New evidence for early pig iron production and refining technology on the foothills of the Swabian Mountains, Germany

Abstract

Abstract The investigation is focused on the remains of an iron smelting site in South-West Germany of the 11th to 13th centuries AD. Within the scope of a pilot study, scientific analyses of smelting debris as slag and metallic iron reveal lumps of pig iron, finery slag and early blast furnace calcium-alumina-silicate slag, as well as wrought iron with relicts of cast iron within the microstructure. This new evidence for early indirect process technology is concordant with results of contemporary sites in South-West Germany, and fits in seamlessly with current European research on medieval ferrous metallurgy. The results of a High Medieval smelting site near Ohmenhausen presented here are one of the first hints of a deliberate finery process for that early period of a modified proto-blast furnace technology.

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