More Iron from David Clegg on 1998-09-14 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: David Clegg <Cdavid_at_sadler.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 17:20:36 -0500

Others said:
>
> As I recently was told by a smith working with
> experimental archaeologists, [snip] ... And then the
iron is likely to be of a quality
> little better than bad bronze.
>

I again am more than a little dubious. This seems to be a Eurocentric assumption. The dominance of the Assyrian war machine was based significantly on the major advantage of its iron vs. its neighbors' bronze. To say that the quality of the iron ore produced was even COMPARABLE to bronze is stretching it. Yes, bronze is easier to handle, but the significant characteristics of iron improved by even the marginal addition of carbon (almost inevitable in primitive smelting) and the high effectiveness of tempering on even poor steel (vs bronze, on which tempering's effects are much less) makes iron and its products an order of magnitude better in all respects. And I don't mean just weapons in this discussion - weapons are just the most obvious. But wheel hubs, axles, woodworking tools, etc etc. The whole society becomes more productive.

I more or less agree.

I worked for a while in a museum that had an exhibit of Etruscan artifacts. The Etruscans were a Bronze age/early Iron Age culture in what is now north west Italy. They, like the Egyptians, buried their dead with a portion of their wealth. Our exhibit included many examples of relatively well preserved bronze weapons and armor and only a single almost completely rusted iron sword. The explanation I gave those that asked was that although bronze weapons were just as good as the iron weapons that replaced them, iron had the advantage of being much easier to obtain and therefore cheaper. With bronze, only the nobility could afford to protect themselves with armor. Once iron working came around entire armies could be equipped. Once Iron came around the Etruscans didn't see any point in burying their dead with iron weapons, it was just too common.

I think the original poster was trying to argue that the amount of bronze available in Glorantha would lend itself to a culture that more resembles the RW Iron Age as opposed to the RW's 'metal challenged' Bronze Age.