Two things to remember about slag are:
1. Where any iron or other metal found on a site may or may or be
site specific, the slag is. It is extremely unlikely that anyone
would bother to cart around slag. A noteable example is the slag pile
at Hopewell NHS. Hopewell's slag had been carted off to make roads
and NPS felt a slag pile was required for authenticity. So slag was
brought in from the nearby Joanna Furnace.
2. Before modern chemistry, chemical analysis, in furnace sensors,
computer control, etc. the appearance of the slag was how the furnace/
bloomery was controlled. And generally speaking there is a lot more
information about the process contained in the slag than in the metal
produced at the same site. Most impurities are slagged out. So the
slag can tell you a lot about the temperature inside the furnace, the
ore used, whether or not a fluxing agent was used, and a host of
other valuable information about the process that is not available
from the metal produced.
James Brothers, RPA
[log in to unmask]
On Apr 29, 2006, at 12:40, Ron May wrote:
>
> In a message dated 4/24/2006 4:09:36 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> There is not a great deal on slag. Unfortunately many archaeologists
> don't even collect it. And if they do they seldom ever either
> describe it or have it analyzed. It is commonly mischaracterized as
> "clinker".
>
>
>
> Guilty as charged! The 1989-1995 investigation of an 18th century
> Spanish
> cannon battery included part of a 19th century blacksmith shop
> (protruding from
> under a fire station building) at CA-SDI-12,000 (Spanish cannon
> battery,
> whaling station, U.S. Army post, now a U.S. Navy base). We classed
> all the
> blacksmith waste as clinkers in ignorance of the proper
> terminology. But to our
> credit, we saved every last bit of the waste and it is curated on
> the base in
> the underground bunker that serves as the collection storage unit;
> Ballast
> Point Repository (HVAC for 55 degress and 60% humidity).
>
> Ron May
> Legacy 106, Inc.
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