Ostalo
Experimental smelting of iron ore and dismantling of the utilized smelting furnace
Tajana Sekelj Ivančan
orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-8434
; Institut za arheologiju, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
In 2017, members of the project team TransFER participated in the ninth workshop of techniques of smelting iron ore held in Stara huť at Adamov near Brno in Czechia (Figs. 1–2). The main objective was a better understanding of questions related to the production of iron along with an exact as possible interpretation of the finds discovered to the present that are related to the smelting of iron ore in various archaeological periods in the Podravina region (Croatian Drava River basin).
In the first part of the workshop, the focus was on education, which included all the stages of obtaining iron from ore (Fig. 3), as well as various accompanying activities, while in the second part, the focus was on active participation in the entire process of smelting in a furnace, along with recording all the procedures carried out (Fig. 4). At the initiative of members of the TransFER project, at the end the disassembly was performed of the smelting furnace in which the experiment was carried out.
In this research that simulated archeological excavation, the basic aim was to define and recognize all the layers of its construction and repairs (Fig. 5). In this manner, the original furnace that was found upon arrival could be recognized (Fig. 5: 1) (built in 2015 or 2016). This year it was made into a so-called bloom furnace (Fig. 5: 2) in which two processes of smelting were carried out (Fig. 5: 1.1). Afterwards, the walls of the furnace were again repaired (Fig. 5: 3), followed by experimental smelting by members of the TransFER project. The layer of this latest repair was noted in the interior of the firebox of the furnace, covering the so-called “bowl” (the highly fired bowl-shaped bottom of the furnace firebox) (Fig. 5: 1.1) formed in earlier smelting (or two smeltings) (Fig. 5: 2). The strata below the dismantled furnace (Fig. 5: 0, -1, -2, -3) represent earlier activities that can only be hypothesized to be connected to the smelting furnace, but it appears that a base made for a bread oven is clearly recognizable, and it is possible that at some point this place was also used for other activities, such as roasting ore.
The second objective was to compare the results obtained with situations at archaeological sites in Podravina, where parallels in the ground plan can be drawn after polishing the surface where the furnace was located, and the fact that at the center of the firebox, at the bottom, there was a bowl-shaped formation of the so-called “bowl” (Fig. 6), such as was noted for smelting furnaces at Volarski breg at Virje and Velike Hlebine at Hlebine.
Ključne riječi
experimental archaeology; smelting iron ore; furnace dismantling
Hrčak ID:
209243
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.11.2018.
Posjeta: 1.218 *