The first part of a documentary film about an experimental archaeological iron smelt reconstructing an Iron Age/Early Medieval bloomery furnace from Ireland.
Y'all, this is awesome! I've just recently become fascinated by Bronze Age metallurgy because of a research paper I'm doing on religious practices and copper mining/smelting in Bronze Age Cyprus. This is so helpful for getting a feel for what is/was involved in the process. Thanks so much for doing this! You rock.
Quite informative, a very good video. Would have personally liked to see the roasting of the ore process that you did overnight, but you did a good job of explaining it nonetheless.
thank you for this video. i study mechanical engineering and a friend ask me how they made iron in the old days. i could explain the process but it got me thinking how they really might have done it.
4:00 that woman is full of shit. Of course you could just go and buy yourself a bronze brooch if you felt like it. Metal items in the iron age would have been in trading everywhere, traded for power and service. Of course poor people probably wouldnt have access to it, the people who made furnaces like these and made metal items for a living was a very small class of people in the societal hierarchy. And they would have been working for land owners/nobles. Nobody was making metal items for themselves, that thought is ridiculous. The small class of people who made metal would be making it for trade or as a service for noblemen.
Yes, but it isn't that much of a stretch. For instance, in many ancient societies you couldn't just go buy clothes; there were no tailors or commercial weavers, that was all done in the household as crazy as it sounds. Same with most all cooking; thus the reason that the ancient Greeks relied so much on the Oikos and slavery in general (the slaves of the household doing all this production), and why it really wasn't possible to live outside the family unit (hence young marriages). It would only be certain things, mainly exotic (ie non-local) and difficult to produce things which would be traded for. This was more or less true for quite a long time, moreso in rural areas and amongst the poor, though specialization crept in over time and was always more prevalent among staples and tools. Thankfully we've been able to overcome that for the most part via specialization and technology.
You need to remember the social structure in Ireland, it was nothing like that in britain or europe. Ireland had clans nothing like the feudal system in Britain or europe.
well the area their was coverd by water so it will still work... put a magnet in a plastic bag then rub on dessert it will pic up iron fillings wich will work if you add them in in the same mass quanty amount (like 3-4 dust pans of it) :)
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Y'all, this is awesome! I've just recently become fascinated by Bronze Age metallurgy because of a research paper I'm doing on religious practices and copper mining/smelting in Bronze Age Cyprus. This is so helpful for getting a feel for what is/was involved in the process. Thanks so much for doing this! You rock.
Thanks for the video! That shows how labour used to be exhaustive and aso showed how patience is the major effort.
Quite informative, a very good video. Would have personally liked to see the roasting of the ore process that you did overnight, but you did a good job of explaining it nonetheless.
Beautiful work!
thank you for this video. i study mechanical engineering and a friend ask me how they made iron in the old days. i could explain the process but it got me thinking how they really might have done it.
tuyere was made from poters clay tempered with grog (broken up pottery). It was fired in a kiln as well.
less talki talki, more worki worki
Congratulations! Great work!
large tarp and then work with with your feet in the clay, I think it would be faster than working with your hands
What was the tuyere made of? Very interesting, btw.
4:00 that woman is full of shit. Of course you could just go and buy yourself a bronze brooch if you felt like it. Metal items in the iron age would have been in trading everywhere, traded for power and service. Of course poor people probably wouldnt have access to it, the people who made furnaces like these and made metal items for a living was a very small class of people in the societal hierarchy. And they would have been working for land owners/nobles. Nobody was making metal items for themselves, that thought is ridiculous. The small class of people who made metal would be making it for trade or as a service for noblemen.
+Homemadebeats Yup.
Yes, but it isn't that much of a stretch. For instance, in many ancient societies you couldn't just go buy clothes; there were no tailors or commercial weavers, that was all done in the household as crazy as it sounds. Same with most all cooking; thus the reason that the ancient Greeks relied so much on the Oikos and slavery in general (the slaves of the household doing all this production), and why it really wasn't possible to live outside the family unit (hence young marriages). It would only be certain things, mainly exotic (ie non-local) and difficult to produce things which would be traded for. This was more or less true for quite a long time, moreso in rural areas and amongst the poor, though specialization crept in over time and was always more prevalent among staples and tools. Thankfully we've been able to overcome that for the most part via specialization and technology.
You need to remember the social structure in Ireland, it was nothing like that in britain or europe. Ireland had clans nothing like the feudal system in Britain or europe.
the music is irritating
I keep coming across horse manure, why horse manure? It's a nasty enough business already, does it have to also have that extra cachet?
Really
still trying to figure out where I can get ore in alaska.
tons of online stores you can buy from!
is there a beach near you?
No i live in vegas
well the area their was coverd by water so it will still work... put a magnet in a plastic bag then rub on dessert it will pic up iron fillings wich will work
if you add them in in the same mass quanty amount (like 3-4 dust pans of it) :)
Don't they have a lot if bogs in alaska? Or am I just thinking of northern canada?
plumbers crack 3:24
Horse manure? :D
dont call it smelt! it is reduction process! not a smelting process!!!!!!!!!!!!!