The Coming of the Age of Iron

In this book leading scholars from around the world provide a balanced survey of how iron metallurgy developed, why it developed differently in different areas (or did not develop at all in the New World) and what these differences meant in the total culture of each area. The book begins with historical chapters, including the Bronze Age. Subsequent chapters treat specific technical and cultural aspects of metallurgy, such as the mechanics of iron smelting. Six chapters then survey early metallurgy in specific regions of the world, with a particularly valuable summing-up of the golden age of Iranian archaeology.