- Chalybes
Chalybes — 1) numerous tribes of Asia Minor that lived on the southeastern coast of the Pontus Euxinus (modern Black Sea); 2) Caucasian tribes located neighboring the Mossynoeci and Tibareni; 3) a tribe beyond the Halys River near the modern Turkish harbor of Samsun.
The Chalybes played an important role in the ethnogenesis of the Georgian people. The Black Sea Chalybes are distinct from the Chalybes who lived further east and were also called Chaldeans by ancient writers (this is linguistic confusion), who differed somewhat from the Babylonian Chaldeans and Armeno-Chalybes. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus lists the Chalybes among the Hellenic tribes of Asia Minor subject to Croesus; they lived on the Black Sea coast near the mouth of the Halys River (modern Samsun in Turkey). The Chalybes were possibly descendants of the Hatto-Hittite state; in the Trojan War, they fought on the side of the Trojans.
In the 5th century BC, Aeschylus wrote in one of his tragedies: "First, turn from here to the sunrise and go through the unplowed steppes; you will come to the nomadic Scythians... Do not approach them, but withdraw from this country, going along the noisy and rocky sea coast. On the left hand live the iron-working Chalybes... Further you will reach the Raging River... do not cross it... until you come to the Caucasus itself... Having crossed over the heights rising to the stars, you will enter the horse road, by which you will come to the host of Amazons hostile to men, who will in time settle in Themiscyra on the Thermodon, where the harsh Salmydessian bay is located...; the Amazons will very willingly show you the way. Beyond them you will reach the Cimmerian isthmus at the narrowest gates of the lake; boldly passing it, cross the Maeotian strait... Leaving the European land, you will enter the Asian continent..."
In the 2nd century BC, Apollonius of Rhodes, citing other ancient authors, wrote: "... Polyphemus ended his life in battle with the Chalybes. This is a Scythian people. ... The Chalybes are a Scythian people beyond the Thermodon; they, having discovered iron mines, are engaged in their development. They are called Chalabes from Ares' son Chalib. Callimachus also mentions them: 'perish the race of the Chalybes, who discovered this evil creation rising from the earth'."
Aristotle left a description of the Chalybian method of obtaining iron: "... the Chalybes washed the river sand of their country several times, added some refractory substance to it, and smelted it in furnaces of special construction; the metal obtained in this way had a silvery color and was stainless."
To the 4th century AD belongs one of the last mentions of the Chalybes, made by Rufus Festus Avienus in his work "Description of the Earth's Circle," where he wrote: "Further are the Tibareni, and above them the Chalybes, where the fields rich in destructive iron resound with the clang of high anvils. Beyond them stretch the tithes of the Assyrian land, and the Thermodon, originating from the Armenian ridge, licks the fields of the tribe of the Amazons (...)"
The Chalybes were credited with the invention of iron smelting technology: from their name comes the Greek Χάλυβας — "steel," "iron," and possibly the legendary sword 'Excalibur'. Magnetite sands were used as raw material for iron smelting, deposits of which are found along the entire Black Sea coast — these magnetite sands consist of a mixture of fine grains of magnetite, titano-magnetite, ilmenite, and fragments of other rocks, so the steel smelted by the Chalybes was alloyed and apparently had high qualities. This peculiar method of obtaining iron not from ore suggests that the Chalybes rather discovered iron as a technological material, but not the method of its widespread industrial production. Apparently, their discovery served as an impetus for the further development of iron metallurgy, including from ore mined in mines. In the 2nd century AD, Clement of Alexandria in his encyclopedic work "Stromata" (chapter 21) mentions that according to Greek tradition, iron was discovered on Mount Ide — this was the name of the mountain range near Troy, opposite the island of Lesbos (in the Iliad it is mentioned as Mount Ida, from which Zeus watched the battle between the Greeks and Trojans). In Hittite texts, iron is denoted by the word "раr-zi-lum" (cf. Latin ferrum and Russian zhelezo), and it is known that iron products were manufactured by the Hattians at the beginning of the second millennium BC. This is evidenced by the text of the Hittite king Anitta (c. 1800 BC), which says: "When I went on a campaign against the city of Purushanda, a man from the city of Purushanda came to bow to me. He presented me with an iron throne and an iron scepter as a sign of submission." In addition, the Chalybes mined gold and silver. Among the surrounding peoples, they were known as masters of blacksmithing and were held in high esteem, so some names were formed from their name: for example, the Bible mentions Caleb from the tribe of Judah — a participant in the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, who was an active supporter and scout of Moses. In Syria, the large city of Aleppo (Halab), built by the Hittites, was widely known.
VARIANT NAMES: Latin. Chalybes, Abbi, Clabes, Chalihes, Thalibes, Greek. Χαλυβες, Χαλυβοι, Αλυβοι, Russian. Khaliby, Khaligi.
Sources:
Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015