View source for Sorenson: "By 1400 BC, smiths in Armenia had discovered how to carburize iron by prolonged heating in contact with carbon"

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==Sorenson: "By 1400 BC, smiths in Armenia had discovered how to carburize iron by prolonged heating in contact with carbon"==
John L. Sorenson: <ref>{{JBMS-15-2-13}}</ref>
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Steel is "iron that has been combined with carbon atoms through a controlled treatment of heating and cooling." <ref>Lenore O. Keene Congdon, "Steel in Antiquity: A Problem in Terminology," in ''Studies Presented to George M. A. Hanfmann'', ed. David Gordon Mitten et al. (Cambridge: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1971), 18–19.</ref> Yet "the ancients possessed in the natural (meteoric) nickel-iron alloy a type of steel that was not manufactured by mankind before 1890." <ref>Robert James Forbes, ''Metallurgy in Antiquity: A Notebook for Archaeologists and Technologists'' (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1950), 402.</ref> (It has been estimated that 50,000 tons of meteoritic material falls on the earth each day, although only a fraction of that is recoverable.) <ref>Harvey Harlow Nininger, ''Find a Falling Star'' (New York: Paul S. Erikson, 1972), 238.</ref> By 1400 BC, smiths in Armenia had discovered how to carburize iron by prolonged heating in contact with carbon (derived from the charcoal in their forges). This produced martensite, which forms a thin layer of steel on the exterior of the object (commonly a sword) being manufactured. <ref>Congdon, "Steel in Antiquity," 24–25; D. Davis et al., "A Steel Pick from Mount Adir in Palestine," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 44/1 (1985): 42; and Muhly, "Mining and Metalwork," 3:1515.</ref> Iron/steel jewelry, weapons, and tools (including tempered steel) were definitely made as early as 1300 BC (and perhaps earlier), as attested by excavations in present-day Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and Jordan. <ref>Patrick E. McGovern, "The Innovation of Steel in Transjordan," ''Journal of Metals'' 40/7 (1988): 50; Jane C. Waldbaum, ''From Bronze to Iron: The Transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean'' (Göteborg, Sweden: Paul Åström, 1978), 54; and Robert Maddin et al., "How the Iron Age Began," ''Scientific American'' 237 (1977): 122.</ref> "Smiths were carburizing [i.e., making steel] intentionally on a fairly large scale by at least 1000 BC in the Eastern Mediterranean area." <ref>Tamara S. Wheeler and Robert Maddin, "Metallurgy and Ancient Man," in ''Coming of the Age of Iron'', ed. Wertime and Muhly, 116.</ref>
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[[Category:Letter to a CES Director]]

[[es:Fuente:Sorenson:JBMS 15:2:Por el año 1400 aC, herreros en Armenia habían descubierto cómo carburar el hierro por calentamiento prolongado en contacto con el carbono]]
[[pt:Fonte:Sorenson:JBMS 15:2:Por volta de 1400 aC, ferreiros em Armênia tinha descoberto como cementação ferro por aquecimento prolongado em contato com o carbono]]