Medieval blast furnaces of Shaytansky archaeological microdistrict

The article is devoted to the problem of studying of medieval furnacesof Shaytansky archaeological microdistrict. The given microdistrict is not simply the largest centre of medieval monuments of TomskPriobie, but also the most powerful centre of iron manufacture in the region. Thus, it is necessary to share the new received materials onferrous metallurgy of Tomsk Priobie. The results of field researches of the author on the site of ancient settlement of Shaitan IV, where 7metallurgical objects were studied, for the first time are most fully published in the article. The urgency of work is that the research isfirst of the kind for the considered region. The research of furnaces designs on the basis of the archaeological and ethnographic data willhelp to reconstruct a major stage in the production cycle. Reconstruction of types of furnaces for manufacture of iron is an integral partof complex research of iron production. In the article furnaces of medieval time are considered, because similar objects of previousepochs are not known yet. A distinctive feature of Tomsk Priobie is a broad development of "house" manufacture of iron, characteristicfor the entire epoch of the Middle Ages. With such organization of work furnaces were often constructed in dwellings, whichsimultaneously was an industrial construction. In the neighbouring regions metallurgical objects were often constructed out ofsettlements, which in many cases considerably complicates their dating. On the contrary, the arrangement of forges in dwellings ofmasters allows correlating metallurgical objects to concrete archaeological material and radio carbon dating of the layer. All this allowsdefining the chronology of objects. The specificity of the studied metallurgical furnaces is their extremely bad condition. Almost allblast furnaces are fragmentary, which essentially complicates reconstruction of similar objects. Therefore, in the given article the objectsare considered, whose condition gives information about design of concrete details. The available data on ferrous metallurgy ofShaytansky archaeological microdistrict in certain cases allows defining volumes of blast furnaces. Ethnographic and experimental dataabout the percentage outcome of iron from the quantity of the loaded ore helps to define productivity of furnaces in each particular case.Similar work is necessary for estimation of scales of manufacture and definition of the role of ferrous metallurgy in the economy of themedieval population of Shaytansky archaeological microdistrict.

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