Re: [tied] First iron swords on mass scale

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 7:47 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] First iron swords on mass scale

Miguel wrote:

However copper -> iron is to be expected (e.g. Indo-Iranian ayas-), and copper is yellowish-red, like gold.

 

We don't know, in fact, what PIE *xajes- really meant; perhaps it was 'metal' in general, including 'meteoritic iron'. PIE 'silver' and 'gold' words were derived from colour terms, and therefore presumably elliptic for something like *xajos xargntom 'white metal' etc. Note that Sanskrit ayas- occurs in the compound kRSNa:jas- (kRSNa-ajas) 'dark metal' = 'iron'.

 

Piotr