IRON

   Iron ore deposits occur in Anatolia and northwest Iran. The metalwas probably first worked as a by-product of coppersmelting, and rare small iron objects have been found in Mesopotamian graves since the fourth millennium B.C. Iron was worked as wrought iron and tempered by cooling and reheating. It was the Hittites who mastered the technology and produced the first tools and weapons. In Mesopotamia, iron implements and arms were not used in significant quantities before the Assyriansintroduced them in the eighth century B.C. They procured their iron weapons and tools by exacting them as tribute from their Anatolian provinces. The Iron Age therefore arrived later in Mesopotamia than in the Levant and Anatolia and coincides with the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods.