Re: First iron swords on mass scale

Glenn McDavid wrote:

> Later in the century the Hittites under Tudkhaliyas IV, their last
> strong emperor, went to war against the Assyrian Empire of Tukulti-
> Ninurta I. They came off rather the worse in this campaign, so they
> certainly did not have any decisive superiority in weaponry.
>
> > Does the book, cited in your post, mention where the earliest

large

> > amounts of iron weapons were discovered? And who could be the

owner?

>
> Drews did not go into detail about this in _The End of the Bronze

Age_.

> His intent in that chapter was to show (convincingly, to my mind)

that

> iron weapons could not have been responsible for the disasters of
> c. 1200 BC. The numbers I gave above were taken by Drews from Jane
> Waldbaum, _From Bronze to Iron: The Transition from the Bronze Age
> to the Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean_, Studies in
> Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 54 (Goteborg, 1978), which was
> originally a 1968 Harvard Ph.D. dissertation. I suspect you can

find

> a lot more numbers and some regional breakdowns there. I have not
> seen it myself.

Thanks for the corrections. I think on the basis of the evidence you
are right and have changed my views accordingly.

Regards

John