It has even been suggested that no
interval of time of any great extent is needed, as the practice
of cremation may quickly develop among any race, being prompted
by the comfortable idea that when the flesh is disposed of, the
possibly inconvenient, possibly even vampire, ghost of a disagreeable
ancestor goes along with it.
Another difficulty arises from the fact that the Homeric poems
certainly contemplate a much wider use of iron than can be found
among the remains of the Mycenaean people. But the weight of this
objection may easily be exaggerated. Certainly the equipment
contemplated for the Homeric heroes is in most cases of bronze,
though the well-known line from the Odyssey, 'iron does of itself
attract a man,' bears witness to a time when iron had become the
almost universal fighting metal. But even in some of the Mycenaean
tombs iron appears in the shape of finger-rings; and in East Cretan
tombs of the latest Minoan period iron swords have been found. And
if, as is generally agreed, the Homeric poems represent the work
of several bards covering a considerable period of time, there is
nothing out of the way in the supposition that, while the earlier
writers represented bronze as the material for weapons, because
it was actually so in their time, the later ones, writing at a
period when iron was largely superseding, but had not altogether
superseded, the older metal, should, while clinging in general
to the old poetic word used by their predecessors, occasionally
introduce the name of the metal which was becoming prevalent in their
day.
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