First iron swords on mass scale

From: Mark Odegard
Message: 4231
Date: 2000-10-11

This seems to have been the older view, one that is still being spread by things dependant on older sources. Bronze is satisfactory, and in fact, in some ways better, for just about any application iron is used for, including much weaponry (steel is another matter).
 
The real story seems to be that the smiths ran out of tin, or the usual exchange routes had been disrupted. Tin and copper occur in different kinds of rocks, and only very rarely do these kinds of rocks occur near to each other.
 
Iron is harder to work, but they seem to have known all about iron before the iron age is said to have begun.
 
Mark.
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michal Milewski" <milewski@...>
 

> Hello!
>
> This may be a
trivial question but I have really tried to
> find an answer - with no
success.
>
> I've always thought about Hittites as propagators
of
> metallurgy and first users of iron swords. However, this
>
turns out to be incorrect, as I've learned about the Sea
> Peoples
(Phrygians, Philistines?) who invaded the Hittite
> Empire in the 13th
century BC. Their iron swords gave them
> an advantage over Hittite
soldiers. And this exact period is
> marked as the beginning of the Iron
Age. At about the same
> time, iron swords were used by Doric tribes
invading Achaean
> Greece from northwest. How did they get the iron swords
if
> they had no earlier contacts with Hittites (in contrast to
>
Achaeans, but they still used weapons made of bronze)?
>
> So, my
question is: When, where and by whom were the iron
> swords used first
time on a mass scale?
>
> Michal