Dear Mr.Salter,
We would like to take this opportunity to respond to your criticism of our bloomery smelting experiments as they appear on http://iron.wlu.edu . You have dismissed the relevance of our work without offering any substantive justifications for your opinion.
Allow us to offer a brief overview of our work.
Our main purpose has been to produce iron by the means at our disposal (as was the purpose of the ancient smiths we study). By doing so we have learned a great deal about the process of bloomery iron smelting. We have developed a real grasp of the temperatures and conditions, fuel consumption rates, ores qualities, and slag types etc. required, and the yields achievable.
We feel that our work is relevant to archaeometallurgists because we feel that currently the bloomery process is poorly understood. We believe that it is necessary to have a working understanding of the technology before any valid extrapolations can be made about ancient societies and economies, or valid conclusions drawn from archaeological remains.
In a furnace roughly equivalent to a Roman bloomery, we are consistently producing blooms of 20- 35 lbs, which are roughly equivalent to Roman blooms (Sim 1998, p.12). Split and forged to two billets, a 28 lb bloom can forge to billets of 10 lbs. each, which is approaching the size of Roman billets (Sim 1998, p.55) If you cannot replicate ancient results, how can you maintain you are using the correct process? We feel that the conventional view of the bloomery process is overly simplistic and very incomplete.
I realize Crew's work is in a non- slag tapping furnace, but others have used this sort of cross-comparison without criticism. I believe Crew invokes Tylecote a time or two. We sometimes compare our results to his because he's about the only researcher who has actually quantified the results of the full cycle bloomery smelting. Using Crew's assumptions about manpower for coaling, mining, and blowing, our ratio of labor/kilo of bar iron produced is ½ man-day per kilo, versus Crew's ratio of 25 man-days/kilo. Which seems like a more realistic base for an economy?
Aren't you even a little curious about how we do it, Chris?
Finally, we would like to register a protest against the snide and dismissive tone of your response. I presume the idea behind this group is the open-minded exchange of ideas and the pursuit of truth, rather than the canine marking of intellectual turf. We would love to use this forum (arch-metals) for a more detailed and substantive discussion of the bloomery process, if the membership is interested.
Lee Sauder
Skip Williams
>>> [log in to unmask] 09/28/00 09:35AM >>>
Dear Michael,
Not really, as their furnace has nothing to do with archaeology. The
comparisons with Peter Crew's work is unjustified as there aim was to produce
iron by any means that like a bloomery. Whereas, Peter's work used a faithful
replica of the furnaces found at Bryn Castell and Crawcellt, using the same or
similar ores and hand blowing. Peter's work is a careful scientific experiment
whereas, Saunder's and Williams is fun, the two should not be confused.
On Thu, 28 Sep 2000 08:59:28 EDT [log in to unmask] wrote:
> This is my first posting. Lee Sauder and Skip Williams have built an
> experimental wrought iron bloomery at Lexington, Virginia which I personally
> find to be quite interesting, and which seems to fall within the interests of
> this discussion group. Their web site is located at the following address:
>
> http://iron.wlu.edu/
>
> Michael Mandaville
Chris Salter
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Materials Science-Based Archaeology Group,
Department of Materials,
Begbroke Business and Science Park,
Sandy Lane,
Yarnton,
Oxford OX5 1PF,
Tel. Office 01865 283722
Probe 01865 283741
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