The world in antiquity is the Iron Age. General characteristics of the Iron Age
IRON AGE - an era in the primitive and early class history of mankind, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools. The idea of three ages: stone, bronze and iron - arose in the ancient world (Titus Lucretius Car). The term "Iron Age" was coined around the middle of the 19th century by the Danish archaeologist K. J. Thomsen. The most important studies, the initial classification and dating of Iron Age sites in Western Europe were carried out by M. Görnes, O. Montelius, O. Tischler, M. Reinecke, J. Dechelet, N. Oberg, J. L. Peach and J. Kostszewski; in Vost. Europe - V. A. Gorodtsov, A. A. Spitsyn, Yu. V. Gotye, P. N. Tretyakov, A. P. Smirnov, X. A. Moora, M. I. Artamonov, B. N. Grakov and others; in Siberia, by S. A. Teploukhov, S. V. Kiselev, S. I. Rudenko, and others; in the Caucasus - B. A. Kuftin, B. B. Piotrovsky, E. I. Krupnov and others.
The period of the initial spread of the iron industry was experienced by all countries at different times, but the Iron Age usually refers only to the cultures of primitive tribes that lived outside the territories of ancient slave-owning civilizations that arose back in the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China). The Iron Age is very short compared to previous archaeological epochs (Stone and Bronze Ages). Its chronological boundaries: from the 9th-7th centuries BC. e., when many primitive tribes of Europe and Asia developed their own iron metallurgy, and until the time when a class society and state arose among these tribes. Some modern foreign scientists, who consider the time of the appearance of written sources to be the end of primitive history, attribute the end of the Iron Age Western Europe by the 1st century BC e., when Roman written sources appear containing information about Western European tribes. Since iron still remains the most important material from which tools are made, the modern era enters the Iron Age, therefore, the term “early Iron Age” is also used for the archaeological periodization of primitive history. On the territory of Western Europe, only its beginning (the so-called Hallstatt culture) is called the Early Iron Age. Despite the fact that iron is the most common metal in the world, it was mastered by man late, since it is almost never found in nature in its pure form, it is difficult to process and its ores are difficult to distinguish from various minerals. Initially, meteoric iron became known to mankind. Small objects made of iron (mainly jewelry) are found in the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The method of obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the 2nd millennium BC. e. According to one of the most likely assumptions, the cheese-making process (see below) was first used by Hittite-subordinate tribes living in the mountains of Armenia (Antitaur) in the 15th century BC. e. However, for a long time, iron remained a rare and very valuable metal. Only after the 11th century BC. e. a rather widespread production of iron weapons and tools began in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and India. At the same time iron becomes known in the south of Europe. In the 11th-10th centuries BC. e. individual iron objects penetrate into the area north of the Alps, are found in the steppes of the south of the European part of the USSR, but iron tools begin to dominate in these areas only in the 8th-7th centuries BC. e. In the 8th century BC e. iron products are widely distributed in Mesopotamia, Iran and somewhat later in Central Asia. The first news about iron in China dates back to the 8th century BC. e., but it spreads only in the 5th century BC. e. In Indochina and Indonesia, iron spread at the turn of our era. Apparently, from ancient times iron metallurgy was known to various African tribes. Undoubtedly, already in the 6th century BC. e. iron was produced in Nubia, Sudan, Libya. In the 2nd century BC e. the Iron Age began in the central region of Africa. Some African tribes moved from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, bypassing the Bronze Age. America, Australia and most of the islands Pacific Ocean iron (except meteoric) became known only in the 2nd millennium AD. e. with the arrival of Europeans in these areas.
In contrast to the relatively rare sources of extraction of copper and especially tin, iron ores, although most often low-grade (brown iron ore, lacustrine, swamp, meadow, etc.), are found almost everywhere. But getting iron from ores is much more difficult than copper. The melting of iron, i.e., obtaining it in a liquid state, has always been inaccessible to ancient metallurgists, since this requires a very high temperature (1528 °). Iron was obtained in a doughy state using a cheese-blowing process, which consisted in the reduction of iron ore with carbon at a temperature of 1100-1350 ° in special furnaces with air blown by bellows through a nozzle. At the bottom of the furnace, a kritz was formed - a lump of porous doughy iron weighing 1-8 kg, which had to be hammered repeatedly to compact and partially remove (squeeze out) slag from it. Hot iron is soft, but even in ancient times (about the 12th century BC), a method was discovered for hardening iron products (by immersing them in cold water) and their cementation (carburization). Ready for blacksmith crafts and intended for trade exchange, iron bars usually had a bipyramidal shape in Western Asia and Western Europe. The higher mechanical qualities of iron, as well as the general availability of iron ore and the cheapness of the new metal, ensured that bronze was replaced by iron, as well as stone, which remained an important material for the production of tools in the Bronze Age. It didn't happen right away. In Europe, only in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BC. e. iron began to play a really significant role as a material for making tools. The technological revolution caused by the spread of iron greatly expanded the power of man over nature. It made possible the clearing of large forest areas for crops, the expansion and improvement of irrigation and reclamation facilities, and the improvement of land cultivation in general. The development of crafts, especially blacksmithing and weapons, is accelerating. Wood processing is being improved for the purposes of house-building, the production of vehicles (ships, chariots, etc.), and the manufacture of various utensils. Artisans, from shoemakers and masons to miners, also received better tools. By the beginning of our era, all the main types of handicraft and agricultural hand tools (except screws and hinged scissors) used in the Middle Ages, and partly in modern times, were already in use. The construction of roads was facilitated, improved military equipment, the exchange expanded, the metal coin spread as a means of circulation.
The development of productive forces associated with the spread of iron, over time, led to the transformation of the entire social life. As a result of the growth of productive labor, the surplus product increased, which, in turn, served economic premise for the emergence of the exploitation of man by man, the collapse of the tribal system. One of the sources of the accumulation of values and the growth of property inequality was the exchange that expanded during the Iron Age. The possibility of enrichment through exploitation gave rise to wars for the purpose of robbery and enslavement. The beginning of the Iron Age is characterized by a wide distribution of fortifications. In the era of the Iron Age, the tribes of Europe and Asia were going through the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system, they were on the eve of the emergence of a class society and state. The transfer of part of the means of production into the private ownership of the ruling minority, the emergence of slave ownership, the increased stratification of society, and the separation of the tribal aristocracy from the bulk of the population are already features typical of early class societies. Among many tribes, the social organization of this transition period took the political form of the so-called military democracy.
A. L. Mongait. Moscow.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 5. DVINSK - INDONESIA. 1964.
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iron age- the third major archaeological period after the Stone and Bronze Ages. Its first stage is called the Early Iron Age.
This was the name of the most important era in the history of mankind, the beginning of which coincides with the beginning of the widespread use of this metal. From the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. up to the present time, iron is the basis of the material culture of all mankind. All important discoveries in the field of production technology of this time are associated with this metal.
Iron is a special metal. It has a higher melting point than copper. In its pure form, iron does not exist in nature, and the process of smelting it from ore is very difficult because of its infusibility.
The beginning of the early Iron Age in Kazakhstan falls on the VIII-VII centuries. BC.
With the onset of the early Iron Age, truly global changes in the life of the steppe ethnic groups take place in the expanses of Eurasia. This era coincided with the transition of pastoral, pastoral and agricultural tribes living in the steppes from Mongolia in the east to the Danube in the west, to mobile forms of pastoralism, which are based on a strict system of seasonal regulation of pastures and water sources. These special forms of running a steppe pastoral economy in the Eurocentric science of modern and recent times are called "nomadic", "semi-nomadic economy".
The transition to new forms of cattle breeding was the result of the development of the economy of the tribes of the Bronze Age, who lived in the special conditions of the steppe ecosystems. The foundations of this form of management were already formed during the final Bronze Age, in the Begazy-Dandybaev era. According to experts, not only internal development population of the steppes, but also the drying up of the steppes due to gradual climate change. For that era, this transition was a progressive phenomenon, it made it possible to maximize the use of the natural resources of the steppes.
Kurgan Nurken, (corridor-dromos (view from the west)
With the beginning of the Early Iron Age, large tribal associations were formed in the steppes of Eurasia. The clash of their interests, specific relationships with the surrounding settled agricultural peoples give rise to a certain militarization of their societies. Peoples appear on the historical arena, which the Greeks and Persians will call "Scythians", "Saks", "Sauromates". Thanks to ethnic kinship, the same level of development and way of life, close ties, close cultures are created. In the Scythian-Saka era, special types of weapons, horse equipment appeared in the material culture of the tribes, a kind of art, called the "Scytho-Saka animal style", was widely spread. Sometimes these three aspects of the material culture of the steppe population of the early Iron Age are called the "Scythian triad".
The steppe population of the early Iron Age is developing rapidly, metallurgy and trade are flourishing. Representatives of the rich tribal elite appear: "kings", the military nobility. Large “royal” burial mounds, complex tombs are spreading, where items of significant value are buried with the deceased representatives of the nobility, including jewelry, weapons, etc.
V modern science opinions are expressed about the achievement of the society of the steppe population of the early Iron Age at the early state level. Regarding the level of development of the steppe peoples of the 1st millennium BC. e. Siberian scientists proposed the term "Steppe civilization".
Tasmolin culture
On the territory of Central Kazakhstan, this era is represented by monuments Tasmolin archaeological culture. The famous Kazakh archaeologist M.K. Kadyrbaev determined its chronological framework by the 7th-3rd centuries BC, distinguishing two stages in its development. A characteristic type of monuments of the Tasmolin culture are the so-called barrows with a mustache". These are complex burial and memorial complexes built of stone. They usually consist of three parts: a large mound, a small mound and stone paths in the form of semi-arcs (“whiskers”), 60 to 200 m long. These “whiskers” adjoin the mounds and always face east. Under a large mound in a soil pit, about two meters deep, there is a human burial. In a small mound, as a rule, there are the remains of horses - skeletons, or parts of them, clay vessels. And sometimes only traces of fire in the form of coals and burnt soil.
Why were mounds with "moustaches" built? There is a well-known hypothesis of the astronomical purpose of mounds with "whiskers". According to the biologist and archeology enthusiast P.I. Marikovsky, mounds with "whiskers" were ancient observatories and served to monitor starry sky, sun and moon, to determine the seasons. It is possible that complexes with "whiskers" could be used for astronomical determinations, but this was hardly the main thing in their construction. Sometimes such burial mounds are located at a distance of several kilometers from each other, on some burial grounds there are two burial mounds with "whiskers". Why build two "observatories" when one is enough to observe the sky? The opinion of M.K. Kadyrbaev, who believed that complexes with stone "whiskers" were structures for funeral and ritual purposes and reflected the ideas of the solar cult that existed among the Tasmolin tribes.
Kurgan Nurken. Karkaraly region
To date, the main area of mounds with "whiskers" has been conditionally determined. According to temporary data, over 300 monuments have been discovered on the territory of Kazakhstan. These data are updated annually. The main range covers Central and Northern Kazakhstan (Kokshetau), as well as the steppe spaces of the western part (Abyraly, Shyngystau, Shubartau) of the modern East Kazakhstan region. More than 80% of the total number of mounds with "whiskers" of Kazakhstan is concentrated here.
The geography of this main mass of mounds with "whiskers" is associated with the area of the Tasmolin culture.
Tasmolin culture
Generally, tasmolin culture studied on the basis of burial mound materials. The data that formed the basis of the characteristics of this culture form three well-known blocks: a) weapons; b) horse harness; c) cult items, jewelry and household items. In the Tasmolin society there were excellent masters of bronze casting. It is from bronze that all the leading categories of material culture are made. Iron products (knives, cheek-pieces, plaques) appear already at the first stage (7th-6th centuries BC). Tasmolin arrowheads of the early stage - two-pronged socketed and three-pronged with a relatively long petiole - genetically date back to the tips of the Begazy-Dandybaev culture. Daggers with bar-shaped, mushroom-shaped pommel and figured hilt are characteristic; combat type-setting belts. The horse bridle includes bits with stirrup-shaped ends, bronze or horn cheek-pieces with three holes. Among the objects of worship there are disk-shaped bronze mirrors with a loop handle on the back, stone altars-altars, flat or on 4, 6 low legs. Applied arts are typical of golden figurines of tigers, bronze sculptures of tauteke, figures of a wild boar and an elk engraved on a bronze mirror, horn buckles in the form of coiled boars. The handle of one massive mirror with a figured border is molded in the shape of a wild boar. By the end of the early stage, multi-figured compositions appeared in the style of the so-called "zoological puzzle". One of them - a plot on a horn buckle - finds a surprising analogy in the Aldybel monuments of Tuva. Jewelry items decorated with granulation and inlay techniques have been found. At the second stage, changes occur in material culture: standard form bronze three-bladed socketed arrowheads, mirrors are reduced, iron is used much more widely, etc. The third, Korgantas stage, is the period of completion of the Tasmolin culture. Along with the preservation of some old elements of culture (arrowheads, bridle plaques, etc.), a number of innovations appear, especially in the funeral rite (intra-grave head altars).
Tasmolin culture of the early Iron Age existed throughout the territory of the Kazakh uplands. The studied monuments define the western border of culture in the region of the Ulytau mountains, the southern - along the Northern Betpakdala and Northern Balkhash, the eastern - along the Shiderta and Bayanaul steppes and further south to Shubartau. It is within these limits that the open and famous burial mounds of the Tasmolin culture are located. There are adjacent territories where the discovery of monuments of this culture is expected in the future (steppe spaces up to the Shyngystau ridge).
On this large territory, the tribes of the early Iron Age settled unevenly. The main part of the population was concentrated in the mountain-steppe regions.
In the early Iron Age, when the Tasmolin tribes lived, a new progressive type of management was widespread - nomadic cattle breeding. For almost three millennia, it has become the main occupation of the inhabitants of the steppes. The nomads mastered the entire territory of the steppes, created powerful nomadic associations, which became the prototypes of future nomadic empires.
The Iron Age is a historical and cultural period in the development of mankind, characterized by the spread of iron metallurgy and the manufacture of iron tools and weapons. The Iron Age succeeded the Bronze Age at the beginning of the first millennium BC; the use of iron stimulated the development of production and accelerated community development. All countries of the world at different times passed the period of mastering the production of iron, and in a broad sense, the entire history of mankind from the end of the Bronze Age to the present day can be attributed to the Iron Age. But in historical science, only the cultures of primitive peoples who lived outside the territories of ancient states that arose in the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages (Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, India, China). In the Iron Age, the majority of the peoples of Eurasia experienced the decomposition of the primitive system and the formation of a class society.
The idea of three epochs in the development of mankind (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) arose in the ancient world. This conjecture was expressed by Titus Lucretius Car. In scientific terms, the term "Iron Age" was based on archaeological material in the middle of the 19th century by the Danish archaeologist K.Yu. Thomsen. The Iron Age, compared with the Stone Age and the Copper Age, takes a relatively short time. Its beginning is attributed to the 9th-7th centuries BC. e. Traditionally, the end of the Iron Age in Western Europe was associated with the first century BC, when the first detailed written sources about barbarian tribes appeared. In general, for individual countries, the end of the Iron Age can be associated with the formation of the state and the emergence of their own written sources.
iron metallurgy
In contrast to the relatively rare deposits of copper and especially tin, iron ores are found almost everywhere on Earth, but usually in the form of low-grade brown iron ore. The process of obtaining iron from ore is much more complicated than the process of obtaining copper. The melting of iron occurs at high temperatures, which were inaccessible to ancient metallurgists. They obtained iron in a doughy state using a cheese-blowing process, which consisted in the reduction of iron ore at a temperature of about 900-1350 ° C in special furnaces - forges with air blown by blacksmith bellows through a nozzle. At the bottom of the furnace, a kritz was formed - a lump of porous iron weighing 1-5 kg, which had to be forged for compaction, as well as removal of slag from it. Raw iron is a soft metal, tools and weapons made from it were not very practical in everyday life. But in the 9th-7th centuries BC. beat the discovery of ways to obtain steel from iron and its heat treatment. High mechanical qualities steel products, the general availability of iron ores ensured the displacement of bronze and stone by iron, which were previously the main materials for the production of tools and weapons.
The spread of iron tools greatly expanded human capabilities, it became possible to clear forest areas for crops, expand irrigation and reclamation facilities, and improve land cultivation. The development of crafts accelerated, woodworking was improved in construction, the production of vehicles (ships, chariots), and the manufacture of utensils. By the beginning of our era, all the main types of handicraft and agricultural hand tools (except screws and articulated scissors), which were later used both in the Middle Ages and in modern times, came into use.
The development of productive forces associated with the spread of iron, over time, led to the transformation of social life. The growth of labor productivity served as an economic prerequisite for the collapse of the tribal primitive system, the emergence of the state. In many Iron Age tribes, social organization took the form of a military democracy. One of the sources of the accumulation of values and the growth of property inequality was the expansion of trade relations during the Iron Age. The possibility of enrichment through robbery gave rise to wars, in response to the threat of military raids by neighbors at the beginning of the Iron Age, fortifications were built around the settlements.
Distribution of iron products in the world
Initially, only meteoric iron was known to people. Iron objects, mainly ornaments, dating back to the first half of the third millennium BC. found in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor. However, a method for obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the second millennium BC. It is believed that the cheese-making metallurgical process was first discovered by tribes living in the Antitaurus mountains in Asia Minor in the 15th century BC. From the end of the second millennium BC. iron is known in Transcaucasia (Samtavr burial ground). The development of iron in Racha (Western Georgia) dates back to ancient times.
For a long time, iron was not widely used and was highly valued. It became more widely used after the 11th century BC. in the Near and Middle East, in India, in the south of Europe. In the 10th century BC. iron tools and weapons penetrate north of the Alps and the Danube, into the steppe zone of Eastern Europe, but begin to prevail in these areas only from the 8th-7th centuries BC. In Transcaucasia, a number of archaeological cultures of the late Bronze Age are known, which flourished in the early Iron Age: the Central Transcaucasian culture, the Kyzyl-Vank culture, the Colchis culture, the Urartian culture. The appearance of iron products in the agricultural oases and steppe regions of Central Asia is attributed to the 7th-6th centuries BC. Throughout the first millennium BC. and until the first half of the first millennium AD. the steppes of Central Asia and Kazakhstan were inhabited by the Sako-Usun tribes, in whose culture iron became widespread from the middle of the first millennium BC. In agricultural oases, the time of the appearance of iron coincides with the emergence of the first state formations (Bactria, Sogd, Khorezm).
Iron appeared in China in the 8th century BC. e., and spread widely from the 5th century BC. e. In Indochina and Indonesia, iron began to predominate only at the turn of our era. In the African countries neighboring Egypt (Nubia, Sudan, Libya), iron metallurgy has been known since the 6th century BC. In the second century BC. the Iron Age began in Central Africa, a number of African peoples passed from the Stone Age to iron metallurgy, bypassing the Bronze Age. In America, Australia, Oceania, iron became known in the 16-17 centuries AD. with the advent of European colonialism.
In Europe, iron and steel as a material for the manufacture of tools and weapons began to play a leading role from the second half of the first millennium BC. The Iron Age in Western Europe is divided into two periods according to the names of archaeological cultures - Hallstatt and La Tène. The Hallstatt period (900-400 BC) is also called the early Iron Age (the first iron wreath), and the La Tene period (400 BC - the beginning of AD) is also called the Iron Age (the second Iron Age). ). The Hallstatt culture was spread over the territory from the Rhine to the Danube, was created in the western part by the Celts, and in the east by the Illyrians. The Hallstatt period also includes cultures close to the Hallstatt culture - the Thracian tribes in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula; Etruscan, Ligurian, Italic tribes on the Apennine Peninsula; Iberians, Turdetans, Lusitanians in the Iberian Peninsula; late Lusatian culture in the Odra and Vistula river basins. The beginning of the Hallstatt period is characterized by the parallel circulation of bronze and iron tools and weapons, the gradual displacement of bronze. In economic terms, the Hallstatt period is characterized by the growth of agriculture, in social terms - by the collapse of tribal relations. In the north of Europe at this time there was a Bronze Age.
From the beginning of the 5th century on the territory of Gaul, Germany, in the countries along the Danube and to the north of it, the La Tène culture, characterized by a high level of iron production, spread. The La Tène culture existed until the Roman conquest of Gaul in the first century BC. La Tene culture is associated with the tribes of the Celts, who had large fortified cities, which were the centers of tribes and places of concentration of crafts. In this era, bronze tools and weapons are no longer found among the Celts. At the beginning of our era, in the areas conquered by Rome, the La Tène culture was replaced by the provincial Roman culture. In the north of Europe, iron spread almost three hundred years later than in the south. The end of the Iron Age includes the culture of the Germanic tribes that lived in the territory between the North Sea and the rivers Rhine, Danube, Elbe, as well as in the south of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and archaeological cultures, the carriers of which are considered the ancestors of the Slavs. In the northern countries, iron tools and weapons began to predominate at the beginning of our era.
Iron Age on the territory of Russia and neighboring countries
The spread of iron metallurgy in Eastern Europe dates back to the first millennium BC. The most developed culture of the early Iron Age was created by the Scythians, who lived in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region (7th century BC - first centuries AD). Iron products were found in abundance in the settlements and mounds of the Scythian period. Signs of metallurgical production were found during excavations of Scythian settlements. The largest number of remains of iron-working and blacksmithing was found in the Kamensky settlement (5-3 centuries BC) near Nikopol. Iron tools contributed to the development of crafts and the spread of arable farming.
The Scythians were replaced by the Sarmatians, who previously lived in the steppes between the Don and the Volga. The Sarmatian culture, also belonging to the early Iron Age, dominated the Black Sea region in the 2nd-4th centuries AD. At the same time, in the western regions of the Northern Black Sea region, the Upper and Middle Dnieper, Transnistria, there were cultures of "burial fields" (Zarubinets culture, Chernyakhov culture) of agricultural tribes who knew iron metallurgy; probably the ancestors of the Slavs. Iron metallurgy appeared in the central and northern forest regions of Eastern Europe in the 6th-5th centuries BC. In the Kama region, the Ananyino culture (8-3 centuries BC) was widespread, which is characterized by the coexistence of bronze and iron tools. The Ananyino culture on the Kama was replaced by the Pyanobor culture (the end of the first millennium BC - the first half of the first millennium AD).
The Iron Age of the Upper Volga region and in the regions of the Volga-Oka interfluve is represented by the settlements of the Dyakovo culture (middle of the first millennium BC - middle of the first millennium AD). To the south of the middle reaches of the Oka, to the west of the Volga, in the basins of the Tsna and Moksha rivers, the settlements of the Gorodets culture (7th century BC - 5th century AD) belong to the Iron Age. The Dyakovo and Gorodets cultures are associated with the Finno-Ugric tribes. Settlements of the Upper Dnieper region and the southeastern Baltic region of the 6th century BC - 7th century AD belong to the East Baltic tribes, later assimilated by the Slavs, as well as to the Chud tribes. Southern Siberia and Altai are rich in copper and tin, which led to a high level of development of bronze metallurgy. The culture of bronze competed here for a long time with iron tools and weapons, which became widespread in the middle of the first millennium BC. - Tagar culture on the Yenisei, Pazyryk burial mounds in Altai.
Archaeological era from which the use of objects made from iron ore begins. The earliest iron-making furnaces dating back to the 1st floor. II millennium BC found in western Georgia. In Eastern Europe and the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe, the beginning of the era coincides with the time of the formation of early nomadic formations of the Scythian and Saka types (approximately VIII-VII centuries BC). In Africa, it began immediately after the Stone Age (there is no Bronze Age). In America, the beginning of the Iron Age is associated with European colonization. In Asia and Europe it began, almost simultaneously. Often, only the first stage of the Iron Age is called the early Iron Age, the boundary of which is the final stages of the era of the Great Migration of Peoples (IV-VI centuries AD). In general, the Iron Age includes the entire Middle Ages, and based on the definition, this era continues to this day.
The discovery of iron and the invention of the metallurgical process were very complex. If copper and tin are found in nature in pure form, then iron is found only in chemical compounds, mainly with oxygen, as well as with other elements. No matter how long you keep iron ore in the fire, it will not melt, and this way of "accidental" discovery, possible for copper, tin and some other metals, is excluded for iron. Brown loose stone, which is iron ore, was not suitable for making tools by upholstering. Finally, even reduced iron melts at a very high temperature - more than 1500 degrees. All this is an almost insurmountable obstacle to a more or less satisfactory hypothesis of the history of the discovery of iron.
There is no doubt that the discovery of iron was prepared by several thousand years of development of copper metallurgy. Especially important was the invention of bellows for blowing air into melting furnaces. Such furs were used in non-ferrous metallurgy, increasing the flow of oxygen into the furnace, which not only raised the temperature in it, but also created the conditions for a successful chemical reaction of metal reduction. A metallurgical furnace, even a primitive one, is a kind of chemical retort in which not so much physical as chemical processes take place. Such a furnace was made of stone and covered with clay (or it was made from clay alone) on a massive clay or stone base. The wall thickness of the furnace reached 20 cm. The height of the furnace shaft was about 1 m. Its diameter was the same. There was a hole in the front wall of the furnace at the bottom level, through which the coal loaded into the mine was set on fire, and through it the cracker was taken out. Archaeologists use the old Russian name for a furnace for "cooking" iron - "domnitsa". The process itself is called cheese-making. This term emphasizes the importance of blowing air into a blast furnace filled with iron ore and coal.
At cheese process more than half of the iron was lost in the slag, which at the end of the Middle Ages led to the abandonment of this method. However, for almost three thousand years this method was the only way to obtain iron.
Unlike bronze objects, iron objects could not be made by casting, they were forged. By the time iron metallurgy was discovered, the forging process had a thousand-year history. Forged on a metal stand - an anvil. A piece of iron was first heated in a forge, and then the blacksmith, holding it with tongs on an anvil, hit the place with a small hammer-handbrake, where his assistant would then strike, hitting the iron with a heavy hammer-sledgehammer.
Iron was first mentioned in the correspondence of the Egyptian pharaoh with the Hittite king, preserved in the archives of the 14th century. BC e. in Amarna (Egypt). From this time, small iron products have come down to us in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Aegean world.
For some time, iron was a very expensive material used to make jewelry and ceremonial weapons. In particular, a gold bracelet with iron inlay and a whole series of iron items were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Iron inlays are also known elsewhere.
On the territory of the USSR, iron first appeared in Transcaucasia.
Iron things began to quickly replace bronze ones, since iron, unlike copper and tin, is found almost everywhere. Iron ores occur both in mountainous regions and in swamps, not only deep underground, but also on its surface. At present, swamp ore is not of industrial interest, but in ancient times it was of great importance. Thus, the countries that occupied a monopoly position in the production of bronze lost their monopoly on the production of metal. Countries poor in copper ores, with the discovery of iron, quickly caught up with countries that were advanced in the Bronze Age.
Scythians
Scythians is an exoethnonym of Greek origin, applied to a group of peoples who lived in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia in the era of antiquity. The ancient Greeks called the country where the Scythians lived Scythia.
In our time, the Scythians in the narrow sense are usually understood as Iranian-speaking nomads who in the past occupied the territories of Ukraine, Moldova, South Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Siberia. This does not exclude a different ethnicity of some of the tribes, which the ancient authors also called the Scythians.
Information about the Scythians comes mainly from the writings of ancient authors (especially the "History" of Herodotus) and archaeological excavations in the lands from the lower reaches of the Danube to Siberia and Altai. The Scythian-Sarmatian language, as well as the Alanian language derived from it, were part of the northeastern branch of the Iranian languages and probably was the ancestor of the modern Ossetian language, as indicated by hundreds of Scythian personal names, names of tribes, rivers, preserved in Greek records.
Later, starting from the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, the word "Scythians" was used in Greek (Byzantine) sources to name all peoples of completely different origin who inhabited the Eurasian steppes and the northern Black Sea region: in the sources of the 3rd-4th centuries AD, "Scythians" are often called and Germanic-speaking Goths, in later Byzantine sources they called Scythians Eastern Slavs- Russia, the Turkic-speaking Khazars and Pechenegs, as well as the Alans, related to the most ancient Iranian-speaking Scythians.
Emergence. The supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis are actively studying the underlying basis of the early Indo-European, including the Scythian, culture. The formation of a relatively generally recognized Scythian culture, archaeologists date back to the 7th century BC. e. (Arzhan burial mounds). There are two main approaches to the interpretation of its occurrence. According to one, based on the so-called “third tale” of Herodotus, the Scythians came from the east, expelling what can be interpreted archaeologically as coming from the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, from Tuva or some other regions of Central Asia (see Pazyryk culture).
Another approach, which can also be based on the legends recorded by Herodotus, suggests that the Scythians by that time lived on the territory of the Northern Black Sea region for at least several centuries, standing out from the environment of the successors of the Srubna culture.
Maria Gimbutas and scientists of her circle attribute the appearance of the ancestors of the Scythians (horse domestication cultures) to 5-4 thousand BC. e. According to other versions, these ancestors are associated with other cultures. They also appear to be the descendants of the bearers of the Srubnaya culture of the Bronze Age, who advanced from the 14th century. BC e. from the Volga region to the west. Others believe that the main core of the Scythians came thousands of years ago from Central Asia or Siberia and mixed with the population of the Northern Black Sea region (including the territory of Ukraine). The ideas of Marija Gimbutas extend in the direction of further research into the origins of the origin of the Scythians.
Grain farming was of considerable importance. The Scythians produced grain for export, in particular to the Greek cities, and through them - to the Greek metropolis. Grain production required the use of slave labor. The bones of murdered slaves often accompany the burials of Scythian slave owners. The custom of killing people at the burial of masters is known in all countries and is characteristic of the era of the emergence of the slave economy. There are known cases of blinding slaves, which is not consistent with the assumption of patriarchal slavery among the Scythians. In the Scythian settlements, agricultural tools are found, in particular sickles, but arable tools are extremely rare, probably all of them were wooden and did not have iron parts. The fact that the agriculture of the Scythians was arable is judged not so much by the finds of these tools, but by the amount of grain produced by the Scythians, which would be many times less if the land was cultivated with a hoe.
Fortified settlements appear relatively late, at the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries. BC e., when the Scythians received sufficient development of crafts and trade.
According to Herodotus, the royal Scythians were dominant - the easternmost of the Scythian tribes, bordering the Sauromatians along the Don, also occupied the steppe Crimea. To the west of them lived Scythian nomads, and even to the west, on the left bank of the Dnieper - Scythian farmers. On the right bank of the Dnieper, in the basin of the Southern Bug, near the city of Olbia, the Callipids, or Hellenic-Scythians, lived, to the north of them - the Alazons, and even to the north - the Scythians-plowmen, and Herodotus points to agriculture as differences from the Scythians the last three tribes and specifies that if the Kallipids and Alazons grow and eat bread, then the Scythian plowmen grow bread for sale.
The Scythians already fully owned the production of ferrous metal. Other types of production are also presented: bone carving, pottery, weaving. But so far only metallurgy has reached the level of craft.
There are two lines of fortifications on the Kamensky settlement: external and internal. Archaeologists call the inner part the acropolis by analogy with the corresponding division of Greek cities. On the acropolis traced the remains of stone dwellings of the Scythian nobility. Ordinary dwellings were mainly ground houses. Their walls sometimes consisted of pillars, the bases of which were dug into specially dug grooves along the contour of the dwelling. There are also semi-dugout dwellings.
The oldest Scythian arrows are flat, often with a spike on the sleeve. They are all socketed, that is, they have a special tube where the arrow shaft is inserted. Classical Scythian arrows are also socketed, they resemble a trihedral pyramid, or three-bladed - the edges of the pyramid seem to have developed into blades. The arrows are made of bronze, which has finally won its place in the production of arrows.
Scythian ceramics was made without the help of a potter's wheel, although in the Greek colonies neighboring the Scythians, the wheel was widely used. Scythian vessels are flat-bottomed and varied in shape. Scythian bronze cauldrons up to a meter high, which had a long and thin leg and two vertical handles, were widely used.
Scythian art is well known mainly from objects from burials. It is characterized by the depiction of animals in certain poses and with exaggeratedly noticeable paws, eyes, claws, horns, ears, etc. Ungulates (deer, goat) were depicted with bent legs, predators of cat breeds curled up into a ring. In Scythian art, strong or fast and sensitive animals are represented, which corresponds to the desire of the Scythian to overtake, to strike, to be always ready. It is noted that some images are associated with certain Scythian deities. The figures of these animals, as it were, protected their owner from trouble. But the style was not only sacred, but also decorative. The claws, tails and shoulder blades of predators were often shaped like the head of a bird of prey; sometimes full images of animals were placed on these places. This artistic style was called the animal style in archeology. V early time in the Trans-Volga region, animal ornamentation is evenly distributed between representatives of the nobility and privates. In IV-III centuries. BC e. the animal style is degenerating, and objects with similar ornaments are presented mainly in the graves. Scythian burials are the most famous and best studied. The Scythians buried the dead in pits or in catacombs, under mounds. lol know. The famous Scythian mounds are located in the area of the Dnieper rapids. In the royal burial mounds of the Scythians, gold vessels, artistic items made of gold, and expensive weapons are found. Thus, a new phenomenon is observed in the Scythian burial mounds - a strong property stratification. There are mounds small and huge, some burials without things, others - with a huge amount of gold.
The Age of Iron, or the Iron Age, is the third of the technological macro-epochs in the history of mankind (following the Stone Age and the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages). The term "Early Iron Age" is used to designate the first stage of the Iron Age, approximately dated within the boundary of II-I millennium BC. - the middle of the 1st millennium AD (with certain chronological variations for different regions).
The use of the term "Iron Age" has a long history. For the first time the idea of the existence of the Iron Age in human history was clearly formulated at the end of the 8th - beginning of the 7th century. BC. ancient Greek poet Hesiod. According to his periodization of the historical process (see the Introduction), the Iron Age modern to Hesiod turns out to be the last and worst stage of human history, in which people have “no respite night or day from work and grief” and “only the most cruel, serious misfortunes will remain for people in life ”(“ Works and Days ”, str. 175-201. Per. V.V. Veresaev). Ovid at the beginning of the 1st century. AD the ethical imperfection of the Iron Age is even more accentuated. The ancient Roman poet calls iron “the worst ore”, in the era of the domination of which “shame fled, and truth, and fidelity; and deceptions, deceit immediately appeared in their place; intrigues, violence came and the damned greed. The moral degeneration of people is punished by a global flood that destroys everyone, except for Deucalion and Pyrrha, who revive humanity ("Metamorphoses", ch. I, str. 127-150, 163-415. Translated by S.V. Shervinsky).
As we can see, in the assessment of the Iron Age by these ancient authors, the interrelation of the cultural and technological aspect with the philosophical and ethical, in particular eschatological, was especially strong. The Iron Age was conceived as a kind of eve of the end of the world. This is quite natural, because the primary concepts of historical periodization finally took shape and were imprinted in written sources precisely at the beginning of the real Iron Age. Consequently, for the first authors who created the periodization of history, the cultural and technological epochs preceding the Iron Age (whether mythical, like the Age of Gold and the Age of Heroes, or real, like the Age of Copper) were the distant or recent past, while the Iron Age itself was modernity, shortcomings which are always seen more clearly and more tangibly. Therefore, the beginning of the Iron Age was perceived as a kind of crisis frontier in human history. In addition, iron, which defeated bronze primarily in weapons, inevitably became for the witnesses of this process a symbol of weapons, violence, and destruction. It is no coincidence that in the same Hesiod, Gaia-Earth, wanting to punish Uranus-Sky for his villainy, specially creates a “rock of gray iron”, from which he makes a punishing sickle (“Theogony”, str. 154-166. Per. V.V. Veresaev).
Thus, in ancient times, the term "Iron Age" was initially accompanied by an eschatological and tragic interpretation, and this ancient tradition was continued in the newest fiction(See, for example, A. Blok's poem "Retribution").
However, another compatriot of Ovid Lucretius in the first half of the 1st century. BC. substantiated in the poem "On the Nature of Things" a qualitatively new, exclusively production-technological characteristic of historical epochs, including the iron epoch. This idea eventually formed the basis of K.Yu. Thomsen (1836). Following this, the problem of the chronological framework of the Iron Age and its internal division arose, about which in the 19th century. there were long discussions. The final point in this dispute was put by the founder of the typological method, O. Montelius. He noted that it is impossible to indicate a single absolute date for the change of the Bronze Age to the Iron Age throughout the ecumene; The beginning of the Iron Age for each region should be counted from the moment of the predominance of iron and alloys based on it (primarily steel) over other materials as raw materials for weapons and tools.
Montelius's position was confirmed in subsequent archaeological developments, which showed that at first iron was used as a rare raw material for jewelry (sometimes in combination with gold), then more and more often for the production of tools and weapons, gradually displacing copper and bronze into the background. Thus, in modern science, an indicator of the onset of the Iron Age in the history of each particular region is the use of iron of ore nature for the manufacture of basic forms of tools and weapons and the widespread use of iron metallurgy and blacksmithing.
The onset of the Iron Age is preceded by a long preparatory period related to the previous technological eras.
Even in the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age, people sometimes used iron to produce some ornaments and the simplest tools. However, initially it was meteoric iron, constantly coming from space. Mankind came to the production of iron from ores much later.
Products made from meteorite iron differ from products made from metallurgical iron (i.e., obtained from ores) primarily in that the former do not contain any slag inclusions, while such inclusions, at least in small proportions, are inevitable in the composition of metallurgical iron. are present as a result of the operation of recovering iron from ores. In addition, meteoric iron usually has a much higher nickel content, which accounts for the much greater hardness of such iron. However, this figure in itself is not absolute, and in modern science there is a serious and as yet unresolved problem of distinguishing between ancient meteorite and ore iron products. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the nickel content in products made from meteorite raw materials could significantly decrease with time as a result of long-term corrosion. On the other hand, iron ores with a high nickel content are found on our planet.
Theoretically, it was possible to use terrestrial native iron - the so-called telluric (its appearance, mainly in basalt rocks, is explained by the interaction of iron oxides with organic minerals). However, it occurs only in the smallest grains and veinlets (with the exception of Greenland, where large accumulations are known), so that the practical use of telluric iron in antiquity was impossible.
Due to the high content of nickel (from 5 to 20%, on average 8%), which increases brittleness, meteorite raw materials were processed mainly by cold forging - by analogy with stone. At the same time, some items made of meteoric iron were obtained as a result of hot forging.
The earliest iron products date back to the 6th millennium BC. and come from the burial of the Eneolithic culture of Samarra in Northern Iraq. These are 14 small beads or balls, undoubtedly made of meteoric iron, as well as a tetrahedral tool that could be made of ore iron (this, of course, is an exceptional case).
A much larger number of meteoritic items (mainly for ritual and ceremonial purposes) date back to the Bronze Age.
The most famous items are ancient Egyptian beads of the late 4th - early 3rd millennium BC. from Hertz and Meduma (monuments of the pre-dynastic period); a dagger with a hilt overlaid with gold from the royal burial ground of Ur in Sumer (the tomb of Meskalamdug, dated to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC); mace from Troy I (2600-2400 BC); pins with golden heads, a pendant and some other items from the Aladzha-Kheyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC); handle of a dagger produced in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. in Asia Minor and brought to the region of present-day Slovakia (Ganovce) - finally, things from the tomb of Tutankhamen (about 1375 BC), including: a dagger with an iron blade and a golden handle, an iron "eye of Horus" attached to a gold bracelet, an amulet in the form of a head stand and 16 thin magical-surgical iron instruments (lancets, incisors, chisels) inserted into a wooden base. In the territory former USSR the first items made of meteoric iron appear first of all in the southern Urals and in the Sayano-Altai highlands. These are dated to the end of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. all-iron and bimetallic (bronze-iron) tools and ornaments made by metallurgists of the Pit (see Section II, Ch. 4) and Afanasiev cultures using cold and hot forging.
Obviously, the previous experience of using meteoric iron had no effect on the discovery of the effect of obtaining iron from ores. Meanwhile, it is the latest discovery, i.e. the actual birth of ferrous metallurgy, which took place as early as the Bronze Age, predetermined the change of technological eras, although it did not mean the immediate end of the Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age.
The oldest iron products dating back to 111-11 thousand BC:
1,3 - iron daggers with a hilt overlaid with gold (from the tomb of Meskalamdug in Ur and from the burial ground of Aladzha-Kheyuk in Asia Minor); 2, 4 - an iron adze with a copper grip for the handle and an iron chisel from the burial of the ancient pit culture (Southern Urals); 5, 6 - a dagger with an iron blade and a golden handle and iron blades inserted into a wooden base (Tutankhamun's tomb), 7 - a knife with a copper handle and an iron blade from a burial of the Catacomb culture (Russia, Belgorod region, village of Gerasimovka); 8 - iron dagger handle (Slovakia)
Reconstruction of the cheese-making process in the early Iron Age:
initial and final phases of the cheese-making process; 2 - obtaining iron from ore in an open in an ancient semi-dugout workshop (Mshetsk Zhechrovice, Czech Republic); 3 - the main types of ancient
cheese-blowing ovens (in section)
There are two most important stages in the development of ore iron:
1st stage - discovery and improvement of a method for the recovery of iron from ores - the so-called cheese-making process.
2nd stage - the discovery of methods for the deliberate production of steel (carburation technology), and subsequently methods for its heat treatment in order to increase the hardness and strength of products.
The cheese-making process was carried out in special furnaces, where iron ore and charcoal were loaded, ignited by the supply of unheated, “raw” air (hence the name of the process). Coal itself could be obtained by pre-burning firewood, stacked in pyramids and covered with sod. First, coal was kindled, poured onto the bottom of a hearth or furnace, then layers of ore and the same coal were alternately loaded from above. As a result of burning coal, gas was released - carbon monoxide, which, passing through the thickness of the ore, reduced iron oxides. The cheese-making process, as a rule, did not ensure the achievement of the iron melting temperature (1528-1535 degrees Celsius), but reached a maximum of 1200 degrees, which was quite enough to recover iron from ores. It was a kind of "cooking" of iron.
Initially, the cheese-making process was carried out in pits lined with refractory clay or stones, then they began to build small ovens from stone or brick, sometimes using clay. Cheese kilns could operate on natural draft (especially if they were built on hillsides), but with the development of metallurgy, air was increasingly pumped with bellows through ceramic nozzles. This air entered the open pit from above, into the furnace through an opening in the lower part of the structure.
The reduced iron was concentrated in a paste-like form at the very bottom of the furnace, forming the so-called furnace furnace - an iron spongy mass with inclusions of unburned charcoal and an admixture of slag. In more advanced versions of cheese-blast furnaces, liquid slag was released from the hearth along a chute.
It was possible to make products from the furnace krytsa, which was removed from the furnace in a red-hot form, only after the preliminary removal of this slag impurity and elimination of porosity. Therefore, a direct continuation of the cheese-making process was the hot forging of a forge, which consisted in its periodic heating to a “bright white heat” (1400-1450 degrees) and in forging with a percussion tool. As a result, a denser mass of metal was obtained - the crown itself, from which, through further forging, semi-finished products and blanks of the corresponding blacksmith products were made. Even before being processed into a semi-finished product, kritz could become a unit of exchange, for which it was given standard size, mass and form, convenient for storage and transportation - flat-shaped, spindle-shaped, bipyramidal, striped. For the same purpose, the semi-finished products themselves could be shaped into tools and weapons.
The opening of the raw-blast process could have occurred as a result of the fact that, in the smelting of copper or lead from ores, in addition to copper ore and charcoal, iron-bearing rocks, primarily hematite, were loaded into the smelting furnace (as materials for removing “waste rock”, primarily hematite. In this regard, already in As a result of the copper-smelting process, the first particles of iron could accidentally appear.It is possible that the corresponding furnaces could serve as a prototype for cheese-making.
Tools and products of the cheese-blowing and forging process:
1-9 - kritz 10-13 - semi-finished products in the form of an adze, axes and a knife; 14 - stone pestle for crushing ore; 15 - ceramic nozzle for supplying air to a cheese-blast furnace.
Findings of the earliest cheese kilns are associated with the territories of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is no coincidence that the most ancient products made of ore iron come from these regions.
This is a dagger blade from Tell Ashmar (2800 BC) and a dagger with a gold-lined hilt from the aforementioned tomb of the Alaja-Kheyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC), the iron blade of which, for a long time considered meteorite, spectrographic analysis revealed an extremely low nickel content, which speaks in favor of its ore or mixed nature (combination of meteorite and ore raw materials).
On the territory of the former USSR, experiments on the development of bloomery iron proceeded most intensively in the Transcaucasus, in the North Caucasus and in the Northern Black Sea region.
Such early ore-based iron products as a knife from the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC have come down to us. from the burial of the Catacomb culture near the village. Gerasimovka (Belgorod region), knife and awl of the third quarter of the 2nd millennium BC from the settlements of the Srubna culture Lyubovka (Kharkov region) and Tatshgyk (Nikolaev region). The discovery of the cheese-making process is an important step in the development of iron by mankind, because if meteoritic iron is relatively rare, then iron ores are much more widespread than copper and tin. At the same time, iron ores often lie very shallow; in a number of areas, as, for example, in the Forest of Dean region in Great Britain or near Krivoy Rog in the Ukraine, iron ore could be mined by surface mining. Marsh iron ores are widespread, especially in the northern regions of the zone temperate climate, as well as soddy, meadow ores, etc.
The cheese blowing process was constantly developing: the volume of furnaces increased, blasting was improved, etc. However, objects made of bloomery iron were not hard enough until a method for producing steel (an alloy of iron with carbon) was discovered and until the hardness and strength of steel products were increased through special heat treatment.
Initially, cementation was mastered - the intentional carburization of iron. As such, carburization, but accidental, unintentional, leading to the appearance of the so-called green steel, could have occurred earlier in the raw blowing process. But then this process became regulated and was carried out separately from the cheese-making process. At first, cementation was carried out by heating an iron product or workpiece for many hours to a “red heat” (750-900 degrees) in a wood or bone medium; then other organic substances containing carbon began to be used. In this case, the depth of carburization was directly proportional to the temperature height and the duration of iron heating. With an increase in the carbon content, the hardness of the metal increased.
The method of hardening was also aimed at increasing hardness, which consisted in a sharp cooling of a steel thing preheated to a “red heat” in water, snow, olive oil or some other liquid.
Most likely, the hardening process, like carburization, was discovered by accident, and its physical essence, of course, remained a mystery to the ancient blacksmiths, which is why we often come across in written sources with very fantastic explanations for the reasons for the increase in the hardness of iron products during hardening. For example, the chronicle of the 9th century. BC. from the temple of Balgala in Asia Minor prescribes the following method of hardening: “It is necessary to heat the dagger until it glows like the sun rising in the desert, then cool it to the color of royal purple, immersing it in the body of a muscular slave ... The strength of the slave, passing into the dagger ... gives the metal hardness". The famous fragment from the Odyssey, probably created in the 8th century, belongs to the same ancient time. BC: here the burning out of the eye of a Cyclops with a “hot point” of an olive stake (“Odyssey”, canto IX, str. 375-395. Translated by V.A. Zhukovsky) is compared with the blacksmith’s immersion of a red-hot steel ax or ax into cold water , and it is not by chance that Homer uses the same verb to describe the process of hardening, which denoted medical and magical actions - obviously, the mechanisms of these phenomena were equally mysterious for the Greeks of that time
However, hardened steel had a certain brittleness. In this regard, the ancient masters, seeking to increase the strength of the steel product, improved heat treatment; in a number of cases, they used an operation opposite to hardening - thermal tempering, i.e. heating the product only to the lower threshold of "red heat", at which the structure is transformed, - to a temperature not exceeding 727 degrees. As a result, the hardness somewhat decreased, but the strength of the product increased.
In general, the development of carburizing and heat treatment operations is a long and very complex process. Most researchers believe that the area where these operations (as well as the cheese-making process itself) were discovered the earliest and where their improvement was the fastest was Asia Minor, and above all the area where the Hittites and related tribes lived, especially the mountains of Antitaurus, where already in the last quarter of the II millennium BC. made high quality steel products.
It was the improvement of the technology of processing of bloomery iron and the production of steel that finally solved the problem of competition between iron and bronze. Along with this, the wide distribution and comparative ease of mining of iron ores played a significant role in the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
In addition, for some areas of the ecumene, devoid of deposits of non-ferrous metal ores, an additional factor in the development of ferrous metallurgy was the fact that, for various reasons, the traditional connections of these regions with ore sources that provided non-ferrous metallurgy were broken.
THE COMING OF THE IRON AGE: THE CHRONOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROCESS, THE MAIN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONSEQUENCES
The advanced region in the development of iron, where the Iron Age began in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC, was, as already mentioned, Asia Minor (a region of the Hittite kingdom), as well as the Eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasia closely related to it.
It is no coincidence that the first indisputable written evidence of the production and use of bloomery iron and steel has come down to us precisely from texts that are somehow connected with the Hittites.
From the texts translated by the Hittites of their predecessors, the Hattians, it follows that the Hattians already knew iron well, which for them was more of a cult-ritual than everyday value. However, in these Hattian and ancient Hittite texts (“Anitta's text” of the 18th century BC), we can talk about products made of meteorite, and not ore iron.
The earliest undoubted written references to items made of ore ("bloom") iron appear in the Hittite cuneiform tablets of the 15th-13th centuries. BC, in particular in the message of the Hittite king to Pharaoh Ramses II (late XIV - early XIII century BC) with a message about sending the last ship loaded with iron. These are also cuneiform tablets from the kingdom of Mitanni, neighboring the Hittites, addressed to the Egyptians and therefore found their way into the famous "Amarna Archive" of the second half of the 15th - early 14th centuries. BC. - Correspondence of the pharaohs of the XVIII dynasty with the rulers of the countries of Western Asia. It is noteworthy that in the Hittite message to the Assyrian king of the XIII century. BC. the term "good iron", denoting steel, appears. All this is confirmed by the finds of a significant number of ore-based iron products at the sites of the New Hittite kingdom of the 14th-12th centuries. BC, as well as steel products in Palestine already in the XII century. BC. and in Cyprus in the 10th century. BC.
Under the influence of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of II - beginning of I millennium BC. the Iron Age begins in Mesopotamia and Iran.
Thus, during the excavations of the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II in Khorsabad (the last quarter of the 8th century BC), about 160 tons of iron were found, mainly in the form of bipyramidal and spindle-shaped goods, probably offerings from subject territories.
Ferrous metallurgy spreads from Iran to India, where the era of iron is counted from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. There is a sufficient amount of written evidence of the development of iron in India (both Indian proper, starting with the Rigveda, and later non-Indian, in particular ancient Greek).
Under the influence of Iran and India in the VIII century. BC. the Iron Age begins in Central Asia. To the north, in the steppes of Asia, the Iron Age begins no earlier than the 6th-5th centuries. BC.
In China, the development of ferrous metallurgy proceeded quite separately. Due to the highest level of local bronze foundry production, which provided China with quality metal products, epoch
iron begins here no earlier than the middle of the 1st millennium BC. At the same time, written sources (“Shijing” of the 8th century BC, comments on Confucius of the 6th century BC) record an earlier acquaintance of the Chinese with iron. And yet, for the first half of the 1st millennium BC. excavations revealed only a small number of objects made of ore iron of Chinese production proper. A significant increase in the quantity, assortment and range of local iron and steel products began here precisely from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. At the same time, already in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Chinese craftsmen were the first in the world to purposefully produce cast iron (an iron-based alloy with a higher carbon content than steel) and, using its fusibility, produce most products not by forging, but by casting.
Researchers admit that cast iron, like iron, could initially be formed by chance during the smelting of copper from ores in a smelting furnace under certain conditions. And although this phenomenon, probably took place not only in China, only this ancient civilization, on the basis of relevant observations, came to the deliberate production of pig iron. Following this, according to a number of scientists, in ancient China, for the first time, the practice of developing ductile iron and steel arose by reducing the carbon content in cast iron, heated and left in the open air. At the same time, steel in China was also obtained by carburizing iron.
In Korea, the Iron Age begins in the second half of the 1st millennium BC, and in Japan in the 3rd-2nd centuries. BC. In Indochina and Indonesia, the Iron Age begins at the turn of the eras.
Turning to Europe, we note that iron-making skills spread through the Greek cities of Asia Minor at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. to the Aegean Islands and to European Greece, where the Iron Age begins around the 10th century. BC. Starting from that time, commodity cries - spindle-shaped and in the form of rods - spread in Greece, and the dead are buried, as a rule, with iron swords. By the end of the VI century. BC. Ancient Greek craftsmen already used such important iron tools as articulated tongs, bow saws, and by the end of the 4th century. BC. - iron spring scissors and articulated compasses. The development of iron is also clearly reflected in ancient Greek texts: for example, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer mentions various iron products and the operation of hardening steel; Hesiod in Theogony metaphorically characterizes the simplest way to produce iron from ores in a pit; Aristotle in the Meteorologica briefly describes the cheese-making process and the intentional production of steel.
In the rest of Europe, outside the Greek civilization, the Iron Age comes later: in Western and Central Europe - in the VIII-VII centuries. BC, in Southwestern Europe - in the 7th-6th centuries. BC, in Britain - in the V-IV centuries. BC, in Northern Europe - at the turn of the era.
Turning to Eastern Europe, it should be noted that in those regions that were leaders in metallurgical terms - in the Northern Black Sea region, in the North Caucasus and in the Volga-Kama region - the period of primary development of iron ended in the 9th-8th centuries. BC, which was manifested in the spread of bimetallic objects, in particular daggers and swords, the handles of which were cast from bronze according to individual models, and the blades were made of iron. They became the prototypes for subsequent all-iron daggers and swords. In the same period, along with the Eastern European tradition based on the use of iron and raw steel, products made in the framework of the Transcaucasian tradition, which provides for the deliberate production of steel (cementation of an iron product or billet), penetrate into these regions.
And yet, a significant quantitative increase in iron products in Eastern Europe is associated with the VIII-VII centuries. BC, when the Iron Age actually begins here. The manufacturing technology of the first ore-based iron products, previously limited to primitive hot forging and simple forge welding, has now been enriched with the skills of forming forging (using special crimps and dies) and forge welding of several plates overlapped or folded together.
The advanced areas of iron processing in this period on the territory of the former USSR were the Ciscaucasia and Transcaucasia, the forest-steppe Dnieper region and the Volga-Kama region. The gradual beginning of the Iron Age in the forest-steppe and forest zones of Eastern Europe, excluding deep taiga and tundra territories, can also be attributed to this time.
On the territory of the Urals and Siberia, the Iron Age begins first of all in the steppe, forest-steppe and mountain-forest regions - within the framework of the so-called Scythian-Siberian cultural and historical region and in the zone of the Itkul culture. In the taiga regions of Siberia and the Far East in the middle - the second half of the 1st millennium BC. the Bronze Age is actually still going on, but the corresponding monuments are closely interconnected with the cultures of the early Iron Age (excluding the northern part of the taiga and the tundra).
In Africa, the Iron Age was first established in the area of the Mediterranean coast (in the 6th century BC), and above all in Egypt - during the 26th dynasty (663-525 BC); however, there is an opinion that the era of iron in Egypt began in the 9th century. BC. In addition, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. the era of iron begins in Nubia and Sudan (the Meroitic, or Kushite, kingdom), as well as in a number of areas of West and Central Africa (in particular, in the zone of the so-called Nok culture in Nigeria), at the turn of the eras - in East Africa, closer to the middle I millennium AD - in South Africa.
Finally, not earlier than the middle of the 2nd millennium AD, with the advent of Europeans, the Iron Age began in most of the rest of Africa, as well as in America, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
This is the approximate chronology of the onset of the Iron Age in various parts of the ecumene. The final turn of the Early Iron Age and, accordingly, the beginning of the Late Iron Age are usually conditionally associated with the collapse of ancient civilization and the onset of the Middle Ages.
There are other versions of this. So, in Western European and Russian archeology back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. there was a concept of the Middle Iron Age as a transitional period from early to late, and the line between the early and middle Iron Ages was synchronized with the turn of the eras and was largely determined by the spread of provincial-Roman culture in Western Europe. Although the term "Middle Iron Age" has since fallen into disuse, there is still a tradition in Western European scholarship to leave the Early Iron Age outside of our era.
There are different opinions regarding the end of the Iron Age. It is assumed that this era lasted until the industrial revolution or even lasts to this day, because even now iron-based alloys - steel and cast iron - are one of the main structural materials.
With the onset of the Iron Age, agriculture improved, because the use of iron tools facilitated the cultivation of the land, made it possible to clear large forest areas for crops, and develop an irrigation system. The processing of wood and stone is improving, as a result of which the construction business is developing; the extraction of copper ore is also facilitated. The use of iron leads to the improvement of offensive and defensive weapons, horse equipment, and wheeled vehicles. The development of production and transport leads to the expansion of trade relations, as a result, a monetary business appears. In many pre-class societies, social inequality is increasing, resulting in the emergence of new centers of statehood. These are the most significant changes in the world historical and cultural situation associated with the development of iron.
