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The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper ir

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

xufi 10y ago
Interesting I didnt know that at all. Your "proper iron was more valuable" comment reminds me of about a little different period from a documentary that I watched that talked about the time around 700BC where Umayyad empires used silver coins while gold and copper coins were used in Egypt/Syria.
- unimpressive 10y ago
  Not to mention that aluminum used to be more valuable than silver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_monument#Aluminum_apex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_monument#Aluminum_a...
  - yongjik 10y ago
    > Napoleon III of France is reputed to have held a banquet where the most honored guests were given aluminium utensils, while the others made do with gold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History
  - xufi 10y ago
    Correct, I believe this was also what I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) when they traded with other civilizations overseas
    - will_brown 10y ago
      >I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) Probably 1 of 3 reasons Gold was valuable at all to the ancients: 1. Gold is the most malleable of all the metals, making it easy to coin in extreme detail. 2. Antimicrobial properties (probably known to the ancients). 3. Oh look, its shiny!!! We are no less vain now, than then. Or perhaps no less vain then, than now. Edit: Sorry I think you were referencing aluminum.
      - yk 10y ago
        Gold was also the heaviest known element until the middle of the 19th century, which means that all impurities swim at the top and so it is easy to purify simply by melting it. Plus you can assay it by a touchstone. So there are a lot properties that make Gold the best metal for coins.
        yoodenvranx 10y ago
        This is actually a crucial point in the later parts of Neal Stephensons Quicksilver/Baroque cycle.
        ridgeguy 10y ago
        This only applies to impurities that don't dissolve in, or alloy with gold. For example, silver and copper cannot be removed from gold simply by melting because they form solution alloys that don't segregate in the molten state. Some solution alloys of gold include crown gold (silver, copper, gold) and white gold (palladium, nickel, gold).
        sambe 10y ago
        Planet Money did an interesting episode on this, taking the opposite perspective: properties of other elements that made them less suitable. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/07/131363098/the-tuesday-podcast-why-gold http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/07/131363098/the-t...
- wavefunction 10y ago
  700CE rather than BC.
  - CelestialTeapot 10y ago
    Small point, consistent use of BCE/CE is preferable mixed usage or use of BC/AD. Thou shouldst not cross the streams... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
    - wavefunction 10y ago
      BCE/CE is preferable to BC/AD in all cases.
      - me_and_you 10y ago
        No it is not. BC/AD has been in use for hundreds of years and is just fine. You can use BCE/CE if you want but it is no more valid than BC/AD.
  - tmacro 10y ago
    On a tangentially related point, I attended a Christian private school where we were taught that it stood for Common Error, rather the Era, and that it's was somehow a diabolic plan to subvert Christianity. This among other reasons us probably why I am now an atheist.
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  CE. Umayyads were a muslim caliphate, which would have been pretty odd to exist 1300 years before Mohammed.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
So they didn't even need to have a clue as to its origin for it to be precious, that's interesting. Can you recommend any good reading to become acquainted with the technology of that time period, in that region?
- benbreen 10y ago
  I was interested to find a book about this as well but came up short. However, these articles might be of interest: J. Waldbaum, "The coming of iron in the Eastern Mediterranean: thirty years of archaeological and technological research" in The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World (1996). Thilo Rehren et al, "5,000 years old Egyptian iron beads made from hammered meteoritic iron," Journal of Archaeological Science (2013). Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002057 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313... One theory about the origins of black stone embedded in the Kaaba in Mecca (whose worship dates back far beyond Islamic times) is that it's also composed of meteoric material.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    Perfect, thanks very much for taking the time to respond so helpfully.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Cozumel 10y ago
  This is a good book on it https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Egyptian-Materials-Technology-Nicholson/dp/0521120985 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Egyptian-Materials-Technolo... not been able to find a copy online though.
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
I love reading comments like this. Every time I see a historical scene in a movie I always know there's someone out there commenting on the inaccuracies.
ptaipale 10y ago
>Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut I think several sources are saying that Hittites had some iron artifacts already around 1800 BC and had iron works in 1380 BC? I don't recall that scene from the book, but anyway, Waltari wrote it during WW II using just library sources in Helsinki; he never set foot in Egypt. (He said "I have lived in Egypt although I've never been there.")
- prodmerc 10y ago
  He had the audacity to say that after reading books? /jk I get laughed at when I'm asked "how do you know so much about [place]?" and the answer is "The Internet" :)
InclinedPlane 10y ago
To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin, melt them together, and pour the melted metal into a mold. Now, there are lots of complexities in this process but those are mostly to improve it, and importantly those improvements can be got at through incremental trial and error. This is possible because copper, tin, et al have fairly low melting points compared to the impurities in their ores and compared to silicates (glass), and also because cast bronze is a strong form of bronze. Iron, on the other hand, is a very different beast. The carbon monoxide trick works just as well with iron, but the relevant working temperatures of iron are way higher than with copper. Which means that you need a more advanced furnace to work with iron. However, the melting point of iron is higher than the melting point of its impurities, so you can't use the same trick you can with copper to purify it. Instead what you have to do is hold iron at around its welding temperature, and you melt the impurities within the iron. What you end up with is an iron "sponge" (or bloom) that you then remove from the furnace and beat with hammers to squirt out all the remaining molten impurities. Worse yet, cast iron is not a particularly good material in comparison to cast bronze, especially for tools and weapons. The proper way to make tools from iron is to make steel, and to forge it (heating it and beating it with hammers and other implements into shape). There are yet additional complexities involving quenching and cooling that can greatly affect the material properties of forged steel. All of these things are very much unlike bronze working and also require a lot of non-obvious steps to improve the process from one step to the next. All of which is why the bronze age lasted for such a long time, even though some elements of iron working were known (from, for example, working with meteorites). The big advantages of iron working are that the materials (iron ore, etc.) are fairly common everywhere if you know where to find them (compared to the rarity of tin) and iron/steel implements can be mended and recycled extremely easily, even in the field. As a side note, Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten, who completely upset the entire Egyptian religious system. Akhenaten demanded that the egyptians worship him directly, and he in turn worshiped the god Aten, forsaking all other gods in the egyptian pantheon. This was a big deal due to the importance of the religious bureaucracy at the time, among other reasons. When Tutankhamun (originally Tutankhaten) came to rule after his father's death he restored the old ways, including the importance of the religious establishment. It's thought by many that king tut's lavish funeral gifts are in large part from the religious order, as a thank you to bringing them back to prominence and power.

xufi 10y ago

Interesting I didnt know that at all. Your "proper iron was more valuable" comment reminds me of about a little different period from a documentary that I watched that talked about the time around 700BC where Umayyad empires used silver coins while gold and copper coins were used in Egypt/Syria.

unimpressive 10y ago
Not to mention that aluminum used to be more valuable than silver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_monument#Aluminum_apex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_monument#Aluminum_a...
- yongjik 10y ago
  > Napoleon III of France is reputed to have held a banquet where the most honored guests were given aluminium utensils, while the others made do with gold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#History
- xufi 10y ago
  Correct, I believe this was also what I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) when they traded with other civilizations overseas
  - will_brown 10y ago
    >I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) Probably 1 of 3 reasons Gold was valuable at all to the ancients: 1. Gold is the most malleable of all the metals, making it easy to coin in extreme detail. 2. Antimicrobial properties (probably known to the ancients). 3. Oh look, its shiny!!! We are no less vain now, than then. Or perhaps no less vain then, than now. Edit: Sorry I think you were referencing aluminum.
    - yk 10y ago
      Gold was also the heaviest known element until the middle of the 19th century, which means that all impurities swim at the top and so it is easy to purify simply by melting it. Plus you can assay it by a touchstone. So there are a lot properties that make Gold the best metal for coins.
      - yoodenvranx 10y ago
        This is actually a crucial point in the later parts of Neal Stephensons Quicksilver/Baroque cycle.
      - ridgeguy 10y ago
        This only applies to impurities that don't dissolve in, or alloy with gold. For example, silver and copper cannot be removed from gold simply by melting because they form solution alloys that don't segregate in the molten state. Some solution alloys of gold include crown gold (silver, copper, gold) and white gold (palladium, nickel, gold).
      - sambe 10y ago
        Planet Money did an interesting episode on this, taking the opposite perspective: properties of other elements that made them less suitable. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/07/131363098/the-tuesday-podcast-why-gold http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/07/131363098/the-t...
wavefunction 10y ago
700CE rather than BC.
- CelestialTeapot 10y ago
  Small point, consistent use of BCE/CE is preferable mixed usage or use of BC/AD. Thou shouldst not cross the streams... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    BCE/CE is preferable to BC/AD in all cases.
    - me_and_you 10y ago
      No it is not. BC/AD has been in use for hundreds of years and is just fine. You can use BCE/CE if you want but it is no more valid than BC/AD.
- tmacro 10y ago
  On a tangentially related point, I attended a Christian private school where we were taught that it stood for Common Error, rather the Era, and that it's was somehow a diabolic plan to subvert Christianity. This among other reasons us probably why I am now an atheist.
mmanfrin 10y ago
CE. Umayyads were a muslim caliphate, which would have been pretty odd to exist 1300 years before Mohammed.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

So they didn't even need to have a clue as to its origin for it to be precious, that's interesting. Can you recommend any good reading to become acquainted with the technology of that time period, in that region?

benbreen 10y ago
I was interested to find a book about this as well but came up short. However, these articles might be of interest: J. Waldbaum, "The coming of iron in the Eastern Mediterranean: thirty years of archaeological and technological research" in The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World (1996). Thilo Rehren et al, "5,000 years old Egyptian iron beads made from hammered meteoritic iron," Journal of Archaeological Science (2013). Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002057 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313... One theory about the origins of black stone embedded in the Kaaba in Mecca (whose worship dates back far beyond Islamic times) is that it's also composed of meteoric material.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  Perfect, thanks very much for taking the time to respond so helpfully.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Cozumel 10y ago
This is a good book on it https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Egyptian-Materials-Technology-Nicholson/dp/0521120985 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Egyptian-Materials-Technolo... not been able to find a copy online though.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago

I love reading comments like this. Every time I see a historical scene in a movie I always know there's someone out there commenting on the inaccuracies.

ptaipale 10y ago

>Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut I think several sources are saying that Hittites had some iron artifacts already around 1800 BC and had iron works in 1380 BC? I don't recall that scene from the book, but anyway, Waltari wrote it during WW II using just library sources in Helsinki; he never set foot in Egypt. (He said "I have lived in Egypt although I've never been there.")

prodmerc 10y ago
He had the audacity to say that after reading books? /jk I get laughed at when I'm asked "how do you know so much about [place]?" and the answer is "The Internet" :)

InclinedPlane 10y ago

To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin, melt them together, and pour the melted metal into a mold. Now, there are lots of complexities in this process but those are mostly to improve it, and importantly those improvements can be got at through incremental trial and error. This is possible because copper, tin, et al have fairly low melting points compared to the impurities in their ores and compared to silicates (glass), and also because cast bronze is a strong form of bronze. Iron, on the other hand, is a very different beast. The carbon monoxide trick works just as well with iron, but the relevant working temperatures of iron are way higher than with copper. Which means that you need a more advanced furnace to work with iron. However, the melting point of iron is higher than the melting point of its impurities, so you can't use the same trick you can with copper to purify it. Instead what you have to do is hold iron at around its welding temperature, and you melt the impurities within the iron. What you end up with is an iron "sponge" (or bloom) that you then remove from the furnace and beat with hammers to squirt out all the remaining molten impurities. Worse yet, cast iron is not a particularly good material in comparison to cast bronze, especially for tools and weapons. The proper way to make tools from iron is to make steel, and to forge it (heating it and beating it with hammers and other implements into shape). There are yet additional complexities involving quenching and cooling that can greatly affect the material properties of forged steel. All of these things are very much unlike bronze working and also require a lot of non-obvious steps to improve the process from one step to the next. All of which is why the bronze age lasted for such a long time, even though some elements of iron working were known (from, for example, working with meteorites). The big advantages of iron working are that the materials (iron ore, etc.) are fairly common everywhere if you know where to find them (compared to the rarity of tin) and iron/steel implements can be mended and recycled extremely easily, even in the field. As a side note, Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten, who completely upset the entire Egyptian religious system. Akhenaten demanded that the egyptians worship him directly, and he in turn worshiped the god Aten, forsaking all other gods in the egyptian pantheon. This was a big deal due to the importance of the religious bureaucracy at the time, among other reasons. When Tutankhamun (originally Tutankhaten) came to rule after his father's death he restored the old ways, including the importance of the religious establishment. It's thought by many that king tut's lavish funeral gifts are in large part from the religious order, as a thank you to bringing them back to prominence and power.