Did the ancients actually work iron far earlier than has ever been recognised? Was iron the occasional, accidental, by-product of copper smelting? Did iron regularly enter Egypt through trade and if so, where did it originate? Or, as the earliest archaeologists suggested, was this meteoric iron: iron that had fallen from the sky, home of the gods? This raises a number of intriguing questions. This appears to have been a deliberate choice textual sources indicate that they were aware of iron from early in Egyptian history, when iron ores were ground up to create pigments used in art and cosmetics.Īlthough there are no signs of early iron manufacture, archaeology has shown that elite Egyptians were, very occasionally, buried with iron grave-goods long before that date.
Meteoritics and Egyptology, two very different disciplines, recently collided in the laboratory, write Diane Johnson and Joyce Tyldesley*.Įven though they had access to abundant supplies of iron in both Egypt and the Sinai peninsula, ancient Egyptian metalworkers did not develop iron production technologies before 600 BC.
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