interesting google find:
Quote:
...it does not solve the problem of whether this is smelted or terrestrial iron. This question really needs to be properly investigated. If I remember correctly, Michel Valloggia discusses (in Mediterranean Archaeology 14, 2001) the slightly earlier letter from Armana in which a Hittite ruler makes excuses to his Egyptian counterpart for not sending the iron that the latter had requested, and he (Valloggia) argues that the Tutankhamum dagger is one such gift. Why is it necessary to know whether this object is meteoritic or smelted iron? Because it is one of the best-preserved iron objects from the period when iron was just starting to become available to elites in Anatolia (during the New Hittite period, 1400-1200 BCE). There are few contemporary iron artefacts known from Anatolia itself - most of what we know about Hittite iron is from contemporary documents.
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ref: LINKY
the world is much stranger than we think. our histories are fragmented, especially back then. there were extensive trade networks around the WHOLE world well before we know. and even battery driven plating, and other technologies we in our smug world view look on as mysteries.
bronze is cheap, easy to produce and cast and corrosion resistant, iron is slightly better than bronze as weaponry, if made correctly, but a whole lot more work to get right, thus very expensive. especially as it corrodes and goes back to the gods a whole lot faster than bronze.
not much incentive to use it for more that expensive gifts until it became a lot more commercially viable & available. the hyksos conquests of northern egypt in 1700bc may have introduced the egyptians to iron, ramases battles against the hittites certainly did. the climate helped preserve tut's dagger, while the hittites,, in anatolia, left essentially no iron artifacts.
'nother linky
Egypt:time line