Seandálaíocht - Irish for Archaeology

Just a quick note to let people know that more videos from Smelt 2010 are now up on Vimeo. These are time-lapse videos of the experimental smelt, some of which have already been seen. 

Work is in progress on a final video report of the smelt using these videos in combination with other video taken at the project. 

As promised here is some video from Smelt 2010. During the project I tried to capture as much as possible using time lapse photography to give a sense of the activity and number of people involved in a smelt. The video above shows the painstaking building of the furnace chimney which was built up of sausages of pre-mixed clay. The clay was mixed using equal parts horse dung, potters clay and sharp sand. The mix worked very well and we ended up with no cracks at all in the furnace. You can see the hardy volunteers in the background kneeding the sausages of clay in their hands.

The next video is from near the end of the smelt when we began to burn down the charcoal after about five hours of charging. It was getting late at that stage and the light fades until you can only see the glow of the burning charcoal. Unfortunately the lack of light meant no time-lapse of the removal of the bloom but we do have photos.

These and other videos and photos will be combined with standard video taken over the course of the weekend into a video report on the smelt which will be made available as soon as its ready. I have to thank Mark Gordon for acting as cameraman for the event and volunteering to edit all the footage, no small task. 

UPDATE: One more video of the opening of one of Niall and Eoin's charcoal pits is available over at charcoal.seandalaiocht.com.

Smelt 2010 went off practically without a hitch almost two weeks ago now. I've been prevented from posting about it due to a serious case of man-flu. Probably from sleeping Early Medieval style for the weekend of the smelt. 

However, one of my collaborators on the project Tom Birch has been far more industrious despite a sniffle of his own and has managed to get a report on the project published on one of the Naked Archaeology Podcasts. You can download the podcast here or listen to it through your browser here (skip forward to 25 minutes for the relevant section). 

As a bit of a teaser I have uploaded a few photos from the weekend. More will follow including some video and I will be updating the project website with a report on the smelt as soon as possible.

I spent yesterday researching and organising things for Smelt 2010 which is fast creeping up on me. One of the fancy things I'd like to do for the smelt is some time-lapse photography so I devoted a bit of time to figuring out how my still relatively new digital slr works; familiarising myself a bit more with terms like apeture, shutter-speed and ISO. The result is a test video of me working for a couple of hours in my little home office: 

It reveals a weird tendency to play with my beard (shared by all bearded men i'd imagine) and a dangerous sedentism that reminds me how much exercise I don't do. 

Besides that, preparations are coming along and the Smelt will go ahead on the 6th and 7th of March. The one big thing I need to sort out is a bellows system, which I will make if need s be but I would be more than happy to borrow if someone would like to donate!

For people who would like to come to see the smelt (taking place in the Irish National Heritage Park in Co. Wexford) the schedule will hopefully run as follows: 

Friday 5th - I'll be there prepping and setting up the smelting area and probably starting construction of the furnace
Saturday 6th - Completion of furnace and pre-firing with wood. Ore preparation and roasting. 
Sunday 7th - The smelt (volunteers needed!)
Monday 8th - Clean up

All are welcome to come but if you can't make it I will be putting up videos and images from the smelt on the project's website.

Head on over to charcoal.seandalaiocht.com and read the update on a recent experimental charcoal production experiment I was involved in with Niall Kenny. We attempted to reconstruct and early medieval pit kiln from Russagh 4 and a mound kiln too with mixed results.

There's a summary blog post on the site now but we'll be adding more images and eventually a video to the site as we get time. Niall is going to have another go at charcoal making at Smelt 2010 and hopefully with the lessons we've learned from this experiment it will be a big success.

For those of you out there interested in experimental archaeology or who, like me, are latent pyromaniacs who gave up smoking for the new year I'm happy to let you know about a unique opportunity.

Niall Kenny has organised an experimental charcoal making event which will be taking place in Meath, starting Sunday week. That's assuming the ground isn't frozen solid or covered in snow!

Niall has done a lot of research into early charcoal making in Ireland and hopes to re-create an archaeologically excavated charcoal pit kiln (and possibly a mound kiln as well). I'm tagging along and the hope is that if the experiment is successful I can use the resulting charcoal in my smelt in March.

Anyone interested is welcome to come along and have a look but it is essential that you let us know that you will be visiting as it takes place on private land.

More information can be found on the project's website.

Yesterday, myself and some obliging volunteers (Conor McDermott, Angela Wallace and Niall Kenny) went to a Bord na Móna bog in Offaly (with their permission of course!) looking for bog iron ore.

Bog iron ore is referred to in much of the archaeological literature on iron smelting in Ireland. It is often suggested as the primary source of iron in prehistory and medieval times but this assertion is rarely supported with scientific analysis (although this has changed in recent times and there are many sites now where chemical analysis of iron slag has indicated a bog source for the smelted ore). 

The assertion is a logical one, considering the lack of large, high quality mineral ore deposits in Ireland on the scale of those in Britain. Also, bog ore is supposed to be a renewable resource, replenishing over a few decades according to Tylecote, and thus providing a very useful source for small scale iron smelters.

Unfortunately very little is known about where and to what extent it occurs in Ireland (more is known about American, Canadian and Scandinavian bog ores). Discussions with Conor McDermott, a colleague of mine in the UCD School of Archaeology who had worked extensively in Irish bogs led to a plan to go collecting some of the 'bog iron' he had frequently observed in the field: with the goal of checking its iron content to test if it really is a viable ore and, if it is, of smelting it.

Our expedition was very successful, collecting almost 40KG of orange material from the bog (presumed bog ore pending XRF analysis). The material varied from a clay-like consistency to hard agglomerations similar in morphology to iron slag. All of it was very orange, presumably derived from oxidised iron. 

All of this is part of the SMELT 2010 project which will culminate in an experimental iron smelt in the National Heritage Park, Ferrycarrig, Co. Wexford.

Earlier this week myself and Niall Kenny headed out to cut down some oak trees in preparation for an upcoming experiment Niall is organising to re-create a traditional charcoal making pit. We chopped down one of the trees with a replica bronze axe to see how long it would take to fell compared with the modern iron  axes we had: we took 11 minutes with the bronze axe and only 4 minutes on a similarly sized oak with the modern iron axe. Presumably the difference wouldn't have been quite as acute in the past considering variations in metal alloys and of course in the skill of the axe-wielders. 

Why you ask? In these days of climate change, flooding and general mayhem (as if there has ever been a time when those things haven't been happening!). Well, its all part of Niall's research into early Irish charcoal production which nicely compliments my own work into early Irish ironworking.

Hopefully we will be able to use the traditionally-produced oak charcoal to fuel the furnace for SMELT 2010, which will take place in March.