history of chains

prehistory

The chains (in latin, catena) refered to here are; this object formed from pieces, wich are generally of metal and ring shaped, linked together in such a way as to be articulated.

The history of mankind may have begun 3.5 million years ago and, regarding the raw materials used for the making of their basic untesils, can be divided into two basic stages; paleolithic, in wich stone was the prime raw material and the metal age (copper, bronze and iron) in which stone was still being used but with which metal was being incoroprated. Later, with romanization, the first written testimonies appeared which broought about the change from prehistory to history.

Word to word communication, myths and legends, has been the "prehistoric internet" during thousands of years and with these documents as well as archeological data we have been able to visualize and in some, but not many cases, explain the events of this long period. According to the bible, which having been written centuries before the birth of christ, is without doubt the odest written tex at our disposition, Tubal, son of Lamec and one of Cain's descendants, was a forger of bornze and iron cutting instruments which clearly shows a knowledge of metal at a very ancient age of the history of humanity.

Chains cannot exist without suitable raw material or without the necessary extraction and elaboration of the same raw material. Chains, without metalurgy, do not exist.

According to P.J. Le Thomas the entire history of metalurgy owes its beginnign to women's cocketry. The birth of metalurgy, as is told, was when the beautiful nefertiti, applying make-up to her face, let her lipstick drop into the hot coals of the fire. The next morning a red nugget appeared in the ashes. The first copper lingot in the history of humanity had been produced.

What this legend teaches us that, apart form gold, the use of metals in their natural state is not viable, the stone in wich they exist must be submited to heat.

When did all this happen? With all their findings the archeologists have done away with the myth of Nefertiti being the title holder of the first metalurgist. Nowarays three centres have been located as being the origen of copper metalurgy in europe; the near east 6,500 B.C.E. (Before Current Era), the Balcans 4,500 B.C.E. and the iberian peninsula 3,000 B.C.E. Nefertiti lived in the XIV century B.C.E.

Later and after a long evolutionary process, which at the beginning was very slow, the alloy age evolved, that which the archeologist refer to as "the bronze age", this arrived at oour lands at about 1,500 B.C.E.

Iron wich in some areas in the meteorogical form and was hammered in egypt and mesopotamia was worked originally by the Hitite in the Anatolia region in 2,000 B.C.E. Its difusion did not begin until the year 1,400 B.C.E. and did not reach our lands until 700 B.C.E.

Reaching the engraving age and above all the bronze age, objects with a rinig form began to appear. They are rings, bracelets, arm bands... and we can also fiind threadings which, although these cannot be truly defined as chains, announce that the advantages of this technology can be foreseen.

Its in the iron age that we find, in the many acheological digs, authentic chains and ring threads very frequent in the bits and bidles of horses, decorative objects, household utensils, carts, various ironmongery objects, etc.

The development of several cultures, such as iberic, celt, celt-iberian developed during this age, whose metalurgical products reached a quality which is difficult to comprehend for that age and, above all commercial links were set up with other civilizations, such as greek; phonecian; cartagenian... The development of the technology of all metalurgical processes has been strongly influenced by these cultural interchanges.

José Ignacio Vegas Aramburu, 2002 March