Joep,
Hi again.
My immediate reaction as soon as I started reading your mail was "Dene
Hole".
I don't have any information on the area of France that you are
interested in, but if you want more (and detailed) information on Dene
Holes, I suggest you contact Mike Clinch ([log in to unmask])
of the Kent Underground Research Group. Also, Adrian Pearce should have
quite a bit to say on the subject - are you reading Adrian?
Adrian
North Wales Caving Club
--
Adrian Farrel mailto:[log in to unmask]
Data Connection Ltd., Chester, UK
http://www.datcon.co.uk/
Tel: +44 (0) 1244 313440 Fax: +44 (0) 1244 312422
>----------
>From: Joep Orbons[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Sunday, September 20, 1998 11:48 AM
>To: mining-history
>Subject: Chalck pits vs. glas-making
>
>In an area in France that I am studying there is something that puzzles me.
>Maybe you can help.
>The facts are that high up on the "Gaize", a sort of chalck/sand stone,
>there are a couple of dozen pits nicely aligned along an old disused road.
>One of these pits was excavated by the archaeological service some 3 years
>ago and it turned out to be a bottle-shape shaft of 23 m deep. The shaft
>does not reach any other layers, just the gaize, so no flint mine or the
>sort. At the bottom of the shaft some roman-age pottery sherds were found.
>On these sherds there is a thick (5 mm) layer of glass.
>The area is known to be intensively used in the Roman era and there has been
>glass-making industry (Roman aged) in that region.
>The stone "Gaize" is very fire-resistant.
>
>The French archaeologists concluded that these shaft relate to this glass
>making industry. Problably extracing the chalcky sandstone and using it for
>glass-making. This would mean that the glass-ovens could not have been far
>from the shafts. I was asked to carry out a survey at the shafts to detect
>ovens with a magnetometer. I did two shafts covering an area of 20x25 meters
>and 30x50 metres, keeping the shafts in the middle. In these surveyed area's
>I found an absolutely silent magnetic area, meaning no ovens of other
>burning activities at all. The measurements are so clean, there is not even
>a smallest hint of metal.
>
>Even when I started the survey I told the French archaeologists I did not
>beleave these shaft being used for glass-making. These sort of shaft I know
>from other regions in France and from Britain (dene-holes), Germany, The
>Netherlands and Italy, and they are always chalck-pits. Mostly used to
>extract chalck to chalck the fields, but sometimes used as quarries for
>building stone. Maybe these shafts were used to extract stones to build
>glass-ovens, but that would be the maximum relation.
>The fact that they use pits where they can extract the gaize relatively easy
>in open-cast mining to me means nothing as I know many other site where very
>labour-intensive shafts were lowered and maybe 500 m away the stuff just
>simply surfaces, so obviously other parametres are in place as well, that we
>do not know of (yet).
>
>
>My question is:
>- Does anyone have any knowledge of these chalck-pits relating to
>glass-industry? I am convinced they relate to chalck mining or quarrying,
>but please convince me of the opposite.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Joep Orbons
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-
>Joep Orbons, Holdaal 6, NL 6228 GH Maastricht, The Netherlands
>E-Mail: [log in to unmask], WWW:
>http://www.xs4all.nl/~jorbons/souterrains.html
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-
>Office: RAAP archaeological consultancy, P.O.Box 1347, NL 1000 BH Amsterdam
>E-Mail: [log in to unmask], WWW: http://www.raap.nl/
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