Tag: refine

Tudor Period Mining and Metal Smelting

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During the Tudor period, lead was utilized to build roofs and windows because it was easily mailable and resistive to corrosion. Farmers would mine for lead during the summer months when their crops did not need tending to in order to generate additional income. Mining during the summer months could earn an extra £5.00 which equates to £25,000 as of 2012 when accounting for inflation. Entire families often worked within the mines because 50 barrels worth of ore and soil would be extracted per day to meet the quota of what was required to be profitable. Smelting involved the use of white coal which is effectively dried wood from a kiln and was always setup upon windy hilltops or mountains because the wind would cause the fire blaze with more intensity therefore reaching higher overall temperatures. The best wood to make white coal is oak. Kilns must be airtight, so gaps were filled with clay. Knowing a kiln to be airtight was easily verifiable by searching for smoke as if smoke only came out of only the front entrance, the kiln was considered airtight. Ore was smashed into small pieces to help it smelt more rapidly which yielded approximately an 80% return upon investment. Metals were then refined using a secondary kiln, and smelted to remove any ash or impurities. The first burn removes ore from the rock, and the second burn removes impurities with the main impurity being sulphur. Molds were constructed using sand and wood to create divots which allowed the ore to be molded into blocks much the same as a modern day bar of gold. The sand gives the mold an indentation which archeologists use to identify Medieval bars of smelted ore

Technology Provided by the Iron Age

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Iron was favored over bronze throughout history because it could be formed into thin and detailed structures which could not be achieved when casting bronze. This is important because it meant that iron blades could be worked and therefore sharpened to a much more refined degree than bronze which was brittle. Iron is also more readily found, a metal which could be found locally around the world and did not depend upon an immense, trading network. By 400 B.C., iron tools and iron objects became ubiquitous throughout various civilizations with the effects of this new technology felt upon the cutting edge of agricultural technology. Iron is more practical than bronze as bronze needs to be melted down and recast if broken in opposition to iron which could be taken to a fire, hit with a hard object, and repaired to the point at which it becomes functional once again. These aspects helped iron to gain favor worldwide as the metal of choice for building and advancing society. As the Iron Age progressed, knowledge about where iron deposits are found became better understood with more and more iron becoming available upon the open market. This is important because the more readily available a particular type of artifact is, the younger the item typically presents as. As time progressed, iron became akin to plastic of the modern day, being cost effective and readily available to manufacture virtually anywhere. Iron tipped wooden plows allowed for more difficult soils to be farmed, which meant that more land could be cultivated making iron truly an agricultural and commercial revolution in the ancient world. Despite lasting for a period of 1000 years, the Bronze Age was quickly replaced with the more effective and efficient Iron Age. The issue of total replacement is complicated as bronze was not only used for tool making, it also helped to create an elite class and was used for spiritual and ceremonial objects as well as visual displays of prestige and wealth. Iron tools several hundred years later, failed to achieve the same intrinsic value within society that bronze once had as it was less rare and precious and therefore less valuable. Iron tools however were highly practical unlike their bronze counterparts, a feature which plagued agriculture and society as a whole