Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - steel and iron weaponry of the american natives.........

Billman · 5th December 2010, 02:27 PM

It's good to be able to hypothesise on the site.... Apparently about 60,000 tons of meteorite debris hit the earth each year.... mostly dust and rock, and over 2/3 of the earth is sea - but some will be iron or nickel iron that will fall onto the land. Heavy rocks, like the diorite hammerstones of Egypt, used to carve out the granite obelisks, are found sitting on the surface of desert regions - the lighter sands blow away, leaving the heavier rocks behind. It is thus highly probable that meteoric iron can be found in desolate spots such as the Atacama Desert of Peru, high in the Andes, or the tundra regions of the Arctic, where the hard ground prevents penetration of small meterorites. Meteoric iron was used by the ancient Egyptians, who also had the technology to smelt non ferrous metals and create alloys such as bronze, but never smelted iron.

One way of splitting hard rocks into smaller usable fragments is to heat in a fire and quench in cold water - it is not a large step to imagine ancient peoples trying to break 'rocks' of meteoric iron by this method, and failing - but in the process gaining a new material.

Once discovered any supply of such 'naturally occuring' iron would soon be exploited, and probably quickly exhausted - leaving little trace of its presence, apart from the few tools and weapons that still exist.... Equally no traces of slags from iron production would remain, so to all intent and purpose there is no evidence of iron working.. Ultimately, with no more raw materials, the knowledge and skills would disappear... c.f. Damascas steel c1700 when wootz, the source of raw material from India, dried up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

Natural draft furnaces can get very hot, and with the addition of a chimney the draft can be enhanced, so if they had charcoal it is possible that ancient civilisations could melt relatively pure nodules of iron. Smelting of iron ores requires higher temperatures, as the impurities raise the melting point - which is why in the manufacture of wrought iron the bloom containing the slag never reached melting point, but had to have the impurities removed by hammering...

http://www.oldeforester.com/ironintr.htm

Yes speculation, but it could explain some of the anomolies of iron or steel objects turning up where there was no evidence to support local manufacture...

5th December 2010, 02:27 PM	#52
Billman Member Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 129	It's good to be able to hypothesise on the site.... Apparently about 60,000 tons of meteorite debris hit the earth each year.... mostly dust and rock, and over 2/3 of the earth is sea - but some will be iron or nickel iron that will fall onto the land. Heavy rocks, like the diorite hammerstones of Egypt, used to carve out the granite obelisks, are found sitting on the surface of desert regions - the lighter sands blow away, leaving the heavier rocks behind. It is thus highly probable that meteoric iron can be found in desolate spots such as the Atacama Desert of Peru, high in the Andes, or the tundra regions of the Arctic, where the hard ground prevents penetration of small meterorites. Meteoric iron was used by the ancient Egyptians, who also had the technology to smelt non ferrous metals and create alloys such as bronze, but never smelted iron. One way of splitting hard rocks into smaller usable fragments is to heat in a fire and quench in cold water - it is not a large step to imagine ancient peoples trying to break 'rocks' of meteoric iron by this method, and failing - but in the process gaining a new material. Once discovered any supply of such 'naturally occuring' iron would soon be exploited, and probably quickly exhausted - leaving little trace of its presence, apart from the few tools and weapons that still exist.... Equally no traces of slags from iron production would remain, so to all intent and purpose there is no evidence of iron working.. Ultimately, with no more raw materials, the knowledge and skills would disappear... c.f. Damascas steel c1700 when wootz, the source of raw material from India, dried up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel Natural draft furnaces can get very hot, and with the addition of a chimney the draft can be enhanced, so if they had charcoal it is possible that ancient civilisations could melt relatively pure nodules of iron. Smelting of iron ores requires higher temperatures, as the impurities raise the melting point - which is why in the manufacture of wrought iron the bloom containing the slag never reached melting point, but had to have the impurities removed by hammering... http://www.oldeforester.com/ironintr.htm Yes speculation, but it could explain some of the anomolies of iron or steel objects turning up where there was no evidence to support local manufacture... Last edited by Billman; 5th December 2010 at 08:46 PM.