
Before the Iron Age, Most Iron Came from Space - bookofjoe
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/before-iron-age-most-iron-came-from-space-meteorite-egyptian-bronze
======
tzs
I'm a bit confused. The article says that archaeologists thought that pre-Iron
Age iron use came from isolated early development of iron ore smelting,
because archaeologists did not believe Bronze Age people understood that
meteorites were rocks that fell from the sky.

So what? Iron meteorites differ from "normal" Earth rocks in several ways
visually and they are denser [1]. All a Bonze Age group would need to learn is
that rocks that look a certain way and weight a lot are good places to find
iron. They don't need to know that they fell from the sky.

[1] [https://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite-
identification.shtm...](https://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite-
identification.shtml)

~~~
yeukhon
I was confused too at first, but reading it the second time it seems the
article is about a scientist trying to prove some of the earliest iron
artifacts were made out of iron rocks from meteorites.

> “The main contribution of Jambon’s approach is that he has developed a
> method that allows us to test this hypothesis nondestructively,” says
> Martinón-Torres. Jambon was particularly interested in searching these
> artifacts for nickel, which is not found in smelted iron. By contrast,
> meteoritic iron is usually high in nickel and cobalt.

In the article, the author said archeologists:

> Humans didn’t really master the process and produce iron at a large scale
> until around 1200 B.C

and then she went to note

> Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, who died in 1324 B.C., for example, was buried
> with an iron headrest....

> Egyptian hieroglyphics referred to iron as being “from the sky,”

So was headrest made out of an iron from a meteorite, or was it extracted from
an ore on Earth (through smelting)?

Okay... that seems fair. But when was that Egytian reference made? Before
1200BC or before 1324BC?

To add more confusion, later in the article:

> It has been thought, for example, that the iron used by the Egyptians came
> from an early smelting industry in Anatolia, where the Hittites may have
> started to work iron as early as 1500 B.C.

To summarize based on my understanding:

1\. Extracting iron from an ore did not happen at large scale until 1200BC

2\. But some smelting started as early as 1500BC

3\. Iron artifacts were recovered from pharaoh Tutankhamun who died in 1324BC
had.

4\. Numerous references to “falling from rhe sky” from numerous civilizations,
including some “iron hunting” trading.

5\. So were some of the early iron artifacts made out of iron meteorite or
were they made out of an iron ore?

While the main objective seems “clear” to me, the whole article is too
confusing and hard to follow through. If my summary is right, ugh, I advise
everyone to writr the outline in bullet points.

(Incidentally, just noticed there’s a submission on writing essays on HN right
now)

------
QAPereo
[http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-
archaeology/peop...](http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-
archaeology/people-arctic-worked-meteorite-iron-1200-years-ago-002573)

The history of Arctic peoples working extraterrestrial iron.

~~~
dghughes
I don't see why you're downvoted.

It's true arctic peoples used found iron which came from meteorites. Another
item rare in the arctic and even more useful than iron was wood. Driftwood was
prized for building since trees don't exist above the arctic circle.

------
staunch
Would be neat if early humans became infected with an Andromeda strain-like
bacteria from inhaling meteorite dust. Maybe from the same source that seeded
life on earth originally.

After the alien bacteria took up residence in the human gut, it enhanced the
human brain, creating the modern human.

 _Andromeda Strain 50,000 B.C. (2019)_

~~~
Timothycquinn
Great movie (1971). Saw for first time when I was about 8 and it freaked me
out then and still does to this day. Did not see the remake.

~~~
tannhaeuser
601 SYSTEM OVERLOAD makes for an excellent HTTP extension error code on
bloated mobile web pages.

------
Cyphase
The metal of the gods, sent down from the heavens.

~~~
ministrator
“And We also sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many
uses for mankind…” (Quran 57:25)

published in a book 1400 years old

~~~
eesmith
Which in turn is over 1,200 years after a meteorite fall was described in the
chronicle Ch'un-Ch'iu, traditionally considered to have been written by
Confucius
([http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994Metic..29..864Y](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1994Metic..29..864Y)
).

Or about nearly 2,000 years after "a new term for iron [was] developed [in
Egyptian] which literally translates as ‘iron from the sky’."
([http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2](http://www.ironfromthesky.org/?page_id=2)
)

~~~
uoaei
They found recently that Egyptians used metal from meteorites to make daggers
for royalty.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/02/africa/king-tut-dagger-
me...](https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/02/africa/king-tut-dagger-
meteorite/index.html)

~~~
eesmith
The CNN article doesn't seem to add any more detail than was already present
in the Atlas Obscura article. Both cite the same paper, which is
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12664/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12664/full)
.

AO has a better picture of the dagger, and mentions that the other two iron
items in Tutankhamun's tomb were also likely of meteoric origin, and different
meteors at that. The CNN article has an annoying auto-play video.

------
davidhakendel

      "these coveted, precocious artifacts"
      should be
      "these coveted, precious artifacts"
    

There was a lot of disbelief in this article about our ancestors using metal
from meteorites. Iron from meteorites has been used for at 6,000 years.

    
    
      Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys.
      It began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron
      artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made
      from meteoritic iron-nickel.[1]
    
      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy

~~~
JacobAldridge
"Precocious" means roughly "premature", or "appearing before its time". So the
word is used correctly here to talk about Iron artifacts appearing before they
'should' in the Iron Age.

~~~
davidhakendel
Ah. I see how that was used. It was another nod to the disbelief of people's
knowledge prior to the iron age. Thank you.

------
trendia
Anyone know why this was flagged?

~~~
sillysaurus3
Nope. More and more good articles are being flagged unfairly:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991851)

We don't have a vouch button to counter bad flags.

~~~
grzm
I don't know if pointing to one of the many bitcoin/blockchain/ico submissions
is a great example of an article being flagged unfairly. I can easily imagine
there are people on the site who feel there are already plenty of such
submissions every day with the same discussions rehashed over and over. I
don't know why _this_ particular submission was flagged but to come up with a
plausible explanation for the one you linked to doesn't take much imagination.

If you do think something has been flagged unfairly, contact the mods.
Depending on what they see, they may take action.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Did you read it? It's thorough and substantive. Yes, it involves Bitcoin, but
why equate topic fatigue with flagworthiness?

~~~
grzm
I'm not saying it's justified, I'm just saying I can imagine members doing it.
Once saturation is reached, it's understandable that people aren't going to
take the time to vet each submission as closely, even if we wish they would.
And again, if the same discussion is played out over and over, even if it's a
well-written and substantive piece, it's not necessarily a good submission for
HN. And with respect to stimulating intellectual curiosity, yes, fatigue can
be a reasonable proxy for flag-worthiness.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's not the same discussion. The article is about a potential 51% attack
against BCH, which as far as I know no one else is talking about.

It's kind of strange to say it's understandable and therefore ok. Trolling is
understandable too, but it's still against the rules.

