Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Non Metallurgist
Lesson 1
A History of Metals
October 02, 2008
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A History of Metals
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Our Reference
Document for this
class
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Terminology
Metal a mineral or compound naturally occurring near the Earth
surface and is sometimes described as a lattice of positive ions
surrounded by a cloud of delocalized electrons. An element that
readily loses electrons to form positive ions (cations) and forms
metallic bonds between other metal atoms
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History of Metals
What is a metal?
Opaque, lustrous element that is a good conductor
of electricity and heat and a good reflector of light
when polished.
Crystalline in the solid state
Solid at ambient temperatures
o Except for Mercury
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Polished low alloy steel showing light reflection
History of Metals
Ancient Metals
Most metals naturally occur as minerals or
compounds
Ancient man used Gold, Silver or Copper because
they naturally existed in the form of metals
Copper ore reduction from copper sulfides
(covellite and malachite) began between 4000 and
3000 B.C.
Two important ancient discoveries..
o Metal could be obtained from ores by heating
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History of Metals
Bronze Age
Addition of tin to copper to form bronze
o ~ 88% Cu -12% Sn
By 3000 B. C. ancient metallurgists had learned to
intentionally mix ores of copper and tin to produce
bronze, similar to todays composition.
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Metals of Antiquity
The metals upon which civilization was based. These seven metals
were:
(1) Gold 6000 BC
(2) Copper 4200 BC
(3) Silver 4000 BC
(4) Lead 3500 BC
(5) Tin -1750 BC
(6) Iron, smelted -1500 BC
(7) Mercury 750 BC
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T
I
M
E
L
I
N
E
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Time-Life
Books
Emergence of
Man
The
Metalsmiths
1974
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Celtic tools from
La Tene were used
2500 years ago
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Technology Distribution Part 1
Celtic Iron Age technology is commonly considered to begin around 1000 B.C. and
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lasting through 100 A.D. in Celtic Britain and ended with the arrival of Roman
influence.
The Advent of Iron in Celtic Briton
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And then..more technology distribution
.and removal
Roman influence shaped the world until
the Barbarian invasions changed it again,
and again
Goths
Huns
Vandals
Viking
(Crusades)
Mongols
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/bog_iron.htm
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Old World
Metal Centers
date to 9500
B.C. and were
either sources
or
manufacturing
sites.
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King Tut
funeral
mask of
beaten
gold.
1343 B.C.
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Gold,
Silver, and
Electrum
(natural
alloy of
gold and
silver)
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Multicolored Copper
Components of Bronze (Copper and Tin)
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Iron,
a metal for the
Masses is
second most
common metal.
Early sources
were meteoric
forms before
smelting
mastered in
1200 B.C.
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Smelting is Extraction of Metal from Ore
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Common Issues
These seven metals: gold, silver, copper, lead, tin,
mercury and iron, and the alloys bronze and electrum
were the starting point of metallurgy and even in this
simple, historic account we find some of the basic
problems of process metallurgy. The problems are:
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History of Discovery
Before 1700 there were 12 12 Metals Discovered in 18th
metals in common use: Century:
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Technologies Fade Away
Blacksmith
Essential skills for 12,000 years
Industrial Age made the skill obsolete around 1930
Smiths migrated into towns and were absorbed by other
industries such as large industrial forge shops and auto
repair garages
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Georgius Agricola (1494-1555)
Georg Bauer, better known by the Latin version of his name Georgius Agricola,
is considered the founder of geology as a discipline.
He died in 1555, one year before the posthumous publication of De Re
Metallica, his greatest work.
De Re Metallica (Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)) is a book
cataloging the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals,
published in 1556.
The publication was delayed until the completion of the extensive and detailed
woodcuts.
He describes the method of breaking hard rocks using fire-setting, which
involved making a fire against a rock-face, and then quenching the rock with
water to induce cracking by thermal shock.
In 1912, the first English translation of De Re Metallica was privately published
in London by subscription. The translators were Herbert Hoover, a mining
engineer (and later President of the United States), and his wife, Lou Henry
Hoover, a geologist and Latinist.
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Bronze Age Weapons
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Coins
Romans exported coin technology to
Celtic Britton.
Currency evolved from two basic A Roman denarius, a standardized
innovations: the use of counters to silver coin.
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Bronze nails, found in
Egypt, have been dated
3400 BC. Nails
In 1959 during excavation
of the legionary fortress at
Inchtuthil near Dunkeld,
archaeologists uncovered a
singularly remarkable haul
of a single kind of Roman
artifact from around 83 - 87
AD.
Roman nail
Located in a twelve foot found in Wales
deep pit below the beaten 19th Century "Square" Nails
earth floor of the workshop
- the Fabrica- was a
remarkable hoard of nails,
over eight hundred
thousand in number, many
in a remarkable state of An original 7" (180mm) long Roman nail found in Scotland
preservation.
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History of Metals
Iron Smelting
Iron production began in Anatolia in 2000 B.C.
Iron production well established by 1000 B.C.
Widely available sources of charcoal (from wood)
and iron ore caused iron production to spread
widely (in China) by 500 B.C.
Intentional reduction of iron oxide ore using
charcoal (from wood) was widespread in Egypt by
1500 B. C.
Egyptians were tempering iron by 900 B.C.
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History of Metals
Iron Smelting
Requires higher temperatures than for lead.
Involves oxide reduction using carbon in the form
of charcoal or coke to reduce iron oxide to iron,
forming carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
o Carbon serves two purposes
Reduction agent
Fuel
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History of Metals
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Revolutionary Furnace
-1200 B.C. for Egyptian
copper smelting in
Timna in the Negev
Desert
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Making Charcoal recent technology
method
Air flow in and out of the mud encased pile was controlled and
limited for a slow oxygen starved burn to refine the wood into high 40
carbon charcoal.
History of Metals
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History of Metals
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History of Metals
Iron Smelting
Modern basic reduced iron is termed pig iron.
o Contains significant quantities of carbon, sulfur and
phosphorus.
Carbon = 3.5% - 4.25%
Iron = Balance
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History of Metals
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Laminating Iron without melting it
1000 B.C.
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Laminating Iron without melting it
1000 B.C.
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Afgan Silversmith
using historic
technology today
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Iranian
Coppersmith
using historic
technology
today
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Afgan Iron
Making
using
historic
technology
today for
plowshares
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Goldworking in
ancient America
2000 years
before Columbus
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Peru was a
center of
metal
working for
Copper and
Gold using
hammered
sheets before
the Aztecs
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Medieval Smithing in Europe
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German
Smithing
shown in
1500 A.D.
woodcuts
from
"De Re
Metallicus"
by Agricola
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Smithing in 1500's, from a Flemish woodcut
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From "the Boy's Book
of Trades", 1888
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Colonial Firearms and Artillery
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Colonial
Kitchen Tools
and all
Hardware for
the Home,
Barn, and
Equipment
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Colonial Smithing at Sturbridge Village
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Colonial Smithing at Williamsburg
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Colonial Smelting Furnace West Virginia
Small, workable iron veins were
discovered in many areas of West
Virginia, and small furnaces were set
up at these spots for smelting the ore
and manufacturing bar iron for the
pioneer blacksmiths.
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Tannehill Museum
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Steel Making begins in Birmingham 1897
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Sloss Furnaces
fueled by Coal
in Birmingham,
Alabama
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Sloss Furnaces
once fueled by
Coal are silent
today
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Vulcan
on Red Mountain in
Birmingham
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Blacksmithing Survives and Thrives
www.habairon.org
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