The purpose of this article is to present the use of iron in ancient Egypt up to the beginning of the Late Period. The presentation of the development of metallurgy of this metal will be possible through the analysis of the preserved objects and their fragments, which show the subsequent stages of learning about the new raw material and the gradual adoption of various methods of iron processing. Due to the fact that no traces of iron processing workshops have survived from the times preceding the Late Period, the analysis of the preserved iron artifacts will enable the reconstruction of subsequent stages of the development of this metal metallurgy. Equally important as objects are the sources from which the Egyptians could obtain iron and the routes by which they imported it, because their presence is one of the basic requirements for metallurgy to develop and spread. I in studying the development of iron treatment the texts in which there is terminology describing iron will be also helpful. Furthermore, by reviewing the contexts of its use, it will be possible to enrich knowledge about the metallurgy of this metal. The analysis of the above points will allow to present a complete picture of iron metallurgy in Egypt.

The aim of the article is to present an unusual raw material, which is the meteorite iron and its specific status in the culture of ancient Egypt. The presentation of this extraordinary material, highlighting the features allowing to recognize it, the interpretation of the artifacts made of it (taking into account the physicochemical analyzes), and the development of the results of experimental works recreating the methods of its processing allow us to obtain the necessary information about the delineation of meteorite iron metallurgy in ancient Egypt up to the beginning of the Late Period. An important source for achieving the article’s goal are also texts. Text analysis highlights the ambiguity of the terminology used to describe meteorite iron. By reviewing the contexts of its use, they allow us to enrich knowledge about its metallurgy and help to characterize the status of this metal in the consciousness of the Egyptians.