Posted on 12/13/2017 6:44:39 AM PST by C19fan
Homer writes about a dispute Odysses resolved.
Two Myrmidons were arguing over an iron spear point.
Both claimed King Agammemnon gave them the ore and forge. and told them to deal with data disribution.
Odysses wisely ruled, “ Whoever smelt it, dealt it.”
This story leaves out “bog iron” a form of iron produced by bacteria in peat bogs, swamps and other marshy places with a naturally occurring source of iron. You could and can find it in small nodules up to golf ball size. Did not need to be smelted just melted. Secret weapon of the Vikings. Had a high Silica content (glass) content so nails made from it did not corrode so bad once the outer iron layer went away. Bring your longship upon to the beach burn it recover nails cut new timber and build new ship. Worked for them maybe thousand years.
There has been a controversy about the origin of Bronze Age irons that could be either meteoritic or smelted irons.
A geochemical approach using Fe:Co:Ni analyses, permits to differentiate terrestrial from extraterrestrial irons.
Meteoritic irons, Bronze Age iron artifacts, ancient terrestrial irons and lateritic ores enable to validate this approach.
Modern irons and iron ores are shown to exhibit a different relationship in a Fe:Co:Ni array.
Iron from the Bronze Age are meteoritic, invalidating speculations about precocious smelting during the Bronze Age
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440317301322
+1,,,,,lol.
Some good (and not so good) comments here https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/12/08/0136216/almost-all-bronze-age-artifacts-were-made-from-meteorite-iron
Interesting on bog iron! Just read the wiki on it.
I guess the engine block of the 455 in my old GMC motorhome is from outer space then, whoda thunk lol?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.