Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s1.10

v1.c20.s1.10

Unlike copper, iron objects had to be forged stage by stage from a spongy mass or bloom to a bar, then thinning, pointing, folding and largely forge-welding at white heat. This knowledge did not come to the copper-smiths automatically, and thus it took centuries of a chalcolithic age to obtain the first few pieces of forge-welded iron.