History The Iron Age Kingdoms How did the Iron Age (also called New Age) start? The Iron Age is so named after the materials used at the time to make tools and weapons. It developed at different times in different parts of the world. It is the youngest of the pre- historic periods. The Rise of Iron: At end of Bronze era- a crisis in Mediterranean area (thought to be a shortage of Bronze due to shortage of Tin)- led to experimentation with iron. Unlike the bronze, which melts below 1200 °C – about the temperature achieved in simple melting furnaces; people could not melt the iron in prehistoric times. The melting point of iron is 1536 °C. When iron is extracted from rock- you get pig iron- which is too soft for weapons & tools. The iron becomes harder when it is hammered with a hammer: Through a chemical process – killing – the iron hardness can be further increased. This occurs when the iron is kept glowing at a temperature level between 800-1200 ° C. Then the iron absorbs carbon from the glowing charcoal and becomes steel, which by hammering becomes more than twice as hard as the cold-hammer bronze. Who were the Pioneers in steel making: 1. In today’s Turkey, the Hittites were the first to master iron working- they made the strongest weapons of that time (between 1600 and 1180 BC)- BUT they kept it a secret from rest of world for hundreds of years. Because they lived in Anatolia (today’s Turkey) and the northern part of Mesopotamia (today’s Syria) also- evidence of iron works were found in Mesopotamia also. Page 1 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms The Hittites had excellent metalworking skills – made tools and weapons from iron around 1400 BC- and were good in warfare. Hattusa Gateway Hattusa was the capital of the Hitties and they were known for large stonebuildings and statues, as well as metal art work. They also made pottery items like rhytons, a type of drinking vessel. Stone carvings in rocky hills Hittite clay rhyton in the shape of a gazelle 2. In East Africa people produced steel as early as 500 BC. (discussed later in African Iron Age Kingdoms) 3. In Europe, this development happened only in the 1700s AD. Technology in Africa was therefore long advanced before the arrival of Europeans to African continent. Page 2 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms 2. Kingdom of Kush: The kingdom was established in 785BC In 727 BC the Kush Kingdom took control of the Egyptian kingdom. They ruled Egypt till the Assyrians arrived. The kingdom stood as a regional power in Africa for over a thousand years. This Nubian Empire reached its peak in the 2nd millennium BC. The name Nubia meant Gold The area of the kingdom spread out from the Nile river into what is now known as Sudan. The Capital was Meroe. Religion The Kushites worshipped the Egyptian gods. They mummified their dead and built pyramids. They believed in the afterlife. The area was covered by more than 200 pyramids. Page 3 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms Economy The Kush kingdom was rich in gold and iron. Gold helped the kingdom become rich. Iron was used to make strong tools and weapons. They traded with Egypt as well as being military rivals. Agriculture They planted: wheat, barley, cotton Nubian Art Culture 1. The king and the ruling class where the most important social class. 2. Priests made the laws and communicated with the gods. 3. Next were the artisans and scribes. Artisans worked the gold and iron. These 2 metals where very important to the economy 4. Farmers were respected because they provided food for the kingdom. 5. The lowest of the social classes where servants, slaves and labourers. Battle The soldiers used bow and arrows. They were excellent archers. The Kandakes (Candaces) of Meroe were the queens of the Kingdom of Kush who ruled from the city of Meroe from 284 BC - 314 AD - several whom ruled independently. Page 4 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms Metal art work in form of bull Famous people of Kush: 1. King Piye (who became a Pharoah): Ruling period: 744-714 BC Died: 714 BC He invaded Egypt from the South and established the 23rd dynasty. They prayed to the Egyptian god Amon Re; and when a Libyan chief threatened the god’s homeland in Upper Egypt- King Piye defeated the Libyan armies all the way to Memphis (capital of Egypt). He then moved up to the Nile Delta, where more rulers surrendered. Pharoah Piye ruled Egypt from his homeland Nubia (in North Sudan) and died there. His tomb showed that his 4 favorite horses were buried with him (the first pharaoh in 500 years, to receive this honor). King Piye of Kush 2. Queen Amanirenas was a queen of Meroe who was a known woman warrior: She declared herself king (Qore) and queen (Kandake (Candache) of Kush. Born: 60-50 BC Died: 10 BC Ruling period: 40-10 BC Page 5 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms Egyptian Jewelry of Queen Amanirenas Woman queen-warriors were not uncommon in the Kush Kingdom. When fighting the Romans, they described her a masculine type of woman, blind in one eye. During the 3rd century BC- she was involved in a 5-year war with Romans (who had taken control of Egypt). She captured many Roman forts in Sudan- the Romans brutally fought back- but the one-eyed warrior fought with her soldiers to defeat them. It is said that she had war elephants and pet lions in the war, who were fed the Roman captives. The Romans did not try to invade Kush again. Modern Nubian dancers 3. The Land of Punt Few African civilizations are as mysterious as Punt. Location: Probably coastal region of modern Djibouti or Somalia, - location is not yet confirmed- but most believe it existed somewhere on the Red Sea coast of East Africa. Maps of Somalia shows Puntland as one of their political states, on the Horn of Africa. Page 6 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms Historical accounts of the kingdom date to around 2500 B.C., when it appears in Egyptian records as a “Land of the Gods” rich in blackwood, ebony, gold, myrrh and exotic animals such as apes and leopards. They were trading partners of Egypt. The Egyptians are known to have sent huge caravans and flotillas on trade missions to Punt—most notably during the 15th century B.C. reign of Queen Hatshepsut (the pharaoh of that time) —yet they never identified where it was located. Queen Hatshepsut Trade with Egypt A drawing on walls of Queen Hatshepsut’s showed a royal expedition to Punt The above drawing shows Punt houses (on stilts), two fruiting date palms, three myrrh trees, a bird, a cow, an unidentified fish and a turtle, in water which in the original was green - to show that it was saltwater. This means that Punt was probably next to a sea. 4. The Kingdom of Aksum During the same period that the Roman Empire rose and fell, the influential Kingdom of Aksum flourished in the areas that are now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Surprisingly little is known about Aksum’s origins, but by the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD it was a trading force whose gold and ivory made it a vital link between ancient Europe and the Far East . The Script of Ge’ez: The kingdom had a written script known as Ge’ez—one of the first to emerge in Africa. The Anharas, as well as some of other populations in major cities, in Ethiopia speak Amharic (one of the Ethiopian Simitic languages). Aksum developed a distinctive architectural style that involved the building of massive stone obelisks (known as a stele), some of which stood over 100 feet tall. A stele, or occasionally stela, when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it Page 7 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. The 24m King Ezana's stele (stela) in Northern Ethiopian Script- the “Ge’ez” Stelae Park, the biggest stele still standing In the fourth century, Aksum became one of the first empires in the world to adopt Christianity, which led to a political and military alliance with the Byzantines. The empire later went into decline sometime around the 7th or 8th century, but its religious legacy still exists today in the form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. 5. The Mali Empire The Mali Empire was founded about 1200 AD, when a ruler named Sundiata Keita— sometimes called the “Lion King”— who overthrew a Sossu king and united his subjects into a new state. The Empire of Mali was in Western Africa. Under Keita and his successors, the empire tightened its grip over a large portion of West Africa and grew rich on trade. It started along the Niger River and eventually spread across 1,200 miles from the city of Gao to the Atlantic Ocean. Its northern border was just south of the Sahara Desert. It covered regions of the modern-day African countries of Mali, Niger, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea, and Gambia. Its most important cities were Djenné and Timbuktu, both of which were renowned for their elaborate adobe mosques and Islamic schools. The religion of Islam was an important part of the Mali Empire. Page 8 of 16 History The Iron Age Kingdoms However, even though the kings, or Mansas, had converted to Islam, they did not force their subjects to convert.