Archeology / Pieces of iron collected with the help of a magnet will help to study the use of the metal that replaced bronze
Amiram Barkat, "Haaretz"
The Iron Age in Israel - map and data
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The ancient city of Beit Shemesh was, it turns out, one of the pioneers of heavy industry in the ancient world. In the recently completed excavations at Tel Beit Shemesh, a joint team of Israeli and British researchers uncovered an iron processing workshop that operated in the tenth and ninth centuries BC. Prof. Thilo Rahran, one of the foremost researchers of the ancient metal industries in the world, stated that the discovered workshop is the oldest blacksmith's shop that has been identified with certainty so far. Together with an iron mine, which was recently discovered in Wadi Zarqa, past the eastern Jordan, the workshop sheds light on the production processes of iron in the ancient era.
The workshop in Beit Shemesh was discovered by Dr. Shlomo Bonimowitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman, researchers from the Institute of Archeology of Tel Aviv University. As part of the excavations at Tel Hatik, which have been ongoing for the 12th year, the excavators discovered an area containing a large amount of "iron waste" - pieces that were removed from the raw iron during its processing.
"When we realized that we came upon an ancient metalworking workshop, we stopped the excavations," says Dr. Lederman. "Neither I nor any of my colleagues have the necessary knowledge to excavate in such a workshop, so we looked for an arch-metallurgist (an expert in the study of ancient metal industries)."
The diggers contacted Prof. Rahran from the Institute of Archeology of the University of London. Rahran sent his assistant to Beit Shemesh, and under his supervision the excavation in the iron workshop, which ended a few days ago, was conducted.
The diggers scanned the area using a large magnet to pull out all the pieces of iron. Now they hope that the analysis of the findings will reveal what methods the workshop workers developed for processing the iron and if they succeeded, for example, in producing low-quality steel.
Not long before the workshop in Beit Shemesh began to operate, a transformation took place in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea: bronze - which for 2,000 years was the metal from which weapons, work tools and objects of worship were made - gave way to iron.
The bronze is composed of copper and alloy, a rare material found in places far from the Mediterranean basin, such as Afghanistan and Great Britain. Iron is softer than bronze, it rusts easily, and in order to be able to use it as a raw material for tools, complex processing methods are required. But it is available: you just need to know where to mine it.
Many researchers now believe that the high cost of lead led the inhabitants of the region to abandon bronze in favor of iron. Iron has been known to man for thousands of years, when he came across lumps on the surface of the ground that originated from meteorites that fell on Earth. However, it was only about 3,000 years ago that man began to mine the iron from the earth and discovered how it can be turned into a durable and useful metal.
The answer to the big question - when was iron processing invented and where - does not lie in Tel Beit Shemesh. The earliest iron objects found in the country are from the 11th century BC, in the excavations at Tel Maknah, where the Philistine principle stood.
Rahran believes that it is possible that earlier workshops have already been uncovered, but the archaeologists did not pay attention to them. "Only a few researchers understand the contribution that the discovery of such workshops has to scientific research," he says. "What to do, digging a palace or a temple is much sexier".
Knives 9,500 years old were discovered in excavations at the outlet
Photo: Hamudi Halaila, Antiquities Authority
About 60 flint knives were discovered in the excavations in preparation for moving the route of the Jerusalem-Telofah road in the area of the exit roundabout. They were about 9,500 years old and were used to sharpen arrowheads and sickles. The archaeologists estimate that the material from which the knives are made came from northern Syria, while the arrowheads and sickles are made of volcanic glass originating in Anatolia (Amiram Barkat)
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