We couldn't smelt iron in the Bronze Age. And yet there are many examples of iron artifacts from the time, including Tutankhamun's famous dagger.
James Felton, Senior Staff Writer
James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.
Edited by Holly Large Image credit: Dzuba Pavel/Shutterstock.com
The majority of Bronze Age artifacts made of iron were forged from material with its origins in outer space. In fact, one study that looked into the matter found that all artifacts they tested were made of metal that only recently came to Earth, geologically speaking, at least.
If there's one thing you can glean from only knowing the names of the ages and a general sense that humanity progresses with time, in the Bronze Age, we made bronze, and in the Iron Age, we moved on to the trickier task of smelting iron. If you find artifacts made of iron amongst what you believe to be a Bronze Age site, that can confuse your chronology somewhat, or at least it has in the past.
The Treasure of Villena, discovered in 1963, is an archaeologically significant haul of 66 items largely made of gold and silver, including bowls, bottles, bracelets, and other ornaments. When it was found, archaeologists believed it to be from an earlier time, due to the presence of one pesky little metal.
"The discovery of the Cabezo Redondo Treasure (Villena, Alicante) [...] with some golden pieces related to those of Villena, suggest dates for both groups within the Late Bronze Age (1400-1200 cal BC)," one team who investigated it explained in their study.
"The bone of contention that forced some researchers to lower the chronology well into the Late Bronze Age is the existence in the Villena Treasure of two iron metal pieces: a small hollow semisphere covered with an openwork sheet of gold, supposedly interpreted as the end of a sceptre or baton of command or as a sword hilt, and an open bracelet."
These problems are not infrequent, with iron artifacts confusing other studies too. So what gives? Were people smelting iron far earlier than we thought, or are the chronologies all mixed up? Maybe we could throw time travel into the mix somehow? Fortunately for chronology, there is an explanation, and it's pretty cool too. As that team found, the metal came from space.
Whilst people in the Bronze Age were unable to smelt iron, requiring temperatures of 1538 °C (2800 °F), there is another source of iron: meteorites. Analyzing the chemistry of the Treasure of Villena, the team found that it best matched iron that came from a meteorite.
Another famous artifact known to be of meteoric origin is Tutankhamun’s dagger. There is plenty of evidence that the Ancient Egyptians saw iron as important and associated it with the sky.
"From the beginning of the 19th Dynasty (approximately 1295 BC) a new hieroglyphic word for iron appeared: 'bi-A-n-pt', which literally translates as 'iron from the sky'. Why this new word appears in this exact form at this time is unknown but it was later applied to all metallic iron. An obvious explanation for the sudden emergence of the word would be a major impact event or large shower of meteorites," Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physical Sciences at The Open University, Diane Johnson explained in a piece for The Conversation.
"Textual references to iron connect it with aspects of the sky and with the bones of the dead king who will live for ever as an undying star in the sky," she added.
While very cool to know that Tutankhamun's dagger was in fact a space dagger, in terms of artifacts from a similar age, it isn't all that special. A 2017 study, which analyzed nickel to iron ratios of a collection of Bronze Age artifacts, found that this was the norm.
"The present results complementing high quality analyzes from the literature suggest that (most or) all irons from the Bronze Age are derived from meteoritic iron, until some transition period, which occurred supposedly close to about 1200 BC," that study explained.
"The few iron objects from the Bronze Age sensu stricto that could be analyzed are definitely made of meteoritic iron, suggesting that speculations about precocious smelting during the Bronze Age should be revised," it added.
In short, if you ever find an iron artifact from the Bronze Age, it has likely come from a meteorite. Which, we're sure you'll agree, is pretty neat.
The Treasure of Villena, discovered in 1963, is an archaeologically significant haul of 66 items largely made of gold and silver, including bowls, bottles, bracelets, and other ornaments. When it was found, archaeologists believed it to be from an earlier time, due to the presence of one pesky little metal.
"The discovery of the Cabezo Redondo Treasure (Villena, Alicante) [...] with some golden pieces related to those of Villena, suggest dates for both groups within the Late Bronze Age (1400-1200 cal BC)," one team who investigated it explained in their study.
"The bone of contention that forced some researchers to lower the chronology well into the Late Bronze Age is the existence in the Villena Treasure of two iron metal pieces: a small hollow semisphere covered with an openwork sheet of gold, supposedly interpreted as the end of a sceptre or baton of command or as a sword hilt, and an open bracelet."
These problems are not infrequent, with iron artifacts confusing other studies too. So what gives? Were people smelting iron far earlier than we thought, or are the chronologies all mixed up? Maybe we could throw time travel into the mix somehow? Fortunately for chronology, there is an explanation, and it's pretty cool too. As that team found, the metal came from space.
Whilst people in the Bronze Age were unable to smelt iron, requiring temperatures of 1538 °C (2800 °F), there is another source of iron: meteorites. Analyzing the chemistry of the Treasure of Villena, the team found that it best matched iron that came from a meteorite.
Another famous artifact known to be of meteoric origin is Tutankhamun’s dagger. There is plenty of evidence that the Ancient Egyptians saw iron as important and associated it with the sky.
"From the beginning of the 19th Dynasty (approximately 1295 BC) a new hieroglyphic word for iron appeared: 'bi-A-n-pt', which literally translates as 'iron from the sky'. Why this new word appears in this exact form at this time is unknown but it was later applied to all metallic iron. An obvious explanation for the sudden emergence of the word would be a major impact event or large shower of meteorites," Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physical Sciences at The Open University, Diane Johnson explained in a piece for The Conversation.
"Textual references to iron connect it with aspects of the sky and with the bones of the dead king who will live for ever as an undying star in the sky," she added.
While very cool to know that Tutankhamun's dagger was in fact a space dagger, in terms of artifacts from a similar age, it isn't all that special. A 2017 study, which analyzed nickel to iron ratios of a collection of Bronze Age artifacts, found that this was the norm.
"The present results complementing high quality analyzes from the literature suggest that (most or) all irons from the Bronze Age are derived from meteoritic iron, until some transition period, which occurred supposedly close to about 1200 BC," that study explained.
"The few iron objects from the Bronze Age sensu stricto that could be analyzed are definitely made of meteoritic iron, suggesting that speculations about precocious smelting during the Bronze Age should be revised," it added.
In short, if you ever find an iron artifact from the Bronze Age, it has likely come from a meteorite. Which, we're sure you'll agree, is pretty neat.
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