The earliest known use of iron by humans occurred in ancient Egypt and Sumer

The earliest known use of iron by humans occurred in ancient Egypt and Sumer, where it was used to make spear tips and ornaments. As the process for smelting iron had not yet been invented, the metal was only available from meteorites, making it rare and extremely valuable.

Smelting is the process of extracting iron from iron ore. When exactly humans first began smelting iron is uncertain, but the scholarly consensus is that the technology was developed in eastern Anatolia (modern day Turkey) sometime near the end of the Late Bronze Age, around 1200 BC. There is evidence that smelting was also occurring in West Africa around this same time.

In the early smelting process, the iron ore was heated in a charcoal-fired furnace called a “bloomery.” The heating caused the particles of iron to separate from the ore and fall to the bottom of the furnace, where it was collected as a molten slag called a “bloom.” The bloom was then extracted, reheated, and beaten with a hammer to purify the iron. Iron produced this way replaced bronze as the dominant metal—and the Iron Age succeeded the Bronze Age.