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The first stage of ironworking was smelting iron-rich stone, known as ore, to extract metallic iron. Historically, iron smelting has been associated particularly with the Weald, the Forest of Dean and Northamptonshire.
- Introduction
- Principles of Early Iron Smelting – Bloomery Process
- Determining Typologies: What Is A Bowl Furnace?
- Experimental Reconstruction
- Methodology
- Results
- Microscopic Analysis of Materials and Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
The bowl furnace is a somewhat enigmatic feature within the early history of iron-making. Site formation processes and preservation can mean that the material evidence found for shaft furnaces sometimes reflects a truncated design, and therefore may resemble what is thought to be a bowl furnace. The bowl furnace design was rejected by many in the 1...
The fundamental principle of iron smelting is the reduction of the metal oxide with carbon dioxide, which is provided by partial combustion of the fuel, in this case charcoal, with air from the tuyère (Tylecote, 1986). It is necessary for the air from the tuyère to pass through a sufficient amount of charcoal before there is enough carbon monoxide ...
Variously, throughout the 1950’s to the 1980’s, many different classifications of early furnaces were attempted. In these, the bowl furnace appears in a range of different forms, from rudimentary holes in the ground, to what are essentially small shaft furnaces. The size and covering of these furnaces are varied, but the basic form is of hollow in ...
Owing to the somewhat limited research and literature on the use of the bowl furnace to make iron, an experimental project was designed to add more data to this field of research and to evaluate the success of the bowl furnace at producing iron. The experimental campaign consisted of comparing two different methods of loading the ore into the furna...
The furnace was reconstructed to represent a general model of a bowl furnace, rather than aiming to reconstruct a specific example from the archaeological record. The design (See Figure 2) was most similar to Tylecote’s (1986) Type (B). The pit for the furnace was dug into the ground, to provide a slag pit, which is the area below the tuyere. The d...
Smelt One The first smelt produced a friable conglomerate which can be seen in Figure 7 Small foils of malleable iron were noted on the surface of the conglomerate although these were too small to constitute ‘useful’ amounts of iron. This does however suggest that the reducing conditions required had been achieved. The disassembly of the furnace sh...
Samples were taken from the three different areas of the conglomerate formed in the first test firing (See Figure 7) and examined using reflective light microscopy. The samples were mounted in epoxy resin, then ground using an automatic Buehler Metaserv machine using 120 to 4000 grit papers. The samples were then polished using an automatic Buehler...
The results of the experimental campaign demonstrates that the furnace conditions within a bowl furnace of this size and shape, are capable of being sufficiently reducing to produce an iron bloom and to reduce iron oxide to iron metal. This campaign was successful in producing very small amounts of iron. Further experiments to investigate the effic...
This consideration of the bowl furnace for iron smelting – combining analysis of previous experiments conducted with the experimental campaign presented in this paper, has demonstrated that there is still more to be understood about the functioning of a bowl furnace for iron smelting. We believe that we have shown the value in further experimental ...
A furnace consisted of two main parts, the lower one called a pit and the upper called a shaft. A hollow was a simple hole dug out in the ground; it had 40-45 cm in diameter and not more than 50 cm in depth. Its main function was storing of slags coming from the reduction zone.
Oct 4, 2020 · The team isn’t asserting that furnace smelting was invented in the Be’er Sheva Valley or even the southern Levant, but that their find, a fixed (immovable) furnace made of clay built into the ground, is one of the earliest of its kind.
Oct 12, 2020 · Israeli researchers have uncovered what could be the oldest furnace found to date—a nearly 6,500-year-old forge they say helped to stratify the ancient economy at the time.
- Caroline Delbert
- 4 min
Jun 8, 2023 · Ancient civilizations, such as the Romans and Greeks, devised innovative heating systems using underfloor heating and hypocausts. These systems circulated warm air through ducts or pipes beneath the floors, creating comfortable indoor spaces.
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Feb 19, 2019 · Not one single ancient facility to make iron has been discovered in Israel. One theory is that this is because the ancient furnaces were used exactly once: they would be destroyed in order to extract the purified iron from their insides.
