Recent comments in /f/history

War_Hymn t1_j5zvvsu wrote

Reply to What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

As far as I'm aware, there's written/archeological evidence of iron smelting was being practiced in Anatolia (modern-Turkey) by at least 1200 BCE, with suspected smelted-iron artifacts dating back to ~2000 BCE. It's relatively easy to tell smelted iron apart from meteoritic iron. Meteoritic iron will almost always contain a large portion of nickel or cobalt in it, while smelted iron usually contains embedded siliceous slag - both can be discerned through chemical or microscopic analysis.

Here's a good write up on the subject by Dr Nathaniel Erb-Satullo (specialist in Western/Near East archeology, Archeological Science - Cranfield University, Department of Anthropology - Harvard University): https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_b/articles/literature_evaluations_old_swords/general_2019_erb-satullo_iron_neareast_review.pdf

>one argument that was made, was that when iron smelting becomes possible... why wouldn't it rapidly replace bronze?

Smelting iron was a much more complicated process than smelting copper or tin. In the early days, iron was never fully melted - the furnaces they had at the time just weren't hot enough - which makes it harder to reduce the ore and remove impurities.

Instead, when pre-modern ironworkers smelted iron what they were actually doing was burning off the oxygen/sulfur/etc. locking the iron in the ore minerals, usually by heating them in a carbon-rich environment of a charcoal furnace (oxygen will rather bond with carbon instead of iron). The temperature of these reactions happen at a much lower temperature than the melting point of elemental iron (700-1200'C vs 1500'C). Certain "fluxes", like siliceous minerals or limestone, further lower or aid the ore reduction reaction or process.

Early iron smelters had to figure out several problems (all without the aid of modern chemistry knowledge), namely how run their furnace to optimize iron production. Too little draft air, the furnace doesn't get hot enough for reduction to happen. Too much draft air, excess air cools the furnace or re-oxidizes the iron. Furnace runs too hot, the iron starts sucking up carbon too fast and transforms into useless pig iron. Etc.

Being a complicated process, it was also easier to keep secret by those that did figure it out. Since early iron smelters had a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on producing this very useful and valuable material (at one point in history, iron was worth as much as gold in weight), they didn't just share their knowledge and craft with anyone. Hence, most early iron production seem to have been conducted and exclusive to a small group related to the Hittites in Anatolia for most of the late bronze age. The Late Bronze Age collapse likely caused this small group of secretive iron smelters to migrate and proliferate the technology to the rest of the Old World, as we start seeing common use of iron by 900-800 BCE.

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War_Hymn t1_j5ztilm wrote

Reply to comment by FoolInTheDesert in Who Invented Paper? A new discovery at a long-neglected site suggests the ancient Egyptians used it more than 2,000 years before the Chinese by ArtOak

Papyrus will be the loser in that department, as papyrus contains a lot of sugars (it was a major source of sugar in Egypt, up until sugarcane was introduced) that actually helps wetted strips of papyrus adhere to each other when they make papyrus paper. The high sugar content in turn makes it more vulnerable to insect or mold damage, especially in non-arid climates. In Europe, it was rare for a piece of papyrus to last for more than a few decades. On the other hand, we have a Chinese paper copy of the Diamond Sutra that dates back to 868 CE and still in relatively good condition.

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kingofzdom t1_j5zrgte wrote

Reply to What's the earliest case of iron-smelting with hard evidence? by Ok-Goose-6320

I completely forget where I read this, so apologies for this but

There's a region of Russia with iron-based red sand. It is theorized that this was where we got the first refined iron from as all you need to refine this red sand is a clay crucible and a particularly hot fire.

This red sand is only present in any significant quantity in this region of Russia, so until methods of getting refined iron from virgin ores became available it was extremely rare.

A similar thing happened with steel; humans knew how to make steel for thousands of years, it just wasn't practical to use for anything other than high-end weapons and tools until someone figured out how to mass produce it in the 19th century.

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baumpop t1_j5znkw0 wrote

Reply to comment by Laowaii87 in Longest ‘dako’ iron sword at 2.6m, along with a unique shield-shaped mirror, found in 4th-century Japanese burial mound — Finds indicate that the technology of the Kofun period (300-710 AD) was more advanced than previously thought by marketrent

You just described the trade of blacksmithing for thousands of years. Almost all the work is small piece work to pay the bills while you take commissions or contracts for larger pieces. Every blacksmith was a ferrier before, now it's a standalone profession.

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plantanus69 t1_j5zkh43 wrote

Reply to comment by Rich_Mans_World in Russian political parties after Feb 1917? by drain_clerk

I find this one of history’s greatest “what ifs”; of course hindsight is 20/20, but it seems like the bolsheviks truly had no basis of power until the unbelievably war weary Russian people saw that they were the only political party calling for peace. Maybe Karensky would’ve formed a democracy, maybe he would’ve been a military dictator, or maybe the SRs, the most popular party through this period, would’ve won in a democratic system and gotten a chance to try out agrarian socialism on a large scale.

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mano-vijnana t1_j5zizm4 wrote

Reply to comment by Und3rSc0re in Longest ‘dako’ iron sword at 2.6m, along with a unique shield-shaped mirror, found in 4th-century Japanese burial mound — Finds indicate that the technology of the Kofun period (300-710 AD) was more advanced than previously thought by marketrent

Like others have said, this one was ceremonial, but there were also other very long swords that were designed to hold horizontally two-handed while riding a horse, so the weight of the sword rested on the horse.

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Bonesmash t1_j5z81kw wrote

Reply to comment by birdmantis420 in Longest ‘dako’ iron sword at 2.6m, along with a unique shield-shaped mirror, found in 4th-century Japanese burial mound — Finds indicate that the technology of the Kofun period (300-710 AD) was more advanced than previously thought by marketrent

While you’re probably correct, I have seen other absurdly long swords in museums before and the explanation was that they were really used more like spears. Seems like they would have been really heavy though.

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LogicalConstant t1_j5z5ss8 wrote

Reply to comment by ZooplanktonblameOver in A firefighter's 1943 photos of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising have been found by Geek-Haven888

Copyright laws need a massive overhaul. Patents are arguably more important to society and they only last 20 years. 70 years after the death of the author is ridiculous. If you can't make a profit off of your photographs after 20 years, you have a problem that can't be addressed through copyright law. The whole purpose of protecting copyright holders and patent holders is to benefit SOCIETY by encouraging the production of new ideas and works. It doesn't benefit society when a man in 2023 can stop the world from publishing photographs taken in 1943 by his father who died in 1993. That only benefits the photographer's son, not society.

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