ADVENTURE IN IRON by BRIAN G. AWTY

BAR Publishing, 2019

A new process of making iron, using a blast furnace and a forge, both powered by water, was introduced into the Weald in the 1490s, and spread to other parts of England and Wales from the 1550s. This book provides a history of every ironworks of the charcoal blast furnace period, except the Weald. It also covers early coke ironworks (built before 1815) and water-powered bloomeries (of the previous technology). After introductory material on the industry generally, each chapter deals with the ironworks of one district, including also other water-powered mills processing iron, steel furnaces, early ironworks powered by steam engines, and a few other works. Blade mills (and cutlers wheels), which provided the initial cutting edge for tools are not included in those areas where they are ubiquitous. The period covered is an era in the technology of an important industry in Great Britain.

Historical Metallurgy, 2019

Changes to the publication of Historical Metallurgy will mean that your paper will be available online in the near future. You will be supplied further details of how to link to your online article at that time. This copy of your paper is provided as a means for you to produce 'hard copy' printed reprints for circulation to colleagues. Please do not circulate this eprint electronically or post it to social media of any type. Please feel free, however, to post copies of your 'authors' original manuscript' (AOM) or 'accepted manuscript '(AM) to such sites and media, just please do not post this published version, the 'version of record' (VOR), with its final layout.

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78297-675-2 Digital ISBN: 978-1-78297-676-9

2016

Monographies Instrumentum 50, 2014

The last decade has seen a plethora of archaeometallurgical conferences, some as periodical meetings with a clear geographical focus such as BUMA (Beginnings of the Use of Metals and Alloys) which specialises on Asian and circum-Pacific metallurgy, Anatolian Metals, or Archaeometallurgy in Europe, others as ad hoc events such as Metallurgy - A Touchstone for Cross-Cultural Interaction (2005, in honour of Paul Craddock at the British Museum), or as subsections of the biannual International Symposium on Archaeometry. Was there, then, room and need for yet another archaeometallurgical conference? In our view, yes. A close assessment of the subject coverage of most major archaeometrical or archaeometallurgical conferences revealed a strong bias towards copper and its alloys, and the noble metals. Iron, in contrast, was much less covered, despite the undoubted and overwhelming economic importance of this metal compared to base metals. The 2005 conference in London had just 15% of its papers devoted to iron, and even the 2006 BUMA conference in Beijing had only 30% iron papers, despite the particular significance of this metal in Chinese early metallurgy. This pattern is also repeated in the published literature, suggesting a major re-set of the record was overdue. Against this backdrop, Brigitte Cech developed the concept for the Hüttenberg Conference Early Iron in Europe-Prehistoric and Roman Iron Production, focussing on European early iron production, a field of study where tremendous progress was being made but which did not enjoy the visibility it deserved. Hüttenberg, a small village in the mountains of southern Austria seemed the ideal place for this conference. It was the centre of the production of the famous ferrum Noricum, the Noric steel mentioned in Greek and Roman literature. Archaeological excavations at the site Semlach/Eisner revealed the remains of large-scale Roman iron production over a period of at least four centuries. Later iron ore mining and smelting in the region continued well into the 20 th century AD, making this a region of international importance for the technical heritage of iron. Interdisciplinary research into the Roman period started in 2003 and continued until 2010. For these reasons Hüttenberg seemed the perfect setting for a conference on early iron production in Europe. In September 2008, after careful planning and preparation, 102 delegates from fifteen different countries presented 52 oral papers and 34 posters, covering different aspects of iron production from the beginnings of iron technology to the Middle Ages. We then invited the participants to submit their manuscripts for publication in an edited volume, the one you hold in your hands right now. However, in order to keep our project manageable and thematically coherent, we decided to focus the book of proceedings on European iron production of the Late La Tène and the Roman period only, of course without prejudice against the importance of iron production elsewhere and at other times. Indeed, a parallel initiative by Jane Humphris and Xander Veldhuijzen resulted in a sister conference, the World of Iron which took place in London in February 2009 (Humphris and Rehren 2013), specifically excluding European iron metallurgy.

Biografie żywiołów. Kulturowy wymiar świata, 2011

‘Traditional’ archaeological methodology allows obtaining data about how people were using iron in the past; or what typological and chronological group a particular iron artefact can be classified into. However, this kind of data cannot tell us much about iron production technology and how iron artefacts were made. Unfortunately, not many documents about iron making and iron working have survived to our times. Moreover, smelting furnaces, smithing hearths and structures associated with them were frequently insubstantial, so usually the only indicators of Roman and Medieval iron production are difficult to recognise residues of them like: various types of slags, blooms, gromps, hammer-scale, furnace and hearth lining, and fragments of fired clay walls. In many cases, a chemical and microscopic analysis of materials, related to the iron metallurgy, allows us to ‘read’ more precisely the past from archaeological findings. Their results combined with experimental archaeology experience provide data which can be used to answer important questions in early medieval archaeometallurgy. By replicating ancient iron smelting and working processes the interpretations of how artefacts were made can be confirmed and speculations about the knowledge and skills of people who made and worked iron can be done.

This PPT was presented at the 2008 Huttenberg conference, giving a detailed re-examination and re-interpretation of the evidence from Laxton for large scale smelting in large diameter furnaces of Roman date. The complex furnace structure had a highly refractory lining, allowing it to be used for many smelts with minimal repairs. A re-assessment of the technology, based on fast smelting and three blowing holes, suggests that up to 40,000 smelts were carried out over an 80 year period, between the mid-first and mid-second centuries AD. A military involvement is proposed.

Monographies Instrumentum 50, 2014

Some years ago, Brigitte Cech developed the concept for the Hüttenberg Conference Early Iron in Europe - Prehistoric and Roman Iron Production, focussing on European early iron production, a field of study where tremendous progress was being made but which did not enjoy the visibility it deserved. Hüttenberg, a small village in the mountains of southern Austria seemed the ideal place for this conference. In September 2008, after careful planning and preparation, 102 delegates from fifteen different countries presented 52 oral papers and 34 posters, covering different aspects of iron production from the beginnings of iron technology to the Middle Ages. The 22 papers assembled here give both an overview and fine detail. They are arranged in a broad geographical sweep across Europe and finishing with a few more technical and less geographically-focused papers. Taking Hüttenberg as the starting point, this sweep first goes north with three papers on early iron in Germany, then on through the Netherlands into France, moving back south to Switzerland and into Italy. A second sweep starts in Great Britain and takes in Scandinavia as well, before the book then finishes with the technical papers on smithing wastes and the role of manganese oxide in bloomery iron smelting, bringing the circle to a full close back to Hüttenberg and the famous ferrum Noricum.

Brigitte Cech, Thilo Rehren (eds.), Early Iron in Europe. Monographies Instrumentum 50, 2014. Cover, Table of contents and Introduction. Book of proceedings of a conference on early iron production in Europe, held in Hüttenberg, Austria in 2008. The book contains 22 articles on various aspects of Iron Age and Roman iron production in Europe.

Metals and Mines: Studies in Archaeometallurgy, (eds) S La Niece, D Hook and P Craddock, pps. 219-225, 2007

A very well preserved furnace was found at the medieval bloomery at Llwyn Du, north Wales, which had good evidence for the position of the bellows. Historical records indicate that some 50kg of bloom iron was made each week, refined to 30kg of bar iron. This amount of iron and the heavy vitrification of the thick furnace wall suggests smelting with a large volume of air. A model for fast smelting of low P, high Mn bog ores is proposed, based on experimental ironworking, along with a re-interpretation of the large Roman furnaces at Laxton, Northamptonshire.