How to Build a Pyramid

The earliest evidence for worked iron is similarly from pre-dynastic Egypt, where two lots of small tubular beads were found at Gerzeh. Although completely oxidized, Professor Gowland who analysed them, was of the opinion that they had originally been metallic iron made by bending a small sheet of iron into a tubular shape. Further analysis has shown that this material was meteoritic in origin. 21

However a 4th Dynasty remnant of iron oxide, that was originally part of a magic set found in the Menkaure Valley temple by George Reisner; when examined was proven to have no nickel content. As all meteoritic iron contains nickel, it was accepted that this object must have had a terrestrial origin. 22 Several iron 5th Dynasty objects were found by Maspero, including chisels from Saqqara, pieces of a pickaxe from Abusir of the 6th Dynasty, and further broken tools at Dahshur, said to be of similar date. Modern archaeology questions these finds, but they are far from being unique.

Petrie found a mass of iron rust together with 6th Dynasty copper adzes, in the foundations of a temple at Abydos, and was absolutely certain they were of the same date. When tested chemically there was no nickel content, and hence this rust was similarly terrestrial. 23 In the opinion of the early archaeologists Coghlan and Wainwright, iron was undoubtedly known in the Near -East as early as the third millennium BC but its use was very limited, and the making of useful iron on a large scale was probably first achieved by the Hittites in the fifteenth century BC. 24

Certainly by the time of Amenhotep III, iron was sufficiently well known that Tushratta wrote to the Pharaoh offering him a present of a sacred knife of iron, and iron rings covered with gold.25
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Plutarch quotes Manetho as differentiating loadstones from non-magnetic iron, calling the former `Bone of Osiris', and the latter `Bone of Typhon'