The Development of Mining, Metallurgy and the Production of Cold Steel Arms in Georgia: A Geological and Archaeological Review

Since its very beginning, metallurgy always played an important role in the history of Georgia. Its features, development, ups and downs, and new manifestations, over and over again, in different times and places, are the main topic of this paper. South Georgian metallurgical centres are considered the place of origin of iron metallurgy, and have played a leading role on the markets of the then known world during the whole Antiquity period. According to the authors, all main metallurgical centres of ancient Georgia were geographically associated with iron ore occurrences. The article describes all the possible places, from which ancient masters could produce iron ores. The results of laboratory analyses highlighted the presence of some trace elements, which in ancient times were added to the iron ores during smelting to produce high quality steel.