4 ms·

Either there is some nuance going on or this person disagrees with Wikipedia on when cultures and civilizations around the old world developed steel. If they a

by mc32 3y ago

Either there is some nuance going on or this person disagrees with Wikipedia on when cultures and civilizations around the old world developed steel. If they are sloppy about the history, I have to wonder what else they are sloppy about.

timidger 3y ago
From the footnotes/references: > 2. Forthcoming article, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine. The veracity of their claim is still in question, but based on that I'm going to assume good faith that they have facts to back up their claim. I haven't checked the rest of their citations yet, but based on their quantity I'm going to assume the rest of the article isn't sloppy either.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
araes 3y ago
Also appears to disagree on the electric arc furnace. 300 kWH is apparently close to the theoretical minima for steel melting and arc furnaces are somewhere around 440 kWH. Which frankly, being that close to the minima seems fairly impressive on the scale of industrial steel melting. The general note about blast furnaces using more energy in the form of coal and gas is probably still relevant.
asoneth 3y ago
According to Wikipedia the oldest known steel artifacts are from Asia Minor (the Kaman-Kalehöyük site in modern-day Turkey) which predates European steal by about a millenium which seems to support part of their claim. For the claim about African metallurgists I suppose I'll have to wait to see what kind of evidence they provide before deciding if they are being "sloppy".
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  One thing that bothers me about this sort of "Europe / Asia" division is how anachronistic it is when we talk about events in deep history. In Antiquity, this division would be unnatural. Asia Minor was an integral constituent part of the Mediterranean civilization, unlike, say, contemporary Germany. The ancients would be fairly confused if we told them that we now put dividing lines between North Africa, Asia Minor+Levant and so-called Europe. For them, it was a bigger civilizational unit, a maritime continent so to say. And the idea that Asia Minor somehow belongs to the same unit as India or China would feel positively weird.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

by mc32 3y ago

timidger 3y ago

From the footnotes/references: > 2. Forthcoming article, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine. The veracity of their claim is still in question, but based on that I'm going to assume good faith that they have facts to back up their claim. I haven't checked the rest of their citations yet, but based on their quantity I'm going to assume the rest of the article isn't sloppy either.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

araes 3y ago

Also appears to disagree on the electric arc furnace. 300 kWH is apparently close to the theoretical minima for steel melting and arc furnaces are somewhere around 440 kWH. Which frankly, being that close to the minima seems fairly impressive on the scale of industrial steel melting. The general note about blast furnaces using more energy in the form of coal and gas is probably still relevant.

asoneth 3y ago

According to Wikipedia the oldest known steel artifacts are from Asia Minor (the Kaman-Kalehöyük site in modern-day Turkey) which predates European steal by about a millenium which seems to support part of their claim. For the claim about African metallurgists I suppose I'll have to wait to see what kind of evidence they provide before deciding if they are being "sloppy".

inglor_cz 3y ago
One thing that bothers me about this sort of "Europe / Asia" division is how anachronistic it is when we talk about events in deep history. In Antiquity, this division would be unnatural. Asia Minor was an integral constituent part of the Mediterranean civilization, unlike, say, contemporary Germany. The ancients would be fairly confused if we told them that we now put dividing lines between North Africa, Asia Minor+Levant and so-called Europe. For them, it was a bigger civilizational unit, a maritime continent so to say. And the idea that Asia Minor somehow belongs to the same unit as India or China would feel positively weird.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]