Scissors and The Eiffel Tower

“I was born ugly and deformed and my mother Hera, the goddess among goddesses, although very unsympathetic, threw me into the sea from Mount Olympus. Some nymphs picked me up and raised me for 9 years. I learned then the art of working iron and other metals. With time and some tricks, I returned to Olympus where I became the blacksmith of the gods and from my forge came the lightning with which the great Zeus fulminated his enemies, the sandals with wings so that the messenger god Hermes could quickly make his deliveries, and the chariot that drives the Sun with which it crosses the sky from east to west every day”.  The one who speaks to us is Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and by extension, of the blacksmiths, craftsmen, and metallurgists.

Leaving aside the stories of divinities and ancient mythologies, it was thanks to the fire that it was possible to dominate iron, the fourth most abundant element on planet Earth, both in the crust and in its core, but which is not found in a pure state, but combined with other metals and minerals in the form of alloys. We all know its indispensable presence in our blood and in the various foods that contain it.

Although some ceremonial objects of this metal have been found in Egypt and India thousands of years before, its use began to be generalized 1,200 years B.C. That is why this period is known as the Iron Age, the last stage of Prehistory and, undoubtedly, one of the most important of Humanity. For its greatest glory, at the end of the Iron Age, the writing was invented, which gave us the passport to enter History as such.

Thanks to its abundance and characteristic malleability, it was more used than other metals because it has the property of being worked by a hammer when it is very hot and hardens quickly when it cools down. This allowed man to forge more elaborate and above all more durable objects in the manufacture of weapons – spearheads, knives, and axes – and for defense, such as helmets and shields. It was also used to make tools to work with, such as anvils, chisels or hammers, and other utensils used in agriculture as primordial as the plowshare and the sickle, without forgetting the horseshoes. Braziers and stoves, spoons and chains where to hang the pots and cook in the chimneys, everything was made with the rustic cast material, because the iron casting that had begun in the 15th century could not be made on a large scale until the mid-19th century with the invention of the blast furnace where the liquid metal is separated from other components such as sulfur, manganese, and phosphorus.

In the past, the artistic use of iron was limited to forged ironwork to make doors, gates, and yetts for castles, palaces, or cathedrals. Today it is an important protagonist of art and architecture along with steel -which is an alloy of iron and carbon- and aluminum. We would not finish giving examples of the famous objects and buildings made with this material that range from a simple pair of scissors or an antique coal plate to the Eiffel Tower with 2,500,000 iron rivets or the emblematic Brooklyn Bridge in steel.