Iron ware was invented by Hittites in the eastern mountainous area of Asia Minor. The early iron age was after the bronze age, but human beings knew iron no later than bronze. Iron was found in the tombs and tombs of Ur in pre-dynastic Egypt, while the pre-dynastic Egypt was still in the bronze age, and the Ur I dynasty just entered the bronze age.

However, most of the iron at that time was meteorites, and the so-called artificial products were only obtained by accidentally melting iron ore. The real artificial iron didn't appear until around 1400 BC, and the inventor of iron smelting technology was the Hittites in the eastern mountainous area of Asia Minor.

After the invention of iron, Hittite king banned the spread of iron smelting. For a time, the output of iron was very small and the price was very expensive. Iron was only spread as a precious gift in the courts of some countries.

It was not until13rd century that the Hittite kingdom perished and the iron monopoly was broken that the Iron Age really came in human history. Today, Palestine, Syria and Greece, which are adjacent to Hittite, first learned to smelt iron, and iron was widely used in these areas in the 10 century BC. Later, iron smelting spread through Syria to the two river basins, Central Asia and North Africa, and then to Eastern Europe and Western Europe through Greece.

Extended data

The late Western Zhou Dynasty was the early Iron Age in China. This is the era when China began to smelt iron on a large scale and applied it to production and life. Most of the ironware made in the early days were small tools such as knives and knives. 1976, a forged medium carbon steel sword, 38.4 cm long, was even unearthed from Tomb No.65, Yangjiashan, Changsha, Hunan (equivalent to the late Spring and Autumn Period).

It is identified that the carbon content is about 0.5%, and the metallographic structure is relatively uniform after high temperature annealing. After the mid-Warring States period, iron tools gradually replaced traditional copper tools in agriculture and handicrafts, and played a huge role in social production and life. Iron-making technology has also been continuously improved, and iron products have spread all over seven countries and spread to Xiongnu in the north and Baiyue in the south.

Although China's metallurgical industry appeared later than West Asia and Europe, it developed faster than them and was at the forefront of metallurgical technology in the world for a long time.

Baidu encyclopedia-ironware

Baidu Encyclopedia-Early Iron Age