I want to talk about ancient metalworking...

I want to talk about ancient metalworking. Pic related is an iron dagger with a gold sheath and hilt found in Tutankhamun's tomb. This tomb was sealed in the 14th century BC, when iron smelting was not yet known in Egypt, so it has long been suspected that the blade was worked from the solid metal core of an iron meteorite. Composition analysis finally confirmed this origin in 2016. You can read about it here:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12664/full

This blade was surely a ceremonial object, which is sensible given that solid iron would have been rarer even than gold. The Egyptians at this time had knowledge of bronzeworking and the use of edged weapons, so it is not difficult to imagine the origin of the model for their ceremonial gold and iron blades.

However, I have read references in various sources to discoveries of gold daggers and axe heads dating from before the bronze age. These objects are also described in the literature as purely ceremonial. A gold blade could not actually be used for cutting in any case, as the metal is too soft to hold an edge (which is why gold could be worked before the invention of smelting in the first place). What was the model for these prehistoric blades? Flint and obsidian weapons were of course very common in the "stone age," but, excepting axes, do not really resemble gold ceremonial weapons such as swords. To put it bluntly, what is the point of making a gold model of a sword that could never have possibly been used, when swords were completely unknown (stone being too brittle to hold such a long cutting edge) in the first place? What ceremonial purpose could they have served? What did they imitate?

It seems to me that meteoric iron could be one possible explanation: could some warriors have possessed superior "heavenly weapons" wrought of iron that fell from the sky, long before the discovery of copper and bronze? Could golden imitations of these swords have found their way into ritual?

Copperworking dates back to like 4000 BC.

From there, people realized you could add tin or zinc to the mix, and you get bronze and brass items

Any examples of these pre-Bronze Age gold daggers?

Wikipedia is telling me that gold was actually the first metal ever worked by humans.

But worked gold artifacts (apparently) long predate the discovery of copper (and shortly thereafter alloys such as you mention) in the ancient Near East.

Quoting one of the origin points of the Stone/Bronze/Iron age system,
>In his 1865 book, Prehistoric Times, Lubbock divided the Stone Age into the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic:
>That of the Drift... This we may call the 'Palaeolithic' Period.
>The later, or polished Stone Age ... in which, however, we find no trace ... of any metal, excepting gold, ... This we may call the 'Neolithic' Period.
>The Bronze Age, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting instruments of all kinds.
>The Iron Age, in which that metal had superseded bronze.

I'm having difficulty finding anything other than aside references to stone age goldworking myself. I can find more solid evidence of the use of gold in neolithic Europe, but the near east was already well into the Bronze age at that point, so goldsmiths in more primitive parts of the world could conceivably have had inspiration from the weapons of more advanced Bronze age cultures.

Right, or so the typical thinking goes as far as I can tell. My hypothesis is that certain gold archetypes were inspired by much rarer (and therefore even more poorly represented in the archaeological record) meteoric iron prototypes, which could've actually been used as weapons (or tools of execution, or whatever).

The copper period was actually about as long as the Bronze Age itself.

Chalcolithic bro.

But yeah, the first evidence of copper smelting is in 5500 BC, the first evidence of bronze smelting is from 3500 BC, and the first meteoric iron daggers are from 4000.

So I'd guess that most of the gold daggers were based off of copper or bronze weapons.

>1865
I wouldn't take that source seriously. That stone/bronze/iron age system isn't even accurate considering the chalcolithic.

>My hypothesis is that certain gold archetypes were inspired by much rarer... meteoric iron prototypes, which could've actually been used as weapons
It doesn't make much sense to me. Why do gold artifacts necessarily need to be 'based' on anything? Why don't meteoric iron ones?

His logic is that gold swords don't work, and there's no reason to make gold into a sword shape if the sword hasn't been invented yet.

I'm inclined to say that it's based off of copper tools, just based off of the chronology that archaeology gives us.

That dagger was definitely useable. It was only ceremonial because it wasnt used. If you stabbed a dude with that it would work just dandy.

Shut the fuck up

Modern usage includes the copper age as the first part of the bronze age.

In any case I'm looking for better sources.

But do you have any idea how gold items fit into that timeline? Even if copper smelting predates the oldest known iron artifacts, it's possible that older iron items were so rare or so highly valued as to have been missing from the archaeological record despite having existed. However, I don't mean to become unreasonably attached to the meteoric iron idea. I'm just fascinated by the existence of "unknown metals."

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. I could easily see a progression from stone axes to copper axes to ceremonial gold axes, but did long copper blades exist? I'm not sure whether chalcolithic copper could hold a suitable cutting edge for a sword or knife either.

If you are suggesting they did not have swords but only stone daggers and the like then perhaps a gold sword is just a big dagger?
Gold is special, making things bigger is a show of wealth so making a big gold dagger would be a sign of high prestige?

Congratulations on missing the point entirely. Maybe try reading the thread again.

My entire point is that iron weapons could have actually been used, while gold weapons could not. King Tut's funerary weapons were ceremonial, but the existence of an iron blade in Bronze-age Egypt highlights the fact that the metal was (very rarely) used before it was discovered how to produce it.

If it's just a scaling up process, then sure. I'd really like to find a description or an image of some of these supposed neolithic gold artifacts though, because I'm not sure that's the case.

I do know that the first Bronze age swords had a unique flared "leaf" shape, widening near the tip, as opposed to the straight taper characteristic of a dagger.

>His logic is that gold swords don't work, and there's no reason to make gold into a sword shape if the sword hasn't been invented yet.
I can see where he's coming from, but I'm not really sure these 'swords' exist. At least I can't find any examples. I can find decorative gold objects, but nothing that seems to be inspired by practical swords or daggers. There some gold cutting edges, like Andean ceremonial knives, but they don't look like they were based off of any kind of more practical knives. Plus, they had copper.

Bruh im going off what you said

>This blade was surely a ceremonial object, which is sensible given that solid iron would have been rarer even than gold

>To put it bluntly, what is the point of making a gold model of a sword that could never have possibly been used, when swords were completely unknown (stone being too brittle to hold such a long cutting edge) in the first place?

Pretty sure copper was invented back then. They could have made copper swords.

King Tut's blade was "ceremonial" (he was a fucking boy king and probably never lifted anything heavier than a cup with his own hands), but that doesn't mean some elites didn't actually use comparable iron blades.

It's just that the one that happened to be buried in a secret, undisturbed tomb is the one that actually survived to our era. This is 101 stuff dude. The use of meteoric iron before the iron age is attested in other examples as well. This is just an interesting and timely one that I used to kick off the thread because its origin was confirmed very recently.

Also another problem with the meteoric iron thing is that it's just so rare and exists in such small amounts, it's hardly likely that a culture unfamiliar with metallurgy would not only figure out how to forge it, but actually design and create knives or swords for practical usage, and then pass on those designs to gold-workers. I know some Inuit made very basic lance-heads by hammering iron on to lances, but that's just using iron to improve an already existing weapon, not designing a new one.

I'm finding references to copper swords in the Greek Cycladic culture (which produced, if I'm not mistaken, the famous art deco-esque marble figurines and the first large marble statues). I wish I had a better source than wikipedia, but this passage is uncited:
>The sword remained extremely rare for another millennium, and became more widespread only with the closing of the 3rd millennium. The "swords" of this later period can still readily be interpreted as daggers, as with the copper specimen from Naxos (dated roughly 2800 to 2300 BC), with a length of just below 36 cm, but individual specimens of the Cycladic "copper swords" of the period around 2300 reach a length up to 60 cm.

>culture unfamiliar with metallurgy would not only figure out how to forge it, but actually design and create knives or swords for practical usage, and then pass on those designs
I think it's clear that there was no widespread use of iron before the iron age. Certainly no iron-working "cultures" existed, or their iron would have been discovered by now. But I do speculate as to whether there could have been single, unique examples of iron weapons crafted by individual virtuoso toolmakers in the stone age. Especially if beaten gold was already known, and if hot iron could have been found serendipitously in the form of recently fallen meteorites.

These are the oldest large gold objects I can find attested, and as you can see they do not predate copper axes (which also appear in the picture). I do like the gold dick-covering device though. It's like a little gold helmet for your penis. Very nice.

The literature remains confusing however, as many sources discuss how prehistoric man "must have" found gold in riverbeds and discovered its malleability and ductility. I think there are older known examples of small gold jewelry or gold wires.

I dunno, if you can find evidence of golden swords before the beginning of the chalcolithic, that would be major indirect evidence for meteoric ironworking well before the current timeline.

Wikipedia tells me the earliest iron swords date after the first copper shit, but it doesn't really mention gold swords.

If there are gold swords before 5500 BC then you may be on to something.

I can't find any specific gold objects older than the 5th millennium BC (at Varna, pictured above) despite all kinds of vague references in non-academic online sources to "early hominids" and "prehistoric man" all over the world "noticing" the desirable qualities of gold (i.e., gold nuggets look shiny in a riverbed).

What I need is a good, recent textbook or a survey paper about the history of metallurgy.

Iron was in use for certain tools and ojects since 1300 bc in some parts of Italy (Namely Sardinia and Sicily) but not as weapons.

Iron was in use for certain tools and objects since 1300 bc in some parts of Italy (Namely Sardinia and Sicily) but not as weapons.

>Gold artifacts found at the Nahal Kana cave cemetery dated during the 1980s, showed these to be from within the Chalcolithic, and considered the earliest find from the Levant (Gopher et al. 1990).[72] Gold artifacts in the Balkans also appear from the 4th millennium BC, such as those found in the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna in Bulgaria, thought by one source (La Niece 2009) to be the earliest "well-dated" find of gold artifacts.[73] Gold artifacts such as the golden hats and the Nebra disk appeared in Central Europe from the 2nd millennium BC Bronze Age.

They found gold in a 40,000 year old cave site in Spain, but it wasn't worked, it was just natural nuggets.

So...what fills that big gap? People were collecting gold nuggets 40000 years ago, and recognizable goldworking was clearly well known by Varna.

Surely somewhere in the middle, someone tried hammering gold nuggets into sheets. If gold is desirable because of its visual properties (color, shine, resistance to corrosion), stretching your little nuggets into wide, highly visible sheets would have been an extremely desirable modification. (Sounds like knives longer than obsidian daggers didn't exist in any metal until well into what I would call the bronze age, however).

That's the thing about prehistory.

You have to dig for it.

Nobody has dug up any of the stuff in between, so we don't know if there even was an in between.

But yeah, as for the question in the OP, copper still makes the most sense to me.