Dear Colleagues,
I am employed as an archaeologist at Scuola Normale Superiore - Pisa.
I am interested in ancient iron working on Elba island and Tyrrhenian
area, expecially in early iron age, Etruscan and Roman times.
Some years ago I made a survey over most part of the island,
finding (or re-finding) more than 160 iron reduction sites; only few of
them could be dated on the basis of sherds found among the slags. I have
seen that the biggest iron reduction sites on the shore were of II-I
cent. B.C., while the smaller, inland reduction sites were of medieval
age (XII-XIV century A.D.).
These data were preliminarly published in:
A. Corretti, Metallurgia medievale all'isola d'Elba, Firenze,
All'Insegna del Giglio, 1991;
A. Corretti, Indagine preliminare sull'attivita' di riduzione del ferro
in eta' romana all'isola d'Elba, "Geo-Archeologia", 1988-1, 7-39.
Since that time other scholars have studied iron working in this area
both in ancient and in medieval times, and have produced good books and
articles about this subject; however, I hope my contributes can still be
useful. I will be glad to enter in contact with people interested in
these arguments.
I have noted that Elban ore has been found at some distance from the
mines and from the main reduction sites (i.e. ancient Populonia and
modern Follonica): it has been found at Pisa, VI cent. B.C.; Genova,
V-IV cent. B.C.; maybe Bientina (in the inland of Pisa), VII-VI cent.
B.C. (but there are still some doubts about this datum).
As far as I know, iron ore usually doesn't travel so much: trade of
iron generally takes place as iron-bar, or iron-ingots trade.
Do You know of iron ore trade in ancient times? (of course I mean
travelling of iron ore between different communities, on a regional
scale, excluding very local transport among the territory of the same
community).
Best wishes
Alessandro Corretti
Scuola Normale Superiore
Piazza dei Cavalieri, 7
56126 PISA
tel.: ++39/50/509331
fax: ++39/50/563513
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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