Discovery of iron

The earliest known iron objects, such as small beads, were made from meteorites, whose metal is naturally iron mixed with nickel and fell from the sky ready to be hammered. Such pieces, found in the Near East and Egypt, were rare and treasured as ornaments rather than as everyday tools. Smelting iron from ordinary ore is much harder than smelting copper, because it needs higher temperatures and a lengthy process of forging, and it was mastered only in the second millennium BCE, probably in Anatolia and the surrounding regions. From about 1200 BCE iron spread widely across the Mediterranean and Asia, and the period is called the Iron Age. Because ore is common and cheap, iron eventually replaced bronze for tools and weapons, and in the form of steel it underpins modern industry.

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