Iron in the Bronze Age?
As readers of this site will be aware, we propose that the Exodus took place at the end of the Early Bronze Period and that the nomadic occupants of Palestine during the period known as Middle Bronze I or EB/MB were in fact the Israelites under Joshua. This is contrary to the usual chronology which places the Exodus at the start of the Iron Age, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support and considerable evidence against the theory.
One of the objections that is sometimes raised against this proposed Revised Chronology is the fact that the Biblical accounts refers to the presence of iron among the enemies of Israel. Og, king of Bashan, famously had an iron bedstead (Deuteronomy 3:11) and others are described as having chariots of iron (for example: Joshua 17:16). How, the objectors ask, can there be iron in the middle of the Bronze Age?
In the first place we need to realise that iron was still a rarity. In the directions given concerning the Cities of Refuge, to which a person who had accidentally killed another could flee, it is specifically said that if the weapon used was of iron, the death was murder, not manslaughter. (Numbers 35:16) It would be like an American court deciding that if the deceased had been killed with a pistol it might be manslaughter but if the killer had used a machine gun it had to be murder.
In the second place, literary evidence apart, we know that there were iron weapons about because Tutankhamun was buried with two iron daggers. It is interesting to note that they were actually buried on his body whereas bronze and gold weapons were simply laid in the tomb. Whether it was because iron was more precious than gold or that the boy king appreciated that it kept its edge longer is debatable, but the fact remains.
Now Japanese archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered what they claim is the world's oldest steel, a piece of metal 2" long that may have been part of a knife or dagger. Nine years ago (this is now 2009) the archaeologists were digging at Kaman-Kalehoyuk about 60 miles south-east from Anakara in a stratum that had already produced two lumps of iron ore and a small piece of slag.
Six years earlier the Japanese had discovered another piece of iron, which they dated to around 1900 BC. This latest piece has been analysed at the Iwate Prefectural Museum in Morioka and the experts pronounce it two centuries older than the first, which makes it the oldest iron in the world.
Actually, the press release describes it as the oldest steel, which is quite interesting. Smelting iron ore usually results in a material that melts at a relatively low temperature because it has a good deal of carbon dissolved in it. Although harder than copper, it is quite pliable and when formed into tools or weapons they are easily blunted.
To make steel you have to smelt the iron with just the right amount of carbon in the mix and keep oxygen away. A mixture of iron and between 0.2% and 2.14% of carbon (by weight) is classed as steel. Increasing the carbon content beyond this figure produces a harder metal, but one which is brittle and easily broken - not the sort of qualities you want in a sword!
If this is indeed steel, as the archaeologists claim, then it implies that the metal workers of Kaman-Kalehoyuk had a good deal of experience behind them - either that or they struck uncommonly lucky!
What makes this find so interesting is that iron and steel production was thought to have begun in this area but not until the time of the Hittites, some five to seven hundred years later! If the Hittites were indeed the ones who turned the Bronze Age into an Iron Age we must assume that they had some ancient Bessemer or Darby who changed iron production from an arcane home craft into what passed for an industrial process.
© Kendall K. Down 2009
