Bronze to Iron, the Coming of an Age

Have you ever wondered what drove modern humans to abandon bronze for iron? In this paper I will present the reasons for and the techniques used to develop iron into a useable metal that is far superior to bronze. Topics will include, when iron was first used, the accidental discovery of steel, and why bronze was replaced by iron. First though, let us look at the origins of iron. The Iron Age began around 1200 BC, according to Scarre, in southwest Asia (2005:434). It is know however that iron was in use as early as 3000 BC in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt. However iron in the Early Bronze Age was rare and very expensive. It is believed that it was as much as 5 to 8 times as expensive as gold. The weapons and tools made from iron were ceremonial in nature, and any other use was strictly ornamental (Waldbaum 1978:15). During the Middle Bronze Age, 2000 – 1600 BC, references to iron begin to appear in literature with some frequency, but it remained a ceremonial or ornamental metal. It is only in the Late Bronze Age, 1600 – 1200 BC that iron starts to become a working metal in some regions, but even then, bronze remains the main metal for weapons and tools (Waldbaum 1980:75-77). Iron, while it is becoming more prevalent in these societies, it remains an extremely expensive metal, although it is anything but rare, why? It is impossible to know for sure why iron is so valuable, but many scholars believe that early iron production was not intentional, but a byproduct of smelting other metals (Forbes 1958:9). There is evidence that the Egyptians obtained gold dust which was rich in magnetite sand. While not as dense as gold, magnetite is considerably denser than other common sand minerals, and is often found with gold. Then, when the Egyptians melted the gold, at least some magnetite ended up in the crucible, producing small quantities of iron between the gold and the slag (Forbes 1958:200-201). Theodore Wertime presents one objection to this