Page 436 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

the superintendent on his left, of converting the smelting pits here

in Hallstatt to the production of iron?
The technical discussion that followed was continued the
following day, in consultation with the leading mining engineers
and the smelting masters of the guild. They were disposed to

dismiss the whole idea as impractical. Admittedly, there was iron
ore in quantity. It had been located in outcrops years ago by
prospectors from Asia Minor who were looking for silver and tin.

But the process of smelting was completely different from that of
copper. Iron would not melt even at the highest temperatures that
could be produced in the open bronze-smelting pits. Only a sort
of malleable slag could be achieved, and this, even if it were

beaten into crude shape, produced an edge much softer than
bronze. The smiths simply did not know how “hard” iron was
produced, but they suspected that some other constituent was

introduced, just as tin was mixed with copper to produce bronze.
They demonstrated in the following days what could be done,
puddling a cartload of iron ore in one of the bronze-melting pits

beside the stream near the mines. There was no doubt that the
results were unusable, coarse-grained coagulated lumps, resem­
bling stone rather than metal, which flew to pieces when ham­

mered cold. They even managed, by building a turf roof over the
pit and stoking feverishly, to raise the temperature to a point
where they could run off a little molten iron into a mold. The
experimental cast iron shattered as soon as they tried to give it an

edge. Yet clearly iron could be worked. The general could recall
the blacksmiths of Assyria pounding red-hot iron bars to produce

swords and knives, and chariot tires that could be bent into a
complete circle without snapping. A manufacturing secret was
involved, and somewhere it could be acquired.
Hallstatt had at this time not been long under the protection

of the Celtic king. And its dour miners and foundry hands were
not displeased at being able to show the easterners that some, at
least, of their newfangled ideas were impracticable. These dirt

farmers of the middle Danube plain had not been interested
enough to bring their orders for bronze to the Alps before, so long
as they had had the Carpathian mines at their beck and call. But