Eric Cline makes a good case that the Bronze Age empires were organized around a “palace economy”, where only certain people (royals & their pals) were even allowed to trade. In some places the sovereign literally owned all the land and people on it.
One can imagine that a series of bad seasons, natural disasters, invasions & other stressors would open a window for revolt.
Yes tin was a factor, yes the “Sea Peoples” were a factor. But you don’t get the wholesale overthrow of so many empires without the common people being at least somewhat welcoming of the invaders (when not happily assisting them!) in throwing off centuries of elite oppression.
Cline has argued for systems collapse. i.e. It wasn't any one thing that caused the collapse, but several things in conjunction. Others argue differently. e.g. James Lacey, who comes at things from a perspective of military strategy and economics, has argued that the systems collapse model really underestimates how much war can accomplish all on its own. He's of the opinion that, whoever the sea peoples were, they caused the collapse.
This article doesn't really wade into that dispute, but instead focuses on why new empires didn't rise once old ones collapsed. Iron smelting originated before the collapse, but didn't really spread at first. Bronze age iron was probably really awful stuff, and soldiers tended to be conservative when it came to technology. They wanted weapons they could trust, and that was copper or bronze. As long as the great empires persisted and the trade of tin and copper continued, nobody was forced to use Iron, so nobody was motivated to get good at producing quality iron weapons.
Then whatever caused the collapse happened, and the ingredients for making bronze became difficult or impossible to get. It was iron or back to copper and stone. So, peopled adopted Iron and that gave smiths the chance to improve iron smelting techniques. During the bronze age, a would-be empire just had to get their hands on a decent amount of bronze and they could steamroll everybody they came across because they all had copper or stone weapons. After iron technology spread, it was iron vs iron. Would be empires got hung up fighting their well-armed neighbours and the snowball couldn't get rolling. The few empires that were left, such as Egypt, contracted. They no longer had a technological advantage once those they formerly ruled adopted iron.
Primitive iron was inferior to bronze and harder to produce. It was weak, malleable, and rapidly rusted. It only became practical once people learned to make a primitive steel by adding charcoal. This is why it took a long time for iron to replace bronze.
That stuff is choke-full of carbon and silica, and is brittle as hell. To get it malleable (which is actually desirable in a weapon, so it wouldn't just snap in use), there is a separate process to decrease carbon content:
>Isn't that backwards? Surely "primitive iron" was closer to what we call pig iron nowadays.
You're under the illusion that the west used kilns to melt iron into a liquid that they poured into a crucible during the Bronze Age. That's actually an ancient Chinese technique that was adopted long after the western Bronze Age ended and it does indeed create pig iron. But the west only adopted pig iron as an intermediate process for making steel starting in the middle ages.
Back then you just put the crushed (via hammer) iron ore and coal into a clay kiln (a bloomery). Because these furnaces couldn't reach the melting point of pure iron, the metal never liquefied. Then at the end you basically had mostly slag with some small iron pearls inside (a bloom). You had to hammer the slag off the iron under heat. Hence primitive wrought iron came first and because it had low carbon it was highly malleable.
The technique that was used to make primitive steel was very simple. In fact, it is basically the same process as was used to get the iron out of the ore. You make a steel tool with malleable wrought iron, pack it with powdered charcoal and seal them both inside of clay. You then heat up a kiln and the carbon diffuses into the outer surface of the iron. This process is known as case hardening.
Also you just linked an article that just told you everything I just wrote from memory:
>While the bloomery process produced wrought iron directly from ore, cast iron or pig iron were the starting materials used in the finery forge and puddling furnace. Pig iron and cast iron have higher carbon content than wrought iron, but have a lower melting point than iron or steel. Cast and especially pig iron have excess slag which must be at least partially removed to produce quality wrought iron. At foundries it was common to blend scrap wrought iron with cast iron to improve the physical properties of castings.
Yeah, so bloomeries produce wrought iron directly hence wrought iron came first.
cobbzilla · · focus · HN ↗
One can imagine that a series of bad seasons, natural disasters, invasions & other stressors would open a window for revolt.
Yes tin was a factor, yes the “Sea Peoples” were a factor. But you don’t get the wholesale overthrow of so many empires without the common people being at least somewhat welcoming of the invaders (when not happily assisting them!) in throwing off centuries of elite oppression.
beloch · · focus · HN ↗
This article doesn't really wade into that dispute, but instead focuses on why new empires didn't rise once old ones collapsed. Iron smelting originated before the collapse, but didn't really spread at first. Bronze age iron was probably really awful stuff, and soldiers tended to be conservative when it came to technology. They wanted weapons they could trust, and that was copper or bronze. As long as the great empires persisted and the trade of tin and copper continued, nobody was forced to use Iron, so nobody was motivated to get good at producing quality iron weapons.
Then whatever caused the collapse happened, and the ingredients for making bronze became difficult or impossible to get. It was iron or back to copper and stone. So, peopled adopted Iron and that gave smiths the chance to improve iron smelting techniques. During the bronze age, a would-be empire just had to get their hands on a decent amount of bronze and they could steamroll everybody they came across because they all had copper or stone weapons. After iron technology spread, it was iron vs iron. Would be empires got hung up fighting their well-armed neighbours and the snowball couldn't get rolling. The few empires that were left, such as Egypt, contracted. They no longer had a technological advantage once those they formerly ruled adopted iron.
bugake · · focus · HN ↗
kees99 · · focus · HN ↗
> primitive steel [made] by adding charcoal.
Isn't that backwards? Surely "primitive iron" was closer to what we call pig iron nowadays.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron
That stuff is choke-full of carbon and silica, and is brittle as hell. To get it malleable (which is actually desirable in a weapon, so it wouldn't just snap in use), there is a separate process to decrease carbon content:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_iron#Terminology" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_iron#Terminology
imtringued · · focus · HN ↗
You're under the illusion that the west used kilns to melt iron into a liquid that they poured into a crucible during the Bronze Age. That's actually an ancient Chinese technique that was adopted long after the western Bronze Age ended and it does indeed create pig iron. But the west only adopted pig iron as an intermediate process for making steel starting in the middle ages.
Back then you just put the crushed (via hammer) iron ore and coal into a clay kiln (a bloomery). Because these furnaces couldn't reach the melting point of pure iron, the metal never liquefied. Then at the end you basically had mostly slag with some small iron pearls inside (a bloom). You had to hammer the slag off the iron under heat. Hence primitive wrought iron came first and because it had low carbon it was highly malleable.
The technique that was used to make primitive steel was very simple. In fact, it is basically the same process as was used to get the iron out of the ore. You make a steel tool with malleable wrought iron, pack it with powdered charcoal and seal them both inside of clay. You then heat up a kiln and the carbon diffuses into the outer surface of the iron. This process is known as case hardening.
Also you just linked an article that just told you everything I just wrote from memory:
>While the bloomery process produced wrought iron directly from ore, cast iron or pig iron were the starting materials used in the finery forge and puddling furnace. Pig iron and cast iron have higher carbon content than wrought iron, but have a lower melting point than iron or steel. Cast and especially pig iron have excess slag which must be at least partially removed to produce quality wrought iron. At foundries it was common to blend scrap wrought iron with cast iron to improve the physical properties of castings.
Yeah, so bloomeries produce wrought iron directly hence wrought iron came first.