Is Iktis in Cornwall, and did Iron and Copper Precede Tin?

Abstract

AT Penzance on October 19, 1883, I asserted that the invention of tin-smelting was Cornish, but disputed the claim of St. Michael's Mount to be the sole claimant to the title of Iktis, the tin-shipping port described by Diodorus Siculus 1800 years ago, and I thought the inventions of metals were in this order: (1) iron, (2) copper, (3) tin. We may consider the Romans invaded Britain purposely to obtain its metals, which were then worked extensively by the British inhabitants. I believe the Romans either adopted Celtic names of places or things, or translated their meaning. I find the Cornish district, or Land's End, described by Ptolemy the geographer in the second century as “Belerium,” that is the land of mines, “bal” being Cornish for a mine. The word is also met with in Irish. In the same manner the skin boats used by the Cornishmen, which so much astonished the Greek travellers, were described by the Greeks under the name of “coracles,” evidently a Celtic word from the Celtic root “cren” or “croen,” skin. So tin, I think, is derived from the Irish word “teine,” Welsh “tan,” teine probably also expressing brightness. Even in the Malay Peninsula, in the East Indies, a word of similar sound, “timah,” still stands for “tin,” and not the Greek term for that metal “kassiteros.”