The world in antiquity, the Iron Age. General characteristics of the Iron Age
THE 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 centuries: stone, bronze and iron - arose in the ancient world (Titus Lucretius Carus). The term "Iron Age" was coined around the middle of the 19th century by the Danish archaeologist K. Yu. Thomsen. The most important studies, the initial classification and dating of the Iron Age monuments in Western Europe were carried out by M. Görnes, O. Montelius, O. Tischler, M. Reinecke, J. Deschelet, N. Oberg, J. L. Peach and J. Kostrzewski; in Vost. Europe - V. A. Gorodtsov, A. A. Spitsyn, Yu. V. Gauthier, P. N. Tretyakov, A. P. Smirnov, H. A. Moora, M. I. Artamonov, B. N. Grakov and others; in Siberia - 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, however, only the cultures of primitive tribes that lived outside the territories of ancient slave-owning civilizations that arose in the Eneolithic and Bronze Age (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China) usually belong to the Iron Age. The Iron Age is very short in comparison with the previous archaeological eras (Stone and Bronze Ages). Its chronological boundaries: from 9-7 centuries BC. BC, when many of the primitive tribes of Europe and Asia developed their own iron metallurgy, and until the time these tribes developed a class society and state. 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 there are Roman written sources containing information about Western European tribes. Since to this day iron remains the most important material from which tools are made, the modern era is entering the Iron Age, therefore, the term "early Iron Age" is also used for archaeological periodization of primitive history. On the territory of Western Europe, only its beginning is called the Early Iron Age (the so-called Hallstatt culture). Despite the fact that iron is the most widespread metal in the world, it was later mastered by man, since it almost does not occur in nature in its pure form, it is difficult to process and its ores are difficult to distinguish from various minerals. Initially, meteorite iron became known to mankind. Small iron objects (mainly jewelry) are found in the 1st half of the 3rd millennium BC. NS. in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The method of obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the 2nd millennium BC. NS. According to one of the most probable assumptions, the raw-blown process (see below) was first used by tribes subordinate to the Hittites who lived in the mountains of Armenia (Antitavra) in the 15th century BC. NS. However, for a long time, iron remained a rare and very valuable metal. Only after the 11th century BC. NS. a fairly widespread manufacture of iron weapons and tools began in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and India. At the same time, iron became famous in southern Europe. In the 11-10th centuries BC. NS. some iron objects penetrate into the region lying to the 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 8-7 centuries BC. NS. In the 8th century BC. NS. iron products are widely distributed in Mesopotamia, Iran, and somewhat later in Central Asia. The first news of iron in China dates back to the 8th century BC. e., but it spreads only in the 5th century BC. NS. In Indochina and Indonesia, iron spread around the turn of our era. Apparently, from ancient times, iron metallurgy was known to various tribes in Africa. Undoubtedly, already in the 6th century BC. NS. iron was made in Nubia, Sudan, Libya. In the 2nd century BC. NS. the Iron Age began in the central region of Africa. Some African tribes passed from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, bypassing the Bronze Age. In America, Australia and most of the islands The Pacific iron (except for meteorite) became known only in the 2nd millennium AD. NS. together with the appearance of Europeans in these areas.
In contrast to the relatively rare sources of copper and especially tin mining, iron ores, although most often of low grade (brown iron ores, lacustrine, marsh, meadow, etc.), are found almost everywhere. But getting iron from ores is much more difficult than copper. The melting of iron, that is, obtaining it in a liquid state, has always been inaccessible for the ancient metallurgists, since this requires a very high temperature (1528 °). Iron was obtained in a dough-like state using a raw-blown process, which consisted in the reduction of iron ore with carbon at a temperature of 1100-1350 ° in special furnaces with air blowing with bellows through a nozzle. At the bottom of the furnace, a crumb formed - a lump of porous doughy iron weighing 1-8 kg, which had to be hammered repeatedly with a hammer to compact and partially remove (squeeze out) slag from it. Crude iron is soft, but even in ancient times (about the 12th century BC) a method was discovered for quenching iron products (by immersing them in cold water) and carburizing them (carburizing). Bars of iron, ready for forging and intended for trade exchange, usually had a bipyramidal shape in Western Asia and Western Europe. The higher mechanical properties of iron, as well as the general availability of iron ores and the cheapness of the new metal ensured the replacement of bronze by iron, as well as stone, which remained an important material for the manufacture of tools in the Bronze Age. This did not happen immediately. In Europe, only in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BC. NS. iron began to play a really significant role as a material for making tools. The technical upheaval caused by the proliferation of iron greatly expanded the power of man over nature. It made it possible to clear large forest areas for sowing, to expand and improve irrigation and reclamation facilities, and to improve land cultivation in general. The development of handicrafts, especially blacksmiths and weapons, is accelerating. The processing of wood for the purposes of house building, the production of vehicles (ships, chariots, etc.), and the manufacture of various utensils is being improved. Craftsmen, from shoemakers and bricklayers to miners, also received better tools. By the beginning of our era, all the main types of handicraft and agricultural hand tools (except for screws and hinged scissors), used in the Middle Ages, and partially in modern times, were already in use. The construction of roads was made easier, improved military equipment, the exchange expanded, the metal coin spread as a medium of circulation.
The development of the productive forces associated with the spread of iron, over time, led to the transformation of all social life. As a result of the growth of productive labor, the surplus product increased, which, in turn, served economic prerequisite for the emergence of exploitation of man by man, the collapse of the tribal system. One of the sources of the accumulation of values and the growth of inequality in property was the expansion of exchange during the Iron Age. The possibility of enrichment through exploitation gave rise to wars of plunder and enslavement. The beginning of the Iron Age was characterized by widespread fortifications. In the era of the Iron Age, the tribes of Europe and Asia were going through a stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system, were on the eve of the emergence of a class society and state. The transition of part of the means of production to the private property of the dominant minority, the emergence of slavery, the increased stratification of society and the separation of the tribal aristocracy from the bulk of the population are already typical features of early class societies. For many tribes, the social structure of this transitional 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.
Literature:
Engels F., The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, M., 1953; Artsikhovsky A. V., Introduction to archeology, 3rd ed., M., 1947; World history, t. 1-2, M., 1955-56; M. Gernes, Culture of the Prehistoric Past, trans. from it., h. 3, M., 1914; Gorodtsov V. A., Household archeology, M., 1910; Gautier Yu. V., The Iron Age in Eastern Europe, M.-L., 1930; Grakov BN, The oldest finds of iron things in the European part of the territory of the USSR, "CA", 1958, No 4; Jessen A.A., To the question of the monuments of the 8th - 7th centuries. BC NS. in the South of the European part of the USSR, in collection: "CA" (t.) 18, M., 1953; S. V. Kiselev, Ancient history Yu. Siberia, (2nd ed.), M., 1951; Clarke D.G.D., Prehistoric Europe. Economical sketch, trans. from English, M., 1953; Krupnov E.I., Ancient history North Caucasus, M., 1960; Lyapushkin I.I., Monuments of the Saltovo-Mayatskaya culture in the basin of the r. Don, "MIA", 1958, No 62; his, the Dnieper forest-steppe left bank in the Iron Age, "MIA", 1961, No. 104; Mongayt A. L., Archeology in the USSR, M., 1955; Niederle L., Slavic antiquities, trans. from Czech., M., 1956; Okladnikov A.P., Distant past of Primorye, Vladivostok, 1959; Essays on the history of the USSR. Primitive communal system and the most ancient states on the territory of the USSR, M., 1956; Monuments of Zarubinets culture, "MIA", 1959, No 70; Piotrovsky B.V., Archeology of Transcaucasia from ancient times to 1 millennium BC e., L., 1949; his, Van kingdom, M., 1959; Rudenko S.I., Culture of the population of Central Altai in the Scythian time, M.-L., 1960; Smirnov A.P., The Iron Age of the Chuvash Volga region, M., 1961; Tretyakov P. N., East Slavic tribes, 2nd ed., M., 1953; Chernetsov V.N., Lower Ob region in 1 millennium AD e., "MIA", 1957, No 58; Déchelette J., Manuel d "archéologie prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, 2nd ed., T. 3-4, P., 1927; Johannsen O., Geschichte des Eisens, Düsseldorf, 1953; Moora H., Die Eisenzeit in Lettland bis etwa 500 n. Chr., (t.) 1-2, Tartu (Dorpat), 1929-38; Redlich A., Die Minerale im Dienste der Menschheit, Bd 3 - Das Eisen, Prag, 1925; Rickard TA, Man and metals, v. 1-2, NY-L., 1932.
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. NS. 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. There is no iron in its pure form in nature, and the process of smelting it from ore is very difficult because of its refractoriness.
The beginning of the Early Iron Age in Kazakhstan falls on the VIII-VII centuries. BC.
With the onset of the early Iron Age in the vastness of Eurasia, truly global changes are taking place in the life of the steppe ethnic groups. 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 cattle breeding, which are based on a strict system of seasonal regulation of pastures and water sources. These special forms of running a steppe cattle-breeding economy in the Eurocentric science of modern and modern 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, the transition to mobile forms of cattle breeding was facilitated not only by 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 make the most 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 sedentary agricultural peoples, giving rise to a certain militarization of their societies. Nations appear on the historical arena, which the Greeks and Persians will call "Scythians", "Sakas", "Savromats". Due 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 and horse equipment appeared in the material culture of the tribes, and a peculiar art became widespread, which was called the "Scythian-Saka animal style." 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 rapidly developing, metallurgy and trade are flourishing. Representatives of the wealthy tribal elite appear: "kings", military nobility. Large “tsarist” burial mounds, complex tombs, where the deceased representatives of the nobility were buried with items of significant value, including jewelry, weapons, etc., are spreading.
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. NS. Siberian scientists proposed the term "Steppe civilization".
Tasmolinian culture
On the territory of Central Kazakhstan, this era is represented by monuments Tasmola archaeological culture... The famous Kazakhstani archaeologist M.K. Kadyrbaev determined its chronological framework in the 7th-3rd centuries BC, highlighting two stages in its development. A characteristic type of monuments of the Tasmola culture are the so-called mounds 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 half-arcs ("mustaches"), 60 to 200 m long. These "mustaches" adjoin the barrows and always face east. Under a large mound in an earth pit, about two meters deep, there is a burial of a person. In a small mound, as a rule, one can find 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 the barrows with "mustaches" built? There is a well-known hypothesis for the astronomical purpose of barrows with "mustaches". According to the biologist and archeology enthusiast P.I. Marikovsky, barrows with "mustaches" were ancient observatories and served to observe starry sky, the sun and the moon, to determine the seasons. It is possible that the complexes with "mustaches" could have been 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 "mustaches". Why build two "observatories" when one is enough to observe the sky? The opinion of M.K. Kadyrbaev, who believed that the complexes with stone "mustaches" were funerary and ritual structures and reflected the ideas of the solar cult that existed among the Tasmola tribes.
Kurgan Nurken. Karkaralinsky district
By now, the main area of the barrows with "mustaches" 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 area covers Central and North Kazakhstan (Kokshetau), as well as the steppe areas of the western part (Abyrali, Shyngystau, Shubartau) of the modern East Kazakhstan region. More than 80% of the total number of kurgans with "mustaches" in Kazakhstan are concentrated here.
The geography of this main mass of barrows with "mustaches" is associated with the area of the Tasmola culture.
Tasmolinian culture
Generally, tasmolinian culture studied on the basis of materials from burial mounds. The data that formed the basis for the characteristics of this culture form three well-known blocks: a) weapons; b) horse harness; c) cult items, jewelry and household items. In the society of the Tasmolians there were excellent masters of bronze casting. It is from bronze that all the leading categories of material culture are made. Iron items (knives, cheekpieces, plaques) appear already at the first stage (VII-VI centuries BC). Tasmola arrowheads of the early stage - two-finned socketed and three-finned with a relatively long petiole - genetically go back to the arrowheads of the Begazy-Dandybaev culture. Daggers with a bar-shaped, mushroom-shaped pommel and figured hilt are characteristic; combat typesetting belts. The horse bridle includes bits with stirrup-like ends, bronze or horn cheekpieces with three holes. Among the objects of worship there are disc-shaped bronze mirrors with a loop-handle on the back, stone altars-altars, flat or on 4, 6 low legs. Typical for applied art are 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 boars coiled into a spiral. The handle of one massive mirror with a figured rim is cast in the shape of a wild boar. Towards 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 an amazing analogy in the Aldybel monuments of Tuva. Found jewelry decorated with the technique of grain and inlay. At the second stage, changes occur in material culture: comes 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 the end of the Tasmola 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).
Tasmolinian culture of the early Iron Age existed throughout the entire territory of the Kazakh Upland. The studied monuments define the western border of culture in the region of the Ulytau mountains, the southern one along the Northern Betpakdala and the Northern Balkhash, the eastern one along the Priddertinsky and Bayanaul steppes and further south to Shubartau. It is within these limits that the open and well-known burial mounds of the Tasmola culture are located. There are adjacent territories, where in the future the discovery of monuments of this culture is expected (steppe areas up to the Shyngystau ridge).
In this large area, the tribes of the early Iron Age were spread unevenly. The bulk of the population was concentrated in the mountain-steppe regions.
In the early Iron Age, when the Tasmolinian tribes lived, a new progressive type of economy, nomadic cattle breeding, became widespread. For almost three millennia, it became 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 social development... All countries of the world passed through the period of mastering the production of iron at different times, and in a broad sense, the entire history of mankind can be attributed to the Iron Age from the end of the Bronze Age to the present day. But in historical science, only the cultures of primitive peoples that lived outside the territories of ancient states that arose during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age (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 concept of three eras of human development (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) originated in the ancient world. This conjecture was expressed by Titus Lucretius Kar. Scientifically, 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 to the Stone Age and Copper Age, takes a relatively short time. Its beginning dates back to the 9-7th centuries BC. NS. 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 some 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
Unlike 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 ores. The process of extracting iron from ore is much more complicated than the process of extracting copper. Iron melting occurs at high temperatures that were inaccessible to ancient metallurgists. They obtained iron in a dough-like state using a raw-blown process, which consisted in the reduction of iron ore at a temperature of about 900-1350 ° C in special furnaces - forges with air blowing by forging bellows through a nozzle. At the bottom of the furnace, a crumb formed - a lump of porous iron weighing 1-5 kg, which had to be forged to compact, as well as remove slag from it. Raw iron is a soft metal, tools and weapons made from it were of little practical use in everyday life. But in the 9-7 centuries BC. beating the discovery of methods of obtaining steel from iron and its heat treatment... High mechanical properties steel products, the general availability of iron ores was ensured by 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 sowing, expand irrigation and reclamation facilities, and improve land cultivation. The development of crafts has accelerated, wood processing has improved during 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 for screws and hinged scissors), which were later used both in the Middle Ages and in modern times, had come into use.
The development of the 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. For many tribes of the Iron Age, the social structure took the form of military democracy. Trade relations, which expanded during the Iron Age, became one of the sources of the accumulation of values and the growth of property inequality. The possibility of enrichment through plunder 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 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, the method of obtaining iron from ore was discovered in the second millennium BC. It is believed that the raw-blown metallurgical process was first found by tribes living in the Antitavr 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, India, southern Europe. In the 10th century BC. iron tools and weapons penetrate north of the Alps and Danube, into the steppe zone of Eastern Europe, but begin to prevail in these areas only from the 8th-7th centuries BC. A number of archaeological cultures of the end of the Bronze Age are known in Transcaucasia, which flourished in the early Iron Age: Central Transcaucasian culture, Kyzyl-Vank culture, Colchis culture, Urartian culture. The appearance of iron products in agricultural oases and steppe regions of Central Asia is attributed to the 7-6 centuries BC. Throughout the first millennium BC. and until the first half of the first millennium A.D. 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).
In China, iron appeared in the 8th century BC. e., and widely spread from the 5th century BC. NS. In Indochina and Indonesia, iron began to prevail 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 the metallurgy of iron, bypassing the Bronze Age. In America, Australia, Oceania, iron became known in the 16-17 centuries A.D. with the advent of European colonialists.
In Europe, iron and steel as a material for the manufacture of tools and weapons began to play a leading role in 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 Laten. The Hallstatt period (900-400 BC) is also called the Early Iron Age (the first iron wreath), and the La Tene period (400 BC - early AD) is called the Revital Iron Age (the second Iron Age ). Hallstatt culture was spread 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 basins of the Odra and Vistula rivers. The beginning of the Hallstatt period was characterized by the parallel circulation of bronze and iron tools and weapons, the gradual displacement of bronze. In economic terms, the Hallstatt period was characterized by the growth of agriculture, in social terms, by the disintegration of clan relations. The Bronze Age existed in the north of Europe at this time.
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 Tene culture, characterized by a high level of iron production, spread. The La Tene culture existed before the Roman conquest of Gaul in the first century BC. La Tene culture is associated with the Celtic tribes, who had large fortified cities, which were the centers of tribes and places of concentration of crafts. In this era, bronze tools and weapons were no longer found among the Celts. At the beginning of our era, in the areas conquered by Rome, the La Tene 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 culture of the Germanic tribes inhabiting 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, belong to the end of the Iron Age. In the northern countries, iron tools and weapons began to prevail at the beginning of our era.
The 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 settlements and in barrows of the Scythian time. Signs of metallurgical production were found during excavations of Scythian settlements. The largest amount of remains of iron-making and blacksmiths was found at the Kamenskoye 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 dating back to the early Iron Age, dominated the Black Sea region in the 2-4 centuries AD. At the same time, in the western regions of the Northern Black Sea region, the Upper and Middle Dnieper regions, and Transnistria, there were cultures of “burial fields” (Zarubinets culture, Chernyakhov culture) of agricultural tribes who knew the metallurgy of iron; probably the ancestors of the Slavs. In the central and northern forest regions of Eastern Europe, iron metallurgy appeared in the 6-5th centuries BC. In the Kama region, the Ananyin culture was widespread (8-3 centuries BC), which is characterized by the coexistence of bronze and iron tools. The Ananyin culture on the Kama was replaced by the Pianobor 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 (the middle of the first millennium BC - the middle of the first millennium AD). To the south of the middle reaches of the Oka, west of the Volga, in the basins of the Tsna and Moksha rivers, the ancient 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 and the southeastern Baltic region of the 6th century BC - 7th century A.D. belong to the East Baltic tribes, later assimilated by the Slavs, as well as the Chud tribes. Southern Siberia and Altai are rich in copper and tin, which led to a high level of development of bronze metallurgy. For a long time, the culture of bronze competed here with iron tools and weapons, which became widespread in the middle of the first millennium BC. - Tagar culture on the Yenisei, Pazyryk kurgans in Altai.
Archaeological era, which begins the use of items made from iron ore. The earliest iron-making furnaces, dating from the 1st half. II millennium BC found on the territory of Western Georgia. In Eastern Europe and the Eurasian steppe and forest-steppe, the beginning of the era coincides with the formation of the early nomadic formations of the Scythian and Saka types (approximately VIII-VII centuries BC). In Africa, it came immediately after the Stone Age (the Bronze Age is missing). In America, the beginning of the Iron Age is associated with European colonization. In Asia and Europe it started 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 Migration Period (IV-VI centuries AD). In general, the Iron Age includes all the Middle Ages, and based on the definition, this era still lasts.
The discovery of iron and the invention of the metallurgical process was very difficult. If copper and tin are found in nature in a pure form, then iron is found only in chemical compounds, mainly with oxygen, as well as with other elements. No matter how much iron ore is kept in a fire, it will not melt, and this path of "accidental" discovery, which is possible for copper, tin and some other metals, is excluded for iron. Loose brown stone, such as iron ore, was not suitable for the manufacture of tools by upholstery. Finally, even reduced iron melts at very high temperatures - over 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 millennia of development of copper metallurgy. The invention of bellows for blowing air into smelting furnaces was especially important. Such furs were used in nonferrous metallurgy, increasing the flow of oxygen into the furnace, which not only increased the temperature in it, but also created 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 stove was made of stone and covered with clay (or it was made of clay alone) on a massive clay or stone base. The thickness of the walls of the furnace reached 20 cm. The height of the furnace shaft was about 1 m. Its diameter was the same. In the front wall of the furnace, at the bottom level, there was a hole through which the coal loaded into the mine was set on fire, and the grill was taken out through it. Archaeologists use the Old Russian name for the furnace for "cooking" iron - "blast furnace". The process itself is called cheese-blowing. This term emphasizes the importance of blowing air into a blast furnace filled with iron ore and coal.
At raw-blowing process more than half of the iron was lost in the slags, 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 one for obtaining iron.
Unlike bronze items, iron items could not be made by casting, they were forged. The forging process had a thousand-year history at the time of the discovery of iron metallurgy. Forged on a metal support - an anvil. A piece of iron was first heated in a forge, and then the blacksmith, holding it with tongs on the anvil, hit the place with a small hand hammer, where his assistant then struck, hitting the iron with a heavy sledgehammer.
Iron was first mentioned in the correspondence of the Egyptian pharaoh with the Hittite king, preserved in the archive of the XIV century. BC NS. 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, in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, a gold bracelet with iron inlay and a whole series of iron things were found. Iron inlays are known elsewhere as well.
On the territory of the USSR, iron first appeared in the Transcaucasus.
Iron things began to quickly displace bronze ones, since iron, unlike copper and tin, is found almost everywhere. Iron ores are found in mountainous areas and in swamps, not only deep underground, but also on its surface. At present, bog ore is not of industrial interest, but in ancient times it was of great importance. Thus, the countries that had a monopoly 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 the countries that were advanced in the Bronze Age.
Scythians
Scythians are 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 part of Siberia. This does not exclude a different ethnicity of some of the tribes, which were also called Scythians by ancient authors.
Information about the Scythians comes mainly from the works of ancient authors (especially the "History" of Herodotus) and archaeological excavations in the lands from the lower Danube to Siberia and Altai. The Scythian-Sarmatian language, as well as the Alanic language derived from it, was part of the northeastern branch of the Iranian languages and was probably the ancestor of the modern Ossetian language, as indicated by hundreds of Scythian personal names, tribal names, 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 completely different in origin that inhabited the Eurasian steppes and the northern Black Sea region: in sources of the 3rd-4th centuries AD, "Scythians" are often called and German-speaking Goths, in later Byzantine sources they called the Scythians Eastern Slavs- Rus, Turkic-speaking Khazars and Pechenegs, as well as Alans, related to the most ancient Iranian-speaking Scythians.
Occurrence. The basis of the early Indo-European, including the Scythian, culture is actively studied by the supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis. Archaeologists attribute the formation of a relatively generally recognized Scythian culture to the 7th century BC. NS. (Arzhan burial mounds). At the same time, there are two main approaches to the interpretation of its occurrence. According to one, based on the so-called "third legend" of Herodotus, the Scythians came from the east, expelling what can archeologically be interpreted 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 rely on the legends recorded by Herodotus, suggests that the Scythians by that time inhabited the territory of the Northern Black Sea region for at least several centuries, separating from the environment of the successors of the Srubna culture.
Maria Gimbutas and scholars of her circle attribute the appearance of the ancestors of the Scythians (horse domestication cultures) to 5-4 thousand BC. NS. According to other versions, these ancestors are associated with other cultures. They also appear as the descendants of the carriers of the Timber-era culture of the Bronze Age, who advanced from the XIV century. BC NS. from the territory of the Volga region to the west. Others believe that the main core of the Scythians emerged 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 Maria Gimbutas extend towards further research into the origins of the Scythian origin.
Grain farming was of great importance. The Scythians produced grain for export, in particular to the Greek cities, and through them - to the Greek metropolis. The production of grain required the use of slave labor. The bones of slain slaves often accompany the burials of Scythian slave owners. The custom of killing people during 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 the blinding of slaves, which does not agree with the assumption of patriarchal slavery among the Scythians. Agricultural tools, in particular sickles, are found in Scythian settlements, however, arable tools are extremely rare, probably all of them were made of wood and did not have iron parts. The fact that agriculture among the Scythians was plowed 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 were 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 on the Don with the Savromats, also occupied the steppe Crimea. To the west of them lived the Scythian nomads, and even to the west, on the left bank of the Dnieper, the 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 Alazones, and even further north - the Scythians-Ploughmen, and Herodotus points to agriculture as differences from the Scythians of the last three tribes and specifies that if the Callipids and Alazones grow and eat bread, then the Scythians-Pahari grow bread for sale.
The Scythians already fully owned the production of ferrous metal. Other types of production are also presented: bone-cutting, pottery, weaving. But the level of craft has so far reached only metallurgy.
At the Kamenskoye settlement there are two lines of fortifications: external and internal. The interior is called the acropolis by archaeologists by analogy with the corresponding division of Greek cities. The remains of stone dwellings of the Scythian nobility are traced on the acropolis. Ordinary dwellings were mostly above ground. 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-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 shaft of the arrow is inserted. Classical Scythian arrows are also socketed, they resemble a three-sided pyramid, or three-bladed - the ribs of the pyramid seem to have developed into blades. The arrows are made of bronze, which has finally won its place in arrow production.
Scythian pottery was made without the aid of a potter's wheel, although the circle was widely used in the Greek colonies neighboring the Scythians. Scythian vessels are flat-bottomed and varied in shape. Scythian bronze cauldrons with a height of up to a meter, which had a long and thin stem and two vertical arms, became widespread.
Scythian art is well known mainly for objects from burials. It is characterized by the image 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 feline breeds - curled up in a ring. In Scythian art, strong or fast and sensitive animals are represented, which corresponds to the desire of the Scythian to overtake, strike, be always ready. It is noted that some images are associated with certain Scythian deities. The figures of these animals seemed to protect their owner from harm. But the style was not only sacred, but also decorative. The claws, tails, and shoulder blades of carnivores were often shaped like the head of a bird of prey; sometimes complete images of animals were placed in these places. This artistic style has received the name of the animal style in archeology. V early time in the Trans-Volga region, animal ornament is evenly distributed between representatives of the nobility and the rank and file. In the IV-III centuries. BC NS. the animal style is degenerating, and objects with a similar ornament are presented mainly in the burials. The most famous and best studied are Scythian burials. The Scythians buried the dead in pits or in catacombs, under mounds. lah of the nobility. The famous Scythian burial mounds are located in the area of the Dnieper rapids. In the royal mounds of the Scythians, they find golden vessels, art items made of gold, and expensive weapons. Thus, a new phenomenon is observed in the Scythian burial mounds - a strong property stratification. There are small and huge burial mounds, some burials without things, others with a huge amount of gold.
The Iron Age, or the Iron Age, is the third technological macro-era in the history of mankind (after the Stone Age and the Eneolithic and Bronze Age). The term "early Iron Age" is customary to designate the first stage of the Iron Age, approximately dating from the turn of the 2nd-1st 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 VIII - the beginning of the VII century. BC. the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. According to his periodization of the historical process (see the Introduction), the Iron Age contemporary to Hesiod turns out to be the last and worst stage of human history, in which people have “no respite either night or day from labor and grief” and “only the most severe, grave troubles will remain for people in life "(" Works and Days ", pp. 175-201. Translated by VV Veresaev). Ovid at the beginning of the 1st century. AD the ethical imperfection of the Iron Age is even more emphasized. The ancient Roman poet calls iron "the worst ore", in the era of the reign of which "shame fled, and truth, and fidelity; and in their place deceit and deceit immediately appeared; intrigues, violence came and the damned greed for profit. " The moral degeneration of people is punishable by a worldwide flood that destroys everyone, excluding Deucalion and Pyrrhus, who revive humanity (Metamorphoses, Ch. I, pp. 127-150, 163-415. Translated by SV Shervinsky).
As we can see, in the assessment of the Iron Age by these ancient authors, the interconnection of the cultural and technological aspect with the philosophical and ethical, in particular eschatological, was especially strong. the Iron Age was thought of as a kind of threshold of the end of the world. This is quite natural, because the primary concepts of historical periodization were finally formed and 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 (be it mythical, like the age of gold and the age of heroes, or real, like the age of copper) were a distant or recent past, while the Iron Age itself was modern, shortcomings which are always seen clearer and more tangible. Therefore, the beginning of the era of iron was perceived as a kind of crisis line in human history. In addition, iron, which defeated bronze primarily in the arms business, 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, wishing to punish Uranus-Heaven for his villainy, specially creates a "breed of gray iron", from which he makes a punishing sickle ("Theogony", pp. 154-166. Per. V.V. Veresaeva).
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 modern fiction(see, for example, A. Blok's poem "Retribution").
However, even Ovid's compatriot Lucretius in the first half of the 1st century. BC. substantiated in the poem "On the Nature of Things" a qualitatively new, exclusively production and technological characteristic of historical epochs, including the era of iron. This idea ultimately formed the basis for the first proper scientific concept 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 replacement of the Bronze Age with the Iron Age throughout the entire territory of the oecumene; the countdown of the beginning of the Iron Age for each region should be carried out from the moment of the predominance of iron and alloys based on it (first of all, it is 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 specific region is the use of iron ore nature for the manufacture of the main 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 dating back to previous technological eras.
Even in the Eneolithic and Bronze Age, people sometimes used iron for the production of some jewelry and simple tools. Initially, however, it was meteoric iron constantly arriving from space. Mankind came to the production of iron from ores much later.
Items made of meteorite iron differ from items made of metallurgical iron (i.e., obtained from ores) primarily in that the former do not contain any slag inclusions, while in the composition of metallurgical such inclusions, at least in small fractions, are inevitable are present as a consequence of the operation of recovering iron from ores. In addition, meteoric iron usually has a much higher nickel content, which is due to the significantly higher hardness of such iron. However, this indicator in itself is not absolute, and in modern science there is a serious and still unresolved problem of distinguishing between ancient items made of meteorite and ore iron. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the nickel content in items made from meteorite raw materials could significantly decrease over time as a result of prolonged corrosion. On the other hand, there are iron ores with a high nickel content on our planet.
Theoretically, it was possible to use native 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 is found only in the smallest grains and veins (with the exception of Greenland, where large accumulations are known), so that the practical use of telluric iron in ancient times was impossible.
Due to the high nickel content (from 5 to 20%, on average 8%), which increases the brittleness, meteorite raw materials were processed mainly by cold forging - by analogy with stone. At the same time, some items made of meteorite iron were obtained as a result of the use 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 instrument that could have been made of ore iron (this is, of course, an exceptional case).
A much larger number of items of meteorite nature (mainly for ritual and ceremonial purposes) belong to the Bronze Age.
The most famous are such items as the 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 lined with gold from the royal burial ground of Ur in Sumer (the tomb of Meskalamduga, dating from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC); mace from Troy I (2600-2400 BC); pins with gold heads, a pendant and some other items from the Aladzha-Heyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC); the handle of a dagger made in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC in Asia Minor and brought to the region of present-day Slovakia (Hanovce) - finally, things from the tomb of Tutankhamun (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 support and 16 thin magic-surgical iron instruments (lancets, incisors, chisels) inserted into a wooden base. Within the territory of the former USSR the first items made of meteoric iron appear earlier than all in the southern Urals and the Sayan-Altai highlands. These are dated by the end of IV-III millennium BC. all-iron and bimetallic (bronze-iron) tools and ornaments made by metallurgists of the Yamnaya (see Section II, Ch. 4) and Afanasyevsk cultures using cold and hot forging.
Obviously, the previous experience of using meteorite iron did not in any way affect the discovery of the effect of obtaining iron from ores. Meanwhile, it is the last discovery, i.e. the actual birth of ferrous metallurgy, which took place in 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 lined with gold (from the tomb of Meskalamdug in Ur and from the Aladzha-Heyuk burial ground in Asia Minor); 2, 4 - an iron adze with a copper grip for the handle and an iron chisel from an ancient pit culture burial (Southern Urals); 5, 6 - a dagger with an iron blade and a gold 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 catacomb culture burial (Russia, Belgorod region, Gerasimovka village); 8 - iron handle of a dagger (Slovakia)
Reconstruction of the raw iron process in the early Iron Age:
the initial and final phases of the blowing process; 2 - obtaining iron from ore in an open-ended semi-dugout workshop in an ancient workshop (Mshetske Zhekhrovice, Czech Republic); 3 - the main types of the ancients
cheese-blowing ovens (cutaway)
There are two most important stages in the development of ore iron:
1st stage - the discovery and improvement of the method for the reduction of iron from ores - the so-called cheese-blowing process.
2nd stage - the discovery of methods for the deliberate production of steel (carburizing technology), and subsequently methods for its heat treatment in order to increase the hardness and strength of products.
The cheese-blowing process was carried out in special furnaces, into which iron ore and charcoal were loaded, which was ignited when unheated, "raw" air was supplied (hence the name of the process). The coal itself could be obtained by pre-burning firewood, stacked in pyramids and covered with turf. First, coal was fired, poured into the bottom of a hearth or furnace, then layers of ore and the same coal were alternately loaded from above. As a result of coal combustion, a gas was released - carbon monoxide, which, passing through the ore, reduced iron oxides. The cheese-blowing process, as a rule, did not provide the iron melting temperature (1528-1535 degrees Celsius), but reached a maximum of 1200 degrees, which was quite enough for the reduction of iron from ores. It was a kind of "cooking" of iron.
Initially, the raw-blown process was carried out in pits lined with refractory clay or stones, then they began to build small furnaces of stone or brick, sometimes using clay. Cheese-blowing furnaces could operate on natural draft (especially if they were built on the slopes of hills), but with the development of metallurgy, it was increasingly used to pump air with bellows through ceramic nozzles. This air entered the open pit from above, and into the furnace through an opening in the lower part of the structure.
Reduced iron was concentrated in a dough-like form at the very bottom of the furnace, forming the so-called hornbill - an iron spongy mass with inclusions of unburned charcoal and with an admixture of slag. In more advanced versions of cheese-blowing furnaces, liquid slag was tapped from the forge along a chute.
From the hearth, which was removed from the furnace in a red-hot state, it was possible to make products only after preliminary removal of this slag impurity and elimination of porosity. Therefore, the direct continuation of the raw-blown process was the hot forging of the hearth furnace, which consisted of periodically heating it to "bright white heat" (1400-1450 degrees) and forging it with a percussion tool. As a result, a denser mass of metal was obtained - the actual die, from which, through further forging, semi-finished products and blanks of the corresponding forging products were made. Even before processing into a semi-finished product, the chicken could become a unit of exchange, for which it was given standard size, weight and form convenient for storage and transportation - flat, fusiform, bipyramidal, banded. For the same purposes, the semi-finished products themselves could be shaped into tools and weapons.
The opening of the raw-blown process could have occurred as a result of the smelting of copper or lead from ores into the smelting furnace, in addition to copper ore and charcoal, iron-containing rocks, primarily hematite, were loaded (as materials for the removal of "waste rock" As a result of the copper-smelting process, the first iron particles could accidentally appear.It is possible that the corresponding furnaces could serve as a prototype of the raw-blown ones.
Tools and products of the cheese-blowing and forging process:
1-9 - kritsy 10-13 - semi-finished products in the form of adzes, axes and a knife; 14 - stone pestle for grinding ore; 15 - ceramic nozzle for supplying air to the blowing oven.
The finds of the earliest cheese-blowing furnaces are associated with the territories of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is no coincidence that the most ancient ore iron products originate from these regions.
This is a dagger blade from Tell Ashmar (2800 BC) and a dagger with a gold-coated hilt from the aforementioned tomb of the Aladzha-Heyuk burial ground (2400-2100 BC), the iron blade of which, for a long time was considered meteorite, during spectrographic analysis, found an extremely low content of nickel, which speaks in favor of its ore or mixed nature (a combination of meteorite and ore raw materials).
On the territory of the former USSR, experiments on the production of critical iron took place most intensively in the Transcaucasus, in the North Caucasus and in the Northern Black Sea region.
We have survived such early iron products on an ore basis as a knife from the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. 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 Srubnaya culture Lyubovka (Kharkov region) and Tatshgyk (Nikolaev region). The discovery of the raw-blown process is the most important step in the development of iron by mankind, for if meteoric iron is relatively rare, then iron ores are much more widespread than copper and tin. At the same time, iron ores are often very shallow; in a number of areas, such as the Forest of Dean area in the UK or near Krivoy Rog in the Ukraine, iron ore could be mined by surface mining. Swamp iron ores are widespread, especially in the northern regions of the zone. temperate climate, as well as sod, meadow ores, etc.
The cheese-blowing process was constantly developing: the volume of the furnaces increased, the blowing was improved, etc. However, objects made of blasted 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 by special heat treatment.
Initially, cementation was mastered - the deliberate carburization of iron. As such, carburization, but accidental, unintentional, leading to the appearance of the so-called raw steel, could have occurred earlier in the course of the raw-blown process. But then this process became regulated and was carried out separately from the cheese-blowing one. At first, cementation was carried out by heating an iron product or workpiece for many hours to "red heat" (750-900 degrees) in a woody or bone environment; then they began to use other organic substances containing carbon. In this case, the depth of carburization was directly proportional to the height of the temperature and the duration of heating of the iron. With an increase in the carbon content, the hardness of the metal increased.
The method of hardening was also aimed at increasing the hardness, which consisted of a sharp cooling of a steel thing preheated to "red heat" in water, snow, olive oil or some other liquid.
Most likely, the hardening process, like carburizing, was discovered by chance, and its physical nature, naturally, remained a mystery to ancient blacksmiths, which is why we often come across in written sources with very fantastic explanations of the reasons for the increase in the hardness of iron products during hardening. For example, the chronicle of the 9th century. BC. from the Balgala temple in Asia Minor prescribes the following hardening method: “You need to heat the dagger until it glows like a sun rising in the desert, then cool it down to the color of royal purple, immersing it in the body of a muscular slave ... The power of a slave, turning into a dagger ... gives metal hardness". The famous fragment from the "Odyssey", probably created in the 8th century, belongs to the same ancient time. BC: here the burning of the eye of a Cyclops with the "tip of a red-hot" olive stake ("Odyssey", Canto IX, pp. 375-395. Translated by V. A. Zhukovsky) is compared with the immersion of a red-hot steel ax or poleaxe in cold water by a blacksmith , 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 craftsmen, striving 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 slightly decreased, but the strength of the product increased.
In general, mastering cementation and heat treatment operations is a long and very complex process. Most researchers believe that the region where these operations were first discovered (as well as the raw-blowing process itself) and where their improvement was the fastest was Asia Minor, and above all the region inhabited by the Hittites and tribes associated with them, in particular Mount Antitavra. where already in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. made quality steel products.
It was precisely the improvement of the technology for processing blast iron and the production of steel that finally solved the problem of competition between iron and bronze. Along with this, in the change of the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, a significant role was played by the widespread prevalence and relative ease of the development of iron ores.
In addition, for some regions 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 ties of these regions with ore sources that provided non-ferrous metallurgy were broken.
THE OFFENSIVE OF THE IRON AGE: CHRONOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF THE PROCESS, MAIN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONSEQUENCES
The leading 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 (the region of the Hittite kingdom), as well as the Eastern Mediterranean and Transcaucasia closely connected with it.
It is no coincidence that the first indisputable written evidence of the development and use of blooming iron and steel came down to us precisely from the texts, one way or another connected with the Hittites.
From the texts of their predecessors, the Hutts, translated by the Hittites, it follows that the Hutts already knew iron well, which for them was more of a cult-ritual than of everyday value. However, in these Hutt 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 mentions of items made of ore ("blasted") iron appear in 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 the dispatch to the latter of a ship loaded with iron. These are also cuneiform tablets from the kingdom of Mitanni, adjacent to the Hittites, addressed to the Egyptians and therefore included in the famous "Amarna Archives" 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" appears, meaning steel. All this is confirmed by the finds of a significant amount of iron products on an ore basis at the monuments of the New Hittite kingdom of the XIV-XII centuries. BC, as well as steel products in Palestine already in the XII century. BC. and in Cyprus in the X century. BC.
Under the influence of Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean in the late II - early I millennium BC. the Iron Age begins in Mesopotamia and Iran.
So, during the excavations of the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II in Khorsabad (last quarter of the 8th century BC), about 160 tons of iron were found, mainly in the form of bipyramidal and spindle-shaped marketable krits, probably donations from the subject territories.
From Iran, ferrous metallurgy spreads to India, where the Iron Age 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 Rig Veda, and later non-Indian, in particular ancient Greek).
Under the influence of Iran and India in the VIII century. BC. the era of iron begins in Central Asia. Further 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 production, providing China with quality metal products, era
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, commentaries on Confucius of the 6th century BC) record the earlier acquaintance of the Chinese with iron. And yet, for the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Excavations have revealed only a small number of items made of ore iron, actually made in China. A significant increase in the number, assortment and area of local iron and steel products began here precisely from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Moreover, already in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Chinese craftsmen became the first in the world to purposefully produce cast iron (an iron-based alloy with a higher carbon content than steel) and, using its low melting point, produce most products not by forging, but by casting.
The researchers assume that cast iron, like iron, may have originally formed by accident when copper is smelted 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 appropriate observations, came to the deliberate production of pig iron. Following this, according to a number of scientists, in ancient China, the practice of producing malleable iron and steel by reducing the carbon content in cast iron, heated and left in the open air, arose for the first time. At the same time, steel in China was also obtained using iron carburizing.
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 era.
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. Since that time, commercial krytsy have been spreading in Greece - spindle-shaped and in the form of rods, 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 pliers, bow saw, and by the end of the 4th century. BC. - iron spring scissors and articulated compasses. The mastery of iron is also clearly reflected in ancient Greek texts: for example, in the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer mentions various iron products and the operation of hardening steel; Hesiod in Theogony metaphorically characterizes the simplest way of producing iron from ores in a pit; Aristotle, in Meteorology, briefly describes the raw-blown process and the deliberate 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 South-Western Europe - in the VII-VI centuries. BC, in Britain - in the V-IV centuries. BC, in Northern Europe - at the turn of the era.
Moving on to Eastern Europe, it should be noted that in those regions that were leading in metallurgical terms - in the Northern Black Sea region, in the North Caucasus and in the Volga-Kama region - the period of the primary development of iron ended in the 9th-8th centuries. BC, which manifested itself 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 of 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 manufactured within the framework of the Transcaucasian tradition, providing 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 technology of making the first iron products on an ore basis, previously limited to operations of primitive hot forging and simple forge welding, has now been enriched by the skills of forming forging (using special crimpers and dies) and forging welding of several overlapping or stacked plates.
The leading regions of iron processing during 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 the deep taiga and tundra territories, can be attributed to the same time.
On the territory of the Urals and Siberia, the Iron Age first begins in the steppe, forest-steppe and mountain-forest regions - within the framework of the so-called Scythian-Siberian cultural-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 still in fact continuing, but the corresponding monuments are closely interconnected with the cultures of the Early Iron Age (excluding the northern part of the taiga and tundra).
In Africa, the Iron Age was first established in the region 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 Iron Age begins in Nubia and Sudan (the Meroitic, or Kushite, kingdom), as well as in a number of regions 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 1st millennium AD - in South Africa.
Finally, not earlier than the middle of the 2nd millennium AD, with the arrival 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 boundary of the Early Iron Age and, accordingly, the beginning of the Late Iron Age are usually conventionally associated with the collapse of ancient civilization and the onset of the Middle Ages.
There are other versions on this score. So, in Western European and Russian archeology back in the XIX - early XX century. there was a concept of the Middle Iron Age as a transitional period from early to late, and the line between the early and the Middle Iron Age was synchronized with the turn of the eras and was largely determined by the spread of provincial-Roman culture in Western Europe. Although the concept of the "Middle Iron Age" has since fallen into disuse, there is still a tradition in Western European scholarship of leaving the Early Iron Age outside our era.
Opinions differ regarding the finale of the Iron Age. It is assumed that this era lasted until the industrial revolution, or even continues to this day, because even today, iron-based alloys - steel and cast iron - are one of the main structural materials.
With the onset of the Iron Age, agriculture improved, for the use of iron tools facilitates the cultivation of the land, makes it possible to clear large forest areas for crops, and develop the irrigation system. The processing of wood, stone is improved, as a result of which the construction business is developing; mining 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, the coinage appears. In many pre-class societies, social inequality is increasing, as a result, new hotbeds of statehood are emerging. These are the most significant changes in the world historical and cultural situation associated with the development of iron.
