AA : Antediluvian Africa - The Iron Age

Message Share Topic Printable Version Google Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Windows Live Yahoo Bookmarks reddit Facebook MySpace Newsvine Furl Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic

   well i too wish to  edify the collective knowledge of common people about africa.  Here i found some interesting articles about the Iron age. 

IRON IN AFRICA: REVISING THE HISTORY 

24-06-2002 10:00 pm Paris - Africa developed its own iron industry some 5,000 years ago, according to a formidable new scientific work from UNESCO Publishing that challenges a lot of conventional thinking on the subject. Iron technology did not come to Africa from western Asia via Carthage or Merowe as was long thought, concludes "Aux origines de la m�tallurgie du fer en Afrique, Une anciennet� m�connue: Afrique de l'Ouest et Afrique centrale". The theory that it was imported from somewhere else, which - the book points out - nicely fitted colonial prejudices, does not stand up in the face of new scientific discoveries, including the probable existence of one or more centres of iron-working in west and central Africa andthe Great Lakes area. 

The authors of this joint work, which is part of the "Iron Roads in Africa" project (see box), are distinguished archaeologists, engineers, historians, anthropologists and sociologists. As they trace the history of iron in Africa, including many technical details and discussion of the social, economic and cultural effects of the industry, they restore to the continent "this important yardstick of civilisation that it has been denied up to now," writes Doudou Di�ne, former head ofUNESCO's Division of Intercultural Dialogue, who wrote the book's preface. 

But the facts speak for themselves. Tests on material excavated since the 1980s show that iron was worked at least as long ago as 1500 BC at Termit, in eastern Niger, while iron did not appear in Tunisia or Nubia before the 6th century BC. At Egaro, west of Termit, material has been dated earlier than 2500 BC, which makes African metalworking contemporary with that of the Middle East. 

The roots of metallurgy in Africa go very deep. However, French archaeologist G�rard Qu�chon cautions that "having roots does not mean they are deeper than those of others," that "it is not important whether African metallurgy is the newest or the oldest" and that if new discoveries "show iron came from somewhere else, this would not make Africa less or more virtuous." 

"In fact, only in Africa do you find such a range of practices in the process of direct reduction [a method in which metal is obtained in a single operation without smelting],and metal workers who were so inventive that they could extract iron in furnaces made out of the trunks of banana trees," says Hamady Bocoum, one of the authors. 

This ingenuity was praised in the early 19th century by the Tunisian scholar Mohamed el-Tounsy, who told of travelling in Chad and Sudan and coming across spears and daggers made "with the skill of the English" and iron piping with "bends and twists like some European pipes, but more elegant and graceful and shining so brightly they seem to be made of silver." 

There is a true iron culture in Africa. In many communities, iron is so revered it has been given divine status. In Nigeria's Yoruba country, forges became the symbol of royalty at the end of the 9th century and Ogun, the god of iron, became the protector of the kingdom. Even today, Ogun is the chief deity of anyone working with iron. 

The role of blacksmiths is very important in African culture. In the Yatenga region of northern Burkina Faso, Bamogo, the ancestor of blacksmiths, is considered the saviour of humanity. It is he who supposedly makes the knife that cuts the umbilical cord, the axe that chops wood, the pick used to till the soil or help dig a grave - all of them instruments of fundamental importance for people. 

According to Pierre de Maret, who teaches at the Free University of Brussels, the Bantu people spread across central Africa "because of their superiority as farmers, achieved by using metal to clear forest areas, and the military superiority they acquired from having iron weapons." 

Among the Yoruba, it seems equally clear that the unification of the country by supporters of Oduduwa in the 10th century was very largely due to military dominance gained through the use of iron, says Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin, of Obafemi Awolowo University, in Ile-Ife (Nigeria). Under the Oduduwa dynasty, each kingdom had enough foundries and forges to produce all the metal tools it needed. 

"In 17th and 18th century Africa, at the height of the transatlantic slave trade, the Yoruba continued to use iron they produced themselves, regarding imported iron as religiously impure and 'unresponsive.'" 

Iron technology became a key part of African spiritual life and these skills have persisted to this day. Just like their ancestors, who had "the habit of gathering bits of metal of different kinds and origins to make into new objects," says Bocoum," today's craftsmen have incorporated traditional know-how in the production of modern tools. 

Associations of blacksmiths, such as the one in the Medina district of Bamako, are flourishing, and turning out all kinds of everyday metal objects, mainly from scrap. Though it seemed to be disappearing at one stage because it was not commercially competitive, iron craftsmanship is today enjoying a revival in Africa. 

**** 

The Iron Roads Project 

Launched by UNESCO in 1991 as part of the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-97), the Iron Roads in Africa project aims to make the continent's technological culture better known, so as to help it better confront the challenges of development. It encourages inter-disciplinary scientific research in working with iron that could influence industrial development strategies of African countries whilst offering a framework for cultural, artistic and educational activity. 

Along with the Silk Roads, the Roads of Faith and the Slave Route, the Iron Roads project boosts cultural diversity and counters racism by pointing to Africa's contribution to the ideals of tolerance, mutual understanding and dialogue. This same goal is found in the history books published by UNESCO, such as the "History of Humanity" and the "General History of Africa". 

A series of scientific meetings, in Maputo (1991), Abuja (1995), Geneva and Paris (1999), Addis Ababa (2000) and Paris (2001), organized as part of the project, resulted in a brochure called "Les Routes de Fer en Afrique" (Paris, UNESCO 2000) and a book called "Aux origines de la m�tallurgie du fer en Afrique, Une anciennet� m�connue: Afrique de l'Ouest et Afrique centrale" (UNESCO Publishing 2002). 

The project includes a multi-disciplinary travelling exhibition, which was shown at UNESCO Headquarters from 26 October to 17 November 1999 along with the screening of about 30 films from all over the world about metal-working in Africa. 

A special "Iron Roads in Africa Prize" was created in 2000 as part of the 7th International African Arts and Crafts Trade Show in Ouagadougou and its first winner was a young Burkinabe, Thomas Bamogo. 

The Africa Iron Routes project is overseen by a 16-member scientific committee and administered by UNESCO's Department of Intercultural Dialogue and Pluralism for a Culture of Peace. 

***** 

The book is currently available only in French. An English edition will be published towards the end of 2002. 
Sales contact: Cristina Laje, tel: (+33) (0) 1 45 68 49 30, email: c.laje@unesco.org 
Photos: Solange Belin, tel: (+33) (0) 1 45 68 46 87 email: s.belin@unesco.org 

Jasmina Sopova 
Bureau of Public Information 
Editorial Section 
Tel: (+33) (0)1 45 68 47 18 
Email: j.sopova@unesco.org 

Consult the website: 
http://www.unesco.org/culture/ww/africa 

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3432&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

on Carbon Steel 

General Info:

Africa's Ancient Steelmakers
Monday, Sep. 25, 1978 

The Haya were centuries ahead of European metallurgists

When Anthropologist Peter Schmidt first visited the Haya people of Tanzania on the western shore of Lake Victoria, nine years ago, his goal was to study their complex heritage, which is passed orally from one generation to the next. On that and subsequent trips, he not only accomplished what he had set out to do but made a serendipitous discovery that alters the history of technology.
Writing in the current issue of Science, Schmidt and Metallurgy Professor Donald Avery, both of Brown University, report that as long as 2,000 years ago, the Haya people were producing medium-carbon steel in preheated, forced-draft furnaces. A technology this sophisticated was not developed again until nearly 19 centuries later, when German-born Metallurgist Karl Wilhelm Siemens, who is generally credited with using an open-hearth furnace, produced the first high-grade carbon steel.
Schmidt was led to his discovery by Haya elders, who showed him a "shrine tree" that they said marked the site of ancient iron smelters long worked by their people. Because the Haya can now buy inexpensive, European-made steel tools and make more money raising coffee and other crops, they stopped producing their own steel some 50 years ago. Thus the only Haya who could recall details of the steelmaking process were very old, and as Schmidt and Avery write, this knowledge was "threatened every day by the passage of time, by death and by age-related infirmities occurring in this quickly shrinking group of expert smelters."
Two years ago, at the request of the scientists and working entirely from memory, the Haya constructed a traditional furnace. It was 1.6 meters (5 ft.) high, cone-shaped, made of sl*g and mud and built over a pit packed with partially burned swamp grass; these charred reeds provided the carbon that combined with the molten iron ore to produce steel. Eight ceramic blowpipes, or tuye�o a goatskin bellows outside. Using these pipes to force preheated air into the furnace, which was fueled by charcoal, the Haya were able to achieve temperatures higher than 1800� C (3275� F.), high enough to produce their carbon steel.
Schmidt and Avery, certain that the Haya steelmaking process was very old, set out to trace its origins. What they found was beyond even their expectations. Last year, in excavations on the western shore of Lake Victoria, they discovered the remnants of 13 furnaces nearly identical in design to the one the Haya had built. Using radioactive-carbon dating processes on the charcoal, they found that these furnaces were between 1,500 and 2,000 years old, which proved that the sophisticated steelmaking techniques demonstrated by the contemporary Haya were indeed practiced by their ancestors. This discovery, the scientists conclude, "will help to change scholarly and popular ideas that technological sophistication developed in Europe but not in Africa." 
(P.S i detest the constant comparison to europe, as if Europe was the zenith of human Civilization. )

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912179,00.html

excerpt:

Steel was known in antiquity, and may have been produced by managing the bloomery so that the bloom contained carbon.^[9] Some of the first steel comes from East Africa, dating back to 1400 BCE.^[10] In the 4th century BCE steel weapons like the Falcata were produced in the Iberian peninsula. The Chinese of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE � 220 CE) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast iron, gaining an ultimate product of a carbon-intermediate�steel by the 1st century CE.^[11]^[12] Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from India to China by the 5th century CE.^[13] Wootz steel was produced in India and Sri Lanka from around 300 BCE. This early steel-making method employed the use of a wind furnace, blown by the monsoon winds.^[14] Also known as Damascus steel, wootz is famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge. It was originally created from a number of different materials including various trace elements. It was essentially a complicated alloy with iron as its main component. Recent studies have suggested that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though given the technology available at that time, they were probably produced more by chance than by design.^[15] Crucible steel was produced in Merv by 9th to 10th century CE.
In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast
http://www.search.com/reference/Steel#Historically

I'm not sure about a definitive date but it would seem around the nieghborhood of 1400 bc and possibly further back. 

but i do have some questions, and i wonder if anyone on the AE could answers them. 
-How was iron spirtual to these people? i thought it was outlandish a bit, but i have to admit that i have never heard of it.
- how high of a grade is this Carbon steel?
- what was its predominate useage in the Great Lakes area...i would guess for mainly agriculture but I thought they had poor soil..could be wrong...

please add on to this in hopes of collecting as much information about the iron age as possible

Thank you

Edited by Tk101 - 28-Feb-2008 at 02:46