The Innovation and Adoption of Iron in the Ancient Near East

Abstract

This review synthesizes field research, textual analysis, and archaeometric data to evaluate different explanations for the spread of iron in the ancient Near East. Current evidence supports an Anatolian origin for extractive iron metallurgy on a limited scale sometime in the early 2nd millennium BC. However, the first major expansion of iron, both in Anatolia and across the wider Near East, occurred in the late second and early first millennium BC. Explanations that place iron adoption within its broader social context are favored over those that consider material or geological properties in isolation. A recurring theme is the importance of comparative analysis, both geographically and between the iron and bronze economies, to explore how social, political, and economic conditions affected adoption patterns.

The metal behind the myths: iron metallurgy in the south-eastern Black Sea region

“…Papuashvili 2012). The origins of iron metallurgy in the broader Near East, however, should be sought farther to the south-east, in Anatolia, where texts and archaeological remains suggest a considerably earlier iron metallurgical tradition (see review in Erb-Satullo 2019). Unfortunately, a lack of investigation in north-eastern Turkey inhibits speculation about the nature of technological transmission between Colchis and Anatolia.…”

Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

“…Evidently, not all periods in this interval always fall within the Bronze Age in all areas discussed, but the usual "drift" between southeast and northwest of the Mediterranean basin (Sherratt 1997) can be recognized. Such a drift is at least partially connected to major technological innovations, such as the use and trade of tin bronze that unfolded during the Bronze Age and connected the far west of Europe with the eastern Mediterranean (Berger et al 2019;Earle et al 2015;Vandkilde 2016); the use of iron, which likely occurred first in Anatolia (thus, at the eastern margin of the study region) in the second millennium, was adopted in western Asia and the Levant only at the very end of the millennium (Erb-Satullo 2019;Sherratt 2000), only reaching the northwestern sector of the Middle Sea within the following 200 years (Plicht and Nijboer 2018;Rafel 2017).…”

Osmium isotope analysis as an innovative tool for provenancing ancient iron: A systematic approach

“…Archaeological evidence for the bloomery process has been identified at major Iron Age sites in the Southern Levant, for example, at Hazor, Megiddo, and Tell es-Safi-Gath in Israel and Tell Hammeh, in Jordan. In all these sites, iron production was dated to the early first millennium BCE (Iron Age IIA, late 10th-early 9th centuries), and was often associated with administrative buildings, suggesting that it had been controlled by a central authority [28][29][30][31]27,32,33]. This marks a departure from the predominant mode of bronze production that prevailed until the advent of iron, which was mostly characterized by local independent workshops.…”