Re: [tied] First iron swords on mass scale

The Greek bronze word is Xalkos. This is often compared to Tibeto-Burman *qhleks (yeah, proto-Tibeto-Burman!). Both are suggested to be loans from a third language, or more likely, loans mediated by separate intermediate languages.

There is some interesting archaeological data on the Ban Chiang site in northeast Thailand (along the Mekong). Bronze working is found, apparently co-eval with the earliest found in Mesopotamia. There is questionable evidence the Ban Chiang site was doing bronze a full millennium before this. The idea that knowledge of bronze came from Southeast Asia is indeed an interesting one. I suspect some have looked for cognates to Xalkos and *qhleks in the Austronesian or Austro-Asian language families.

Mark.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

There is no demonstrably PIE word for iron (wrought or meteoritic), let alone steel, though it's possible that the PIE neuter *xajes- could mean 'iron, any metal' in addition to 'copper'. At any rate the Indo-Iranian reflexes (Skt. ayas-) developed the meaning 'iron', cf. also Germanic *ais-o:n- = English ore.

Germanic *i:sa(r)na- (Eisen, iron), most likely borrowed from Celtic (*eisarno-), may be a derivative of *isxro- 'strong, powerful' rather than of *xajes-.

Greek has si:de:ros/-on is no doubt a loanword, perhaps somehow related to Latin si:dus, -eris 'constellation, star(s)' (magnetite = star-stone??).

Baltic and Slavic have related terms: Lithuanian gel(e)z^is, OPrussian gelso, Slavic z^elEzo < B-Sl *gele(:)Zo-. I'm not sure how to analyse them (*gWelh-eg-??).

Latin ferrum is sometimes connected with the verb root *dHers- 'dare, be bold, violate' (English dare, durst, Sanskrit dharSa-).

Hittite hapalkija- is non-IE. Like Hurrite hapalkinu it was borrowed from Hattic hapalki 'iron'.

Piotr