35 Iron Smelting

Showcase
Racing Furnace
Composition
Chemical Process
Dismantling
Filling

The Scharmbeck racing furnace is the best preserved furnace shaft of a smelting furnace in Central Europe. It is therefore an important technical monument. The slag blocks shown here are "industrial waste"; they were produced during the smelting of grass iron ore in the Rennfeuer furnaces. This technique of iron extraction, known since the pre-Roman Iron Age, was practised until the Middle Ages, but is now extinct. Often, slags are the only surviving traces of iron smelting; they are therefore particularly valuable to archaeologists.

Info: Showcase 35

Racing Furnaces

Age: um 100 n. Chr. Roman Imperial Period

Material: Clay, ... (?)

Location: Scharmbeck