Surprisingly, Iron from the Bronze Age Turns Out to Come from Outside Earth – new study has revealed something quite surprising. It turns out that most of the iron-based weapons and equipment from the Bronze Age were forged using iron from meteorites .
The above statement may sound strange. How could there be iron in the Bronze Age? However, in fact, several artifacts from that era do contain iron elements. One of them is the dagger of the pharaoh Tutankhamun which was discovered some time ago.
The story of the Bronze Age begins around 3300 BC in the Near East and parts of South Asia. It is called the Bronze Age because of the widespread use of bronze for various things, ranging from weapons, tools and decorations.
Bronze is made by melting lead, arsenic and other metals. The result is a material that is durable and relatively easy to obtain.
This metal was the main choice until it was replaced by iron around 2000 years later.
However, this does not mean that iron was not used during the Bronze Age. Researchers have several times discovered iron artifacts dating from before the Iron Age.
The origin of this iron is also a big question that haunts researchers. The problem is, before it can be used, iron ore must first be melted at a very high temperature. This technology was beyond the capabilities of society at that time.
One theory states that iron tools in the Bronze Age were made from meteorites containing metal that could be directly processed.
If proven correct, this theory will certainly explain the existence of iron in artifacts before smelting techniques developed, how much ancient people knew about the origin of metals, and whether iron at that time was indeed a rare and valuable item.
Albert Jambon from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France tried to find the answer. He performed chemical analysis on several samples of Bronze Age objects to determine whether Bronze Age iron came from earth or outer space.
Artifacts originating from Egypt, Turkey, Syria and China were then analyzed using an x-ray fluorescence spectrometer
With this equipment, Jambon can see whether the metal comes from meteorites or naturally comes from the earth. The reason is that meteorite iron usually contains higher levels of nickel and cobalt than earth’s iron.
Sure enough, all the samples tested turned out to have the same amount of nickel and cobalt as meteorite iron.
Jambon also concluded that basically all iron items from the Bronze Age were made from meteorite iron until the development of the smelting process then marked the start of the Iron Age around 1200 BC.
“The current results complement analysis from the literature showing that most or all of the metal from the Bronze Age came from meteorite metal,” said Jambon as quoted from New Atlas , Wednesday (6/12/2017).
“The next step is to determine where and when the metal will be smelted for the first time,” he added.
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