Dear all,
I read descriptions of so-called vitrified charcoal that it is due to very high temperatures and takes up a glassy surface.
In the charcoal-assembly from a funeral pile I have recently analysed there were fragments that were macroscopically clearly wood and also in the radial section one could easily make out the rays, although there was quite a lack of details.
In cross section I was surprised to find nothing but a clear homogenous plane surface. There were no discernible structures at all. No vessels, cells or rays. Sometimes there was a slight disturbance in the surface faintly resembling wide rays or a large vessel (or small crack?). These objects were also very hard and heavy compared to all the rest of the charcoal that consisted mostly of thin flake-like pieces of Abies.
Are these fragments vitrified charcoal or are we talking about different things here? And if itīs not - who has an idea which processes might have produced this?
Yours
Niels
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Niels Bleicher
Textorstr. 97
60596 Frankfurt
Tel.: 069 66124984
mobil: 0177-2349074
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