Hesiod, who is supposed to have written about 900 B.C., and who is the earliest European author whose works have come down to us, appears to have lived soon after the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age. He distinctly states that iron was discovered later than copper and tin. Speaking of those who were ancient, even in his day, he says that they used bronze, and not iron.
τοῖς δ’ ἦν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ οἶκοι
χαλκῷ δ’ εἰργάζοντο μέλας δ’ οὐκ ἔσκε σίδηρος,
It is also significant that the word χαλκευειν, from χαλκος, bronze, means to work in metal. Moreover, the forms of early weapons indicate that those of iron were copied from bronze, not those of bronze from iron. Hesiod's poems, as well as those of Homer, show that more than three thousand years ago the value of iron was known and appreciated. It is true that, as we read in Dr Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, bronze "is represented in the Iliad and Odyssey as the common material of arms, instruments, and vessels of various sorts; the latter (iron) is mentioned much more rarely." While, however, the above statement is strictly correct, we must remember that amonp the Greeks the word iron (σίδηρος was used, even in the time of Homer, as synonymous with a sword, and that steel also appears to have been known to them under the name of ἀδάμας, and perhaps also of κύανος, as early as the time of Hesiod. We may, therefore, consider that the Trojan war took place ciuring the period of transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age.
In the Pentateuch, excluding Deuteronomy, bronze, or, as it is unfortunately translated, brass, is mentioned thirty-eight times, and iron only four times.
Lucretius distinctly mentions the three ages. He says:—
"Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt
Et lapides, et item sylvarum fragmina rami,
Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta,
Sed prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus."[1]
- ↑ V. 1282.
