Bloomery Iron Smelters - Sites and Links
Last edited November 1, 2008
More by Skip Williams »
Home
The Rockbridge Bloomery

email me if your website belongs on this page.
Bloomery Iron Smelters And Websites

Poland
Rei Dojo - Archeopark w Starachowicach
Rekonstrukcja procesu dymarskiego, Wojtek Sławiński ADALBERTUS google translate

Netherlands
Ijzerwinning, Historisch OpenluchtMuseum Eindhoven
Experiments with a slag-tapping and a slag pit furnace, Lejre Symposium
Ijzerwinning in de Kempen, Thuis in Brabant

Denmark
Eksperimenter med oldtidens jernudvinding, Michael Nissen
Lejre Forsøgscenter - Jern & jernudvinding
Jernmagerens Værksted, Michael S. Nissen
Eksperimenterende jernudvinding af myremalm

Germany
Rennfeuertreffen in Luxemburg, May 2008
Rennofenversuch vom 21.07.2007 Peter Broich
Archäologisches Experiment / Eisengewinnung aus Erz / Heinz Mittel (Meier Helmut)
Projekt Rennofen der FA Aalen
Der Rennofen (experimentelle Archäologie des Spundloch

France
Fourneaux expérimentaux à l'Ecomusée d'Alsace, Le Groupe d'Archéologie du Fer du Jura
Jean-Claude Leblanc, le bas-fourneau expérimental
Realisation d'un bas fourneau
L'acier de Grappage
LE BAS-FOURNEAU, Pascal COUPRY et Guillaume TOUCHARD

England
Experimental Iron Making in the Weald of Southern England
Whitehall Farm Roman Villa & Landscape Project
Experimental Iron Smelting at Rievaulx Abbey. U. Bradford AMRG
Smelting, Casting, Smithing, U. Bradford AMRG
Experimental Iron Smelting at Scatness

United States & Canada
Experimental Iron Production at The Rockbridge Bloomery
Darrell Markewitz - Wareham Forge
Dan Jeffery - Making Iron The Old-Fashioned Way Is A Tricky Business
Michael McCarthy Farmers' Museum
Making Steel in the Forge by Louis Mills

Sweden and Norway
JÄRNFRAMSTÄLLNING I TRANEMO Lars-Erik Englund
Hammarede, Rapporter från järnframställningsförsök
Järnförsök på Nya Lapphyttan 2007 Charcoal Blast Furnace
Järnframställning på Nya Lapphyttan 2004

Finland
jouni jäppinen - Struka Iron Smelting
MÖHKÖN RAUTAA JÄRVIMALMISTA, Esitykset Möhkön ruukkimuseolla 2006
Niko Hynninen - Island of Lambs Bloom

Spain
Tres experimentos de fundición de mineral de hierro (hematites) en dos hornos de pozo de escoria

Asia
Tatara Iron-making Technique
Blast furnace operation in Song-Yuan China' (that's ca. AD 960-1368)
The traditional Chinese iron industry and its modern fate
Early iron in China, Korea, and Japan

Africa
Randi Haaland, Iron Smelting a Vanishing Tradition
Iron Smelting at Jefisi, UpperWest region of Ghana
A thousand years of iron metallurgy on the Dogon plateau (Mali)
The Technology of Iron Production in the Fouta Djallon Region of Guinea Rolf Jensen

Norse

South America
The Cadinhe Method of Brazil,  this is a bloomery!

YouTube Videos
Georg Petau - Rennfeuer auf der Domäne Heidbrink
Mike Blue, Randall Graham, Ric Furrer, Tatara Smelting
Walter Sorrels and Jesus Hernandez - Tatara Smelting January 2008
Walter Sorrels and Jesus Hernandez- Tatara Smelting November 2007
Walter Sorrels and Jesus Hernandez- Working the Bloom

Smelting Events
Rennfeuer 2004
Rennfeuer August 2005
Metallsymposium 2006 - Rennfeuersymposium 2006
3rd International Iron Smelting Symposium
5th International Iron Smelting Symposium, Biskupin Poland Sept. 2008

Other things to read because they're interesting
Some Chinese steelmaking techniques, Don Wagner
Decisions set in slag: the human factor in African iron smelting
Reconstruction of Mastermyr Fynd File
English Heritage Guidelines - Archaeometallurgy
Ancient carburisation of iron to steel: a comment
The Early Iron Group
Bloomery and Crucible Smelting Forum

Iron Smelting Videos

Prof. Christopher Roy, From Iron Ore to Iron Hoe: Smelting Iron in Africa
Very few African smiths have smelted iron from ore since cheap mass-produced imports and wrecked vehicles became common decades ago. A very detailed, high-quality, reasonably-priced video of every step in the process of smelting iron in a traditional clay furnace in Africa, from mining the ore, burning the charcoal, building the furnace, smelting the ore, forging the iron tools. It is fascinating to see the simple but efficient techniques African smiths once used.
Other DVDs about Africa by Christopher Roy

Randi Håland, The Ethiopian Iron Smelter and his World
The transformative aspects of iron working are striking: Iron smelting is seen as analogous to giving birth. The blacksmith's role in material transformations (ore to iron) is frequently used as metaphor for social transformations, i.e. rites de passage. The forging of artifacts in the smithy on the other hand is often used as model for conceptualization of the divine creation of the universe.

Dokwaza: last of the African iron masters
Iron metallurgy began to transform the societies of sub-Saharan Africa over 2,500 years ago, but now locally smelted bloomery iron has been everywhere replaced by industrially produced stock. Traditional smelting is a complex process combining science and ritual that was disappearing just as it became feasible to capture it on visual media. This video therefore provides a rare record of a technology whose time has passed, and the reenactment of a smelt by iron workers of the Mafa ethnic group shows a furnace type and a process that are unique to a part of the northern Cameroon and Nigerian border area. Presented in three sequences, Dokwaza is first introduced as we follow the building of the furnace and bellows. Then charcoal and bellows skins are prepared. and the iron master demonstrates how ore is gathered and cleaned. The second sequence follows the long day of the smelt, as the furnace is charged with ore and charcoal, sacrifice made, and, after frenzied working of the bellows accompanied by music and song, a bloom mass is removed from the shaft. The third sequence takes place in the forge and shows the fining of the metal produced and its forging into a traditional hoe.

INAGINA, the last house of iron
IN MALI, on the cliffs inhabited by the Dogon, an ethnoarchaeologist and a cameraman participated in an extremely rare event : the reduction of iron ore. The experience was filmed and is a unique testimony of a thousand-year-old technology which has now disappeared.

The Tree of Iron
This is one of the few films to document archaeological work on ancient civilizations in Africa. It also deals with an important subject, African iron smelting, and presents convincing evidence for early indigenous technologies far more complex than previously expected. The Tree of Iron is set in Tanzania, East Africa, on the western shores of Lake Victoria, where Haya people have lived for centuries.

Black Hephaistos: exploring culture and science in African iron working
The video presents traditional African iron-smelting technology. Uniting ritual, magical, and technical aspects, this technology is metaphorically linked to procreation. The viewer then participates in the metallurgical laboratory work, including optical and electron microscopy that reveals the workings of that technology. Video footage, filmed in 1989 and 1993 in the Mandara highlands of Cameroon and Nigeria, records the process of smelting iron by Ajokfa, a Plata Kapa iron master, and fining and forging by Hundu, a Sukur smith. The scene shifts back and forth between Africa and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at  the University of Arizona, where Dr. David Killick demonstrates how scientific understanding of these processes is gained through metallurgical analyses of their products and byproducts.

THE BLOOMS OF BANJELI: TECHNOLOGY AND GENDER IN WEST AFRICAN IRONMAKING
The film-maker and two historians went to the village of Banjeli in Togo in 1985 to try to recreate on film the traditional iron smelting techniques of the area. The present population no longer uses these techniques, but an old man who had watched both his father and grandfather smelt iron, allowed the group to film him and ask questions as he tried to recreate for them the entire smelting process, complete with all the ritual. The result is a fascinating insight into the society as a whole through the vehicle of a traditional technology.

L'Homme, le fer, l'argile et le feu / 1. La production expérimentale du fer dans un bas fourneau à la protohistoire
Cette production permet de visualiser l'intégralité de la mise en oeuvre d'une chaîne opératoire pour la réduction du minerai de fer dans un bas fourneau, depuis l'extraction des matériaux de construction de la structure de combustion à la récupération du bloc de métal brut le massiot. Ce document vidéo constitue un outil de travail appréciable et indispensable dans les domaines suivants : - pédagogique, constituer un outil d'initiation et d'enseignement aux techniques de la paléométallurgie - archéologique, disposer d'un référentiel vidéo permettant l'identification d'une activité paléométallurgique - scientifique, permettre de visualiser l'ensemble d'une chaîne opératoire de réduction du minerai de fer - documentaire, offrir un document ethno-culturel sur les techniques sidérurgiques anciennes encore pratiquées, durant la première moitié de notre siècle, en Afrique noire et en Europe centrale.
Auteur : Jean-Claude LEBLANC Réalisateurs : Abra PICOT / Jean-Jacques PICOT Producteur : Les Films du Campagnol Pays : France

Ovambo Iron Smelting
The smelting movie was chosen for this project for a number of reasons. Essentially it is a good example of an ethnographic movie in that it highlights and examines an ongoing process that contains many examples of ritual and these are captured in the film. The position of the smith is a respected one, he is a ritual specialist, able to 'cure' iron-ore and produce the highly prized metal.

The Iron Smelters of Eremi, by Michael Crosfield; available through the Royal Anthropological Institute Film Library, RA21
The Iron Smelters of Eremi (see page 29 of Volume I of RAI catalogue). Catalogue number (VHS): RA/VHS180 £8.
I haven't viewed this film yet.

Collections of Iron & Metallurgy Articles

Iron Art

Books

Iron in Archaeology. The European Bloomery Smelters, Pleiner, Radomir, (2000) Praha, Archeologický Ústav Av Cr.
Iron and Steel in Ancient Times
, Vagn Fabritius Buchwald, a google book
Early Iron and Steel in Sri Lanka,
Gillian Juleff, 1998,  Review by David Killick
Bloomery Ironmaking during 2000 years
, Seminar in Budalen, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway 1991. Vol. II. Author, Espelund, Arne (ed.)
Iron and Steel in Ancient China, Donald Wagner, a google book
Projekt med Jernalder, Michael Nissen, Henning Pedersen og Søren Vælds

Archaeology sites & sources

Collected Metallurgy Articles

Iron and Steel Currency Bars in Ancient Greece
www.rhodes.aegean.gr/maa_journal/docs/volume3%20No...
 
GAL Analysrapport 16-2000, Lena Grandin
Spadformade ämnesjärn från Torsåker

Länsmuseet Gävleborg Rapport 2004:03
KråknäsfyndetEfterundersökning av fyndplats för ämnesjärn och smälta
RAÄ 406
Torsåkers socken
Gästrikland
2001
Lars-Erik Englund, Ronnie Jensen, Bo Ulfhielm
Metallographic Examination of Cast Iron Lump from Lieporiai (Šiauliai district, Lithuania)
www.ktu.lt/lt/mokslas/zurnalai/medz/medz0-89/15%20...

Metallographic Examination of Cast Iron Lump Produced in the Bloomery Iron Making Process
Jonas NAVASAITIS, Aušra SELSKIENĖ

Examination of smelting and smithing slags formed in bloomery iron ...
images.katalogas.lt/maleidykla/Che72/Che_022_028.p...
ESCORIAS METALÚRGICAS DEL YACIMIENTO FENICIO DE LA FONTETA (ALICANTE)
copernic.udg.es/arqueometria/PARTS/16_Proyecto16.p...

METALLURGICAL SLAGS FROM THE PHOENICIAN SITE OF LA FONTETA (ALICANTE).
M. Renzi & S. Rovira

The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades
www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809....
WOOTZ STEEL: AN ADVANCED MATERIAL OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
materials.iisc.ernet.in/~wootz/heritage/WOOTZ.htm
Lapphyttan og dens grunnlag — en arkeo-metallurgisk vurdering fra ...
fornvannen.se/pdf/1990talet/1993_253.pdf
Medieval iron smelting D W Crossley
ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/cbaresrep/pdf/040...
Cutting Edge Technology - The <layer id="google-toolbar-hilite-1" style="background-color: Yellow;
www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/profiles/rehren/Me...
Detecting non-uniform phosphorus distribution in ancient Indian ...
www.ias.ac.in/currsci/sep102004/650.pdf
this 
The content on this page is provided by a Google Notebook user, and Google assumes no responsibility for this content.