Can iron crush northern iron and copper?
(Jeremiah 15:12)
A dagger with an iron blade found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
But today, armed with state-of-the-art technology, scientists can also investigate what at the time of Carter simply did not lend itself to research and come to conclusions that would at least partially answer a very important question, namely: when did the Bronze Age end and the Iron Age began? Was it somehow connected with the "collapse of the Bronze Age" or was this collapse itself just a consequence of the transition to iron metallurgy? It is not so easy to give an answer to this question, or rather, as difficult as to say when the Bronze Age proper began and the Copper Stone Age ended. From the point of view of the "Pareto law", the essence of which is that everything in nature and society tends to share in a percentage ratio of 20 to 80, the new century should "come into its own" when the dominant indicator is at the level of 80%. Less is still the beginning, the development of a phenomenon that is ripening in the depths of something old. However, analyzing artifacts, one can establish, let's say, the lower limit of certain finds and judge by it: until such a moment there are no iron products at all, but after such and such a year they are already found in mass quantities, while bronze ones leave into the background. That is, iron should be in the first place in the production of weapons and weapons of labor, and bronze should be used for the manufacture of dishes and ornaments. The "transition period" is a time when, say, the same weapon is already made of iron, but armor is still being made of bronze.
Known for the oldest artifacts made from … meteoric iron, which were found in Egypt. These are nine iron beads that archaeologists found back in 1911 during excavations on the western bank of the Nile, near the modern city of Al-Girza, in a burial belonging to the Herzee culture * and dating back to about 3200 BC. Obviously, the amazing metal that fell directly from the sky seemed to the ancient master something completely extraordinary, and he tried to make something "significant" out of it, for this purpose he turned it into thin plates, and then rolled them into beads that can was strung on a lace. Evidence that the plates were cold-forged is the presence of germanium in their composition in quantities that indicate the absence of such types of heat treatment as smelting or hot forging. Thus, these beads are the oldest fact of the use of meteorite iron in jewelry. However, later other products began to be made from it.
The location of the iron dagger on the mummy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Photo from a scientific article in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.
It is known, for example, that when a lot of interesting finds were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, the audience was first of all struck by the incredible amount of gold that was there. But scientists, on the contrary, were interested in something completely different, namely, objects made of iron - a metal much rarer and more valuable at that time! Moreover, there were as many as 16 such items in the tomb: miniature iron blades, a small iron headrest, a bracelet with an iron "Eye of Horus" with a blade of gold, but the second one with a blade of iron, and of excellent preservation! It is known that the young Tutankhamun lived (although not for long), reigned and died in the XIV century BC. BC, that is, in an era when bronze was enough for mankind, and several more centuries had to pass before iron in Egypt became as common as copper and bronze.
The iron dagger (which is now in the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) was described by Howard Carter in 1925 as "an ornate gold dagger with a crystal top." However, he did not specify what metal his blade was made of. It was obvious that it was made of iron, but that it was just meteorite, he could only suspect.
Archaeologists are traditionally accustomed to believe that all the earliest artifacts made of iron were made of meteoric iron - people of that time did not yet possess the ability to create alloys based on iron. However, until recently, non-invasive (that is, non-destructive research subject) technologies to determine the elemental composition of ancient iron artifacts did not exist. Therefore, the "meteorite hypothesis" was based only on the logic of the evolution of metallurgical technologies known to us.
It cannot be said that scientists did not try to find out the composition of the metal of the blade of this dagger. Such attempts were made both in 1970 and in 1994, when they gave dubious and very contradictory results. And finally, an Egyptian-Italian team of scientists led by Daniela Comelli, a physicist from the Technical University of Milan, put an end to all controversy and doubts by conducting an accurate analysis of the blade using the most modern instrument: an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Moreover, this device was portable. That is, the research was carried out directly in the museum.
Study of Tutankhamun's iron dagger. Still from the video of the Technical University of Milan.
True, they published the results of the analysis not in a publication on archeology, but in a scientific journal dedicated to meteorites and planets: "Meteoritics and Planetary Science".
The dagger of Tutankhamun is described in it in more detail than in Howard Carter: “A skillfully forged blade of uniform metal, untouched by corrosion, complemented by a richly decorated gold hilt with a rhinestone top, as well as a gold sheath with a floral pattern in the form of lilies on one side and a pattern of stylized feathers, and the head of a jackal on the other."
Moreover, two facts attract special attention. This is the complete absence of corrosion on the blade and the indisputable skill of the ancient blacksmith, who managed to process this metal, extremely rare in this era.
The data of the study made it possible to determine the reason for the absence of corrosion. The fact is that meteoric iron is clearly identified by its high nickel content. And it is precisely the presence of nickel that prevents it from rusting!
And yes, indeed, iron meteorites are usually composed of iron and nickel, with only minor impurities of elements such as cobalt, phosphorus, sulfur and carbon. In those artifacts that are made from iron ores of terrestrial origin, nickel contains no more than 4%, while the iron blade of Tutankhamun's dagger contains about 11% nickel. Another confirmation that its metal is of extraterrestrial origin is the presence of cobalt in it (0.6%).
The chemical composition of meteorites is no longer news, but it is determined by rather "destructive methods" that are not very suitable for working with the rarest works of ancient art. Therefore, such innovative methods as instrumental neutron activation analysis or inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry are currently being used to work with them. Moreover, both stationary and portable devices of quite acceptable weight and dimensions have been created.
Physicists, however, thought this was not enough, and they also decided to find out exactly where the ancient Egyptians found this meteorite. To do this, they studied the characteristics of all meteorites that were found within a radius of 2000 km from the Red Sea, and identified 20 iron ones from them. Of this amount, the Kharga meteorite (named after the oasis where it was found) had the same percentage of nickel and cobalt as the iron from which Tutankhamun's dagger was made. It is worth noting that one more object of "heavenly" origin was found in his tomb, but not metal, but … ordinary glass. However, not quite ordinary, but the so-called "Libyan glass". They call it that because it is precisely such glass that is found in the Libyan desert. And a piece of such glass was used to make a winged scarab beetle on one of the many royal amulets. Carter thought it was chalcedony, but in fact it was meteor glass. And then someone found it and, knowing about the celestial origin of this substance, brought it to Egypt, having overcome a path of at least 800 km. And the Egyptian masters turned him into a scarab beetle, because the scarab in Egyptian mythology was a living likeness of the Sun!
Since not only physicists, but also historians participated in the study of Tutankhamun's dagger, the latter, relying on the results of the analysis, made a number of interesting assumptions of a historical nature.
First of all, a clearly proven conclusion about the unconditional sacred value for the Egyptians of the "heavenly metal". That is, pieces of iron that fell from heaven, they did not regard otherwise as a gift from the gods. It is not for nothing that the term "iron" in ancient texts belonging to the Hittites and Egyptians is always mentioned in connection with the sky, and since the XIII century BC. NS. the hieroglyph that previously meant "heavenly iron" is being used to denote ordinary earthly iron. The attention of specialists was also attracted by the high quality of the blade. It turns out that already in the XIV century BC. Egyptian blacksmiths possessed all the necessary skills to work with iron, which contradicts our knowledge of what technology the ancient Egyptians possessed.
Iron bead from the meteorite iron of the Herzean culture.
From the diplomatic correspondence of the XIV century BC that has come down to us. NS. (the so-called Amarna archive) it is known that Tushratta, the king of Mitanni, sent iron objects as precious gifts to Pharaoh Amenhotep III (Tutankhamun's grandfather). In particular, daggers with iron blades and, in addition, a gilded iron bracelet were named among them.
That is, on the one hand, everyone agrees that the transition from bronze to iron in different peoples took place at different times, depending on their habitat. But on the other hand, the disputes about where and when exactly people entered the Iron Age continue the same, and the exact date and place where this happened are still not named.
Today the conditional initial "date" of the Iron Age is 1200 BC. e., that is, the dating of the Trojan War is also most directly related to it. That is, in the Eastern Mediterranean, iron is widely spread already at the end of the II millennium BC. Representatives of the "old school" of historians insist that the Iron Age began three to four centuries later, that is, in fact, in the era of "Homeric Greece", covering the 11th - 9th centuries BC. NS.
Moreover, a completely paradoxical situation has developed in Egypt. Having large reserves of iron ore, its inhabitants began to use iron much later than the inhabitants of neighboring states. So the only way to reconsider something and to determine more accurately the time boundaries of different eras is to explore ancient metal artifacts using the most modern and non-invasive, that is, non-destructive technologies.
* Herzeean culture - the archaeological culture of pre-dynastic Egypt of the Eneolithic era. It belongs to the second of the three phases of the Negada culture and is therefore called Negada II. Chronological framework 3600 - 3300. BC.
