Iron in Ancient India c4.6

c4.6

There is even a considerable difference of opinion about the general question whether bronze really preceded iron. The well-known metallurgist Dr. John Percy in his well-known treatise entitled "Metallurgy of Iron and Steel" held, and I think very rightly, that the use of bronze cannot really precede the use of iron. The preparation of bronze would presuppose the knowledge of the metallurgy at least of two metals, viz. copper and tin, whilst the use of iron requires the knowledge of the metallurgy of one metal only. Moreover, as Dr. Percy points out, the metallurgy of iron is very simple—"if a lump of red or brown hæmatite be heated for some time in a charcoal fire, well surrounded by or embedded in the fuel, it will be more or less completely reduced so as to admit of being easily forged at a red heat into a bar of iron." Mr. St. John V. Day, the author of "The Prehistoric use of Iron and Steel," also maintains that the use of iron preceded the so-called bronze age. At any rate so far as India is concerned there cannot be distinguished a distinct age called the bronze age, and the Aryan conquerors seem to have known the use of iron from their very first habitation in the Punjab, as can be gleaned from the frequent mention of iron in Vedic literature.