Jiho_History+of+Iron

Iron is of ancient origin. The oldest iron artifacts, a few bits of smelted iron, have been dated at 3000years B.C. The Egyptions knew how to mine, refine, and work iron. There are numerous references to iron mines, furnaces, and iron objects in the Old Testaament. Unfortunately, iron objects,themselves, corrode rather readily, so evidence for ancient applications of iron is written, rather than direct, evidence. We cannot know the name of the person who was the first to refine iron, because his name is lost in the mists of prehistory.

Iron has only been widely available since the IndustrialRevolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. At this time, inventors like Abraham Darby (1678-1717) learned how to obtain large quantities of iron economically using coke. With iron at last cheap and plentiful, the people of the 19th century turned the world into the engineering age.

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