Forging a new age: the technological origins of iron metallurgy in the Late Bronze Age Near East

Thesis

A gradually expanding body of evidence for the production and use of iron prior to the 1st millennium BC has contributed towards a realisation that the chronology of iron metallurgy extends farther back into the history of metal-using cultures than previously anticipated. This has brought into question whether iron metallurgy sprang from the technological developments in copper production achieved by the Late Bronze Age in the Near East. More recently, the close integration of finds analysis with the primary contexts of metal production assemblages has provided an opportunity to define the relationship of copper producers with iron during the second millennium BC and earlier. Evidence from a number of sites across the Near East demonstrates that iron in the form of oxides and sulphides would have constituted a significant proportion of the minerals exploited by Middle to Late Bronze Age copper producers. The large scale reduction of these mixed ores that took place across the period may have resulted in the earliest instances of the production of metallic iron as a by-product from which later iron extraction technologies precipitated. Mixed charges of iron and copper oxides and copper-iron sulphides were smelted in both a crucible and reconstructed prehistoric furnace in varying ratios in a series of experiments. Metallographic analysis of the resulting assemblages revealed that metallic iron was produced in substantial quantities as prills both dissolved and as phases in the copper when reducing the copper and iron oxide charges. Significant quantities of iron were also shown to remain in the intermediary products of copper-iron sulphide smelting. Separation of the metallic iron and copper was attempted by means of a crucible and the feasibility of producing workable metallic iron through a co-smelt with copper was assessed. Though diminutive, the quantities of iron that could have been produced by Late Bronze Age metallurgists could have been sufficient to supply the elite demand for a decorative and exclusive material, a role which iron has often been speculated to have fulfilled in its earliest incarnations. Perhaps more crucially, the presence of iron across the breadth of metallurgical practices utilized by Late Bronze Age metal producers would have engendered an experience and understanding which later developed into the full scale ferrous industries that have since granted iron hegemony over the metals in human manufacture.

Authors: Downes, R

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-bpzobvxae
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: copper iron Near East Late Bronze Age experimental archaeology
• Subjects: Metallurgy in archaeology