Jaredite steel?

[_Runtu]

I've known a long time about Nephi's using metallurgy to create steel objects, such as swords and a bow. I have heard it said that for some reason the technology wasn't used by the Nephites, hence the last mention of steel comes somewhat early on in Jarom, which the current edition of the Book of Mormon places between 399 and 365 BCE. This inexplicable disappearance of steel technology is said to explain the lack of evidence of metallurgy in proposed Book of Mormon locations. But for some reason I missed this from the Book of Ether:


QUOTE
Ether 7: 9 Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.


This is more problematic. John Sorenson dates the Jaredite civilization between "about 3100 B.C." and "not earlier, and not much later, than 580 B.C" (see The Years of the Jaredites).

But metallurgy was not known among even the later Mayans corresponding to Nephite/Lamanites timelines: "There are certain things about the Maya landscape, about life in the tropics, and about the kind of “technology” available to the ancient Maya that help people of the twentieth century to understand a little better what their lives were really like. They were, first of all, a stone age people, without metal of any kind until several centuries before the Conquest. All they accomplished was done by means of stone tools, utilizing human beings as their beasts of burden" (Linda Schele, Forest of Kings, 60).

Not only that, but steel is not known anywhere in the world at this early stage. The earliest steel appears to date from about 1700 B.C: "Early sub-Saharan Africans developed metallurgy at a very early stage, possibly even before other peoples. Around 1400 BC, East Africans began producing steel in carbon furnaces (steel was invented in the west in the eighteenth century). The Iron Age itself came very early to Africa, probably around the sixth century BC, in Ethiopia, the Great Lakes region, Tanzania, and Nigeria. Iron technology, however, only spread slowly across Africa; it wasn't until the first century AD that the smelting of iron began to rapidly diffuse throughout the continent" (Richard Hooker, "Civilizations in Africa: The Iron Age South of the Sahara" Washington State University, 2004).

Here we have Jaredites using Iron Age technology independent of the Old World Iron Age (beginning roughly in the 12th century BCE), and they used it to make weapons of war, enough weapons to kill "many thousands" of people (Ether 14:4). Yet again, no evidence whatsoever remains of this apparently fairly widely used technology.

What we do see in Mesoamerica is the use of ochre/hematite as a coloring and naturally occurring metal outcroppings hammered or cut. We do not see metallurgy (smelting of ores) until "quite late in Maya history. ... Copper objects, predominantly from West Mexico, began appearing at Lamanai via trade networks that included the New River sometime in the 12th century A.D. ... Utilitarian tools such as axes, chisels, and fish hooks have been recovered, mainly from Late Postclassic Period (c. AD 1250-1500) and Spanish Colonial Period (AD 1500-1700) residential contexts" (Scott Simmons, "The Lamanai Archeological Project," Archeology Abroad, 2007).

How do you explain the presence of steel smelting so early in Mesoamerican history?

[_rcrocket]

Perhaps you could explain to me instead why it is the Hebrew reference to steel [Strong's H5154] is copper. That has always confused me.

[_Runtu]

Perhaps you could explain to me instead why it is the Hebrew reference to steel [Strong's H5154] is copper. That has always confused me.

Either way, the idea of smelting (as described in Ether) is still anachronistic, whether it's copper or steel.

[_antishock8]

Well, since the Jaredites very plainly used Los Angeles class submarines to navigate the ocean it would be no surprise to me that they possessed advanced smelting technologies. I'm continually amazed by these supposedly "primitive" civilizations that far outpaced our own with their scientific discoveries simply because they obeyed the Lord and heeded unto His word. The Glory of God is Intelligence. Indeed. Indeed.

[_skippy the dead]

Obviously aliens came and taught them advanced techniques. Duh.

[_rcrocket]

Charcoal's been around for 15,000 years. Copper's melting point is easily within the heat generated by un-bellowed charcoal. Iron's melting point is not. Throw copper into a charcoal fire and copper will melt.

[cacheman]

Charcoal's been around for 15,000 years. Copper's melting point is easily within the heat generated by un-bellowed charcoal. Iron's melting point is not. Throw copper into a charcoal fire and copper will melt.

Except there's still no evidence that copper was "molten" and made into swords or anything else that early in the Americas.

The other problem is that the Book of Mormon distinguishes between copper and steel, both among the Nephites and the Jaredites.

[_rcrocket]

Charcoal's been around for 15,000 years. Copper's melting point is easily within the heat generated by un-bellowed charcoal. Iron's melting point is not. Throw copper into a charcoal fire and copper will melt.

Except there's still no evidence that copper was made into swords or anything else that early in the Americas.

I am not an expert in dating, but I have read some of the diaries of the consquitadors as well as Prescott's appendix where he quotes from the diaries. They report swords. They also report Christian churches. Be that as it may, I don't think they would have got the sword part wrong. It seems in reading the diaries that the word "sword" applied to copper, obsidian and wood implements as well as Austrian steel two centuries old.

[_Runtu]

Charcoal's been around for 15,000 years. Copper's melting point is easily within the heat generated by un-bellowed charcoal. Iron's melting point is not. Throw copper into a charcoal fire and copper will melt.

Except there's still no evidence that copper was made into swords or anything else that early in the Americas.

I am not an expert in dating, but I have read some of the diaries of the consquitadors as well as Prescott's appendix where he quotes from the diaries. They report swords. They also report Christian churches. Be that as it may, I don't think they would have got the sword part wrong. It seems in reading the diaries that the word "sword" applied to copper, obsidian and wood implements as well as Austrian steel two centuries old.

As I mentioned in the OP, swords and other tools made of smelted metal do come into play in the centuries before the conquest. But they are nowhere to be found in the times of the Jaredites.

[_skippy the dead]

Now you've got Zakuska over on MADB all a-google - he's posting what seem to be random bits that he's finding on the internets. He has apparently proven that Mayans had the technology to "produced some sort of metal implements", based on a Wikipedia entry for lime kilns.

Where is Beastie when we need her?