Early ironworking (bloomery iron)
Metalurgia temprana del hierro (hierro de forja)
- Date
- c. 1400 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Kaman-Kalehöyük and Hattusa, central Anatolia, Turkey
- Credited to
- Hittites and Anatolian peoples (tradition: the Chalybes)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Reduction of iron ore in low shaft furnaces with bellows to obtain a sponge that is forged with a hammer; in the Late Bronze Age iron is still rare and ten times more expensive than gold (letter of Hattusili III). Its widespread adoption after 1200 BCE gives its name to the following era.
The 'Hittite iron monopoly' is a historiographical myth; iron from Kaman-Kalehöyük (c. 1800 BCE) and objects in Egypt and Mesopotamia show scattered experimentation. Chinese cast iron is an independent path (5th century BCE).
What it led to
- An end to dependence on distant tin: iron is everywhere, democratising weapons and tools
- Collapse of the bronze palace economy and the rise of more decentralised societies in the Iron Age
- Carburisation and quenching that produce steel, the technological basis of the Assyrian and Roman empires
Built on
- Tin bronzec. 3200 BCE
- Bellowsc. 3000 BCE
- Meteoric iron (Tutankhamun's dagger)
- Shaft furnace
Made possible
- Large-scale iron smelting at Meroec. 500 BCE
- Hispanic sword (gladius hispaniensis)c. 218-200 BCE
- Cast-iron mouldboard ploughc. 100 BCE
- Iron ingots (cheoljeong) of Gaya and Byeonhanc. siglos II-IV
- Paired riding stirrupsc. 300 CE
- Nailed iron horseshoec. 450 CE
- Heavy mouldboard ploughc. 650
- Steel (carburising)
- Iron sword
- Iron axes and tools