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Cast iron was first produced in China during 5th century BC, [106] but was hardly in Europe until the medieval period. [107] [108] The earliest cast iron artifacts were discovered by archaeologists in what is now modern Luhe County, Jiangsu in China. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture, and architecture. [109]
An axe made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age. The earliest object found in Europe and containing smelted iron (about 5%) is a knife blade from the Belgorod Oblast of Russia, dated to c. 2300 BC and assigned to the Catacomb culture. [49] [50] During most of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Europe, iron was present, though scarce.
Iron production quickly followed during the 2nd century BC, and iron implements came to be used by farmers by the 1st century in southern Korea. [49] The earliest known cast-iron axes in southern Korea are found in the Geum River basin. The time that iron production begins is the same time that complex chiefdoms of Proto-historic Korea emerged.
The earliest gold artifacts were discovered at the site of Wadi Qana in the Levant. [13] Silver is estimated to have been discovered in Asia Minor shortly after copper and gold. [14] There is evidence that iron was known from before 5000 BC. [15] The oldest known iron objects used by humans are some beads of meteoric iron, made in Egypt in ...
Banded iron formations were first discovered in northern Michigan in 1844. Banded iron formations account for more than 60% of global iron reserves and provide most of the iron ore presently mined. Most formations can be found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United States.
Similar metal artifact types are found in West Mexico and the two regions: copper rings, needles, and tweezers being fabricated in the same ways as in Ecuador and also found in similar archaeological contexts. A multitude of bells were also found, but in this case they were cast using the same lost-wax casting method as seen in Colombia. [40]
In 1879, Steenstrup first identified the type 2 iron, showing that it also contained Widmanstätten structures. Steenstrup later reported what he found: In the autumn of 1879, I made a discovery in connection with this matter, for in an old grave at Ekaluit... I found 9 pieces of basalt containing round balls and irregular pieces of metallic iron.
Noricum (modern Austria) was exceedingly rich in gold and iron, Pliny, Strabo, and Ovid all lauded its bountiful deposits. Iron was its main commodity, but alluvial gold was also prospected. By 15 BC, Noricum was officially made a province of the Empire, and the metal trade saw prosperity well into the fifth century AD. [5]