in particular -
> http://books.google.com/books?id=AjUy9SA3vqcC&pg=PA27
> Look through p. 30-31.  Consider that Jane Waldbaum is an experienced
> archaeologist with a long history of research into ancient metallurgy of the
> area, and her article and the book was reviewed and published in standard
> scholarly fashion.  Her article is a good article.
>
> Again, the issue is not simply the way the word is used, or whether Moses
> could use the word, but what kind of cultural background is implied by the
> various uses of the word.  Gen 4:22 mentions smithing of both bronze and
> iron, but Num 35 mentions only iron as a metal for weapons.

HH: The article said that the use of iron or bronze could be local
matters determined by supply or other factors. Iron was one material
used to make deadly weapons. Only one metal was needed in Moses' list
because Moses was dealing with categories: metal, stone, wood:

Num 35:16  "If anyone strikes a person with an iron object and death
results, he is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death. 17 If a
man has in his hand a stone capable of causing death and strikes another
man and he dies, the murderer must be put to death. 18 If a man has in
his hand a wooden object capable of causing death and he dies, the
murderer must be put to death.

HH: He did not have to elaborate more than one kind of metal to get his
idea across.


>   When it is
> clear that such battles as the battle of Kadesh were fought mainly using
> bronze weapons, and when bronze   It also makes no point to hypothesize
> that iron did not survive when several centuries later it does survive, and
> which still leaves us with no answer as to why Num 35 does not mention
> bronze when many bronze weapons are known from the period.

HH: More than one source I read said that iron disappears over time. The
link you yourself gave me above said that:

"and it seems to us that the argument is stronger that the oldest
Egyptian stoneworkers employed mostly iron tools, and that these have
oxidized out of existence."


>   It also
> ignores the fact that the evidence is not simply the iron and bronze
> weapons themselves but also the furnaces and bloomeries. 

HH: The article by Squires said that the forges in Egypt were hot enough
to work with iron. He gave some detail on that score.

>  Consider
> also the interesting detail provided by Waldbaum at the top of p. 30:
> "... the use of nickle-rich iron ... seems to die out after the thirteenth
> century ... [which] could mean ... that metalworkers were abandoning
> meteoritic iron as they became more familiar with smelting techniques
> ..."  (I heavily summarized here to provide the interesting information,
> but other possibilities of interpretation remain and only much more
> analysis will allow a firm conclusion either way).
>
> So, attempting to explain this by the loss of evidence the way the
> lack of inscriptions is explained is rather simplistic and does not
> allow for a comprehensive explanation of the evidence that is
> available.
>   

HH: But remember that I place Moses in 1440 B.C. in line with the
biblical evidence itself. So that would be long before the 13th century,
when Waldbaum says that the use of nickle-rich iron seems to die out.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard