ShmoopTube

00:02

With a few exceptions the weapons of the Bronze Age were the same old

00:05

weapons used until the invention of gunpowder swords shields arrows and [two men fighting on horses with swords]

00:10

armor yeah they all stayed functionally the same basically we were stuck with

00:15

any weapon you might see in Lord of the Rings [Frodo looking out a window]

00:17

minus the one ring that gives us the power to rule them all and/or turns people

00:22

into bug-eyed frog looking things don't believe us I'll find ye of little faith

00:28

check this out Alexander the Great was given a suit of armor that was 900 years [Alexander the Great taking a suit of armor]

00:32

old and he actually used it in battle that means that in 900 years armor

00:40

hadn't changed enough to make it's older styles obsolete and today an iPhone one [Alexander the Great fighting]

00:46

is a rare and mysterious antique so yeah not too many changes but one thing that

00:50

did change well, the use of iron iron got hot around 800 BCE back when tin became [hot iron burning]

00:56

too scarce to continue making bronze and well everything ushered in the Iron Age

01:01

and it was pretty popular ever heard of the Romans, war like guys with coolness [Roman wearing a helmet and waving a sword]

01:06

logical stories and food elements they used iron weapons they also had

01:11

questionable taste in head wear but their taste in weapons oh, that was solid [roman wearing a weird helmet]

01:15

iron weapons were just like bronze weapons on steroids or maybe they just

01:19

had a good workout routine in the end iron helped create the weapons that [two romans holding swords together]

01:23

defined medieval warfare and were used in the conquest of Rome

01:27

the War of the Roses the Crusades and the Mongol invasion all right well iron

01:33

like copper is a natural element on earth unfortunately for us getting from [woman pushing a shopping cart around a store]

01:37

iron ore to a fancy iron sword is not easy it has to be purified heated and

01:42

then beaten into submission in the appropriate shape how else did you think

01:47

those blacksmith got such hulking biceps well in the earliest iron forges that [blacksmith working topless]

01:53

process was slow and unreliable they might forge one batch of iron with a

01:57

high carbon content which would be almost as strong as pure steel well at [man waving a shiny iron sword]

02:02

the very next batch would be brittle weak and full of impurities from the

02:06

entire process took hundreds of years to perfect iron became an industry for the

02:10

first time in Anatolia or modern Turkey around 1200 BCE and lots

02:16

of other cultures and peoples were figuring out iron working around the [Selection of different cultures]

02:19

same time including the Chinese Indians and West Africans you know what they say

02:24

there are no new ideas because the Chinese Indians and West Africans are

02:29

figuring things out all the time and already invented them yeah, it's not how the [woman stood at front of a class and children look puzzled]

02:33

saying goes well should be. Anyway the many overlapping time periods mean that

02:37

there aren't any clear-cut dates for the Iron Age just a jumble of different

02:41

times when people did or did not have iron but whenever and wherever it showed [timeline of the iron age beginning]

02:46

up Iron stuck an iron dagger in the Bronze Age it was tougher more durable

02:51

sharper and heavier than bronze, sorry bronze you had your day in the [iron pushes bronze off a sunlounger]

02:55

sun but remember military technology didn't change until the end of the

02:59

Middle Ages the basic nature of most weapons did not shift iron just gave them

03:05

superpowers it wouldn't be until the rise of the Jedi that swords would take next [Jedi cutting iron swords in half]

03:10

leap boy that never happened in reality sounds like is a retirement

03:14

project for Bill Gates [Bill Gates installing Windows 10]

Full Transcript