An Investigation on Iron Smelting furnaces from the Etruscan site of Baratti-Populonia (Tuscany)

The Gulf of Baratti (Populonia) has represented the most important early iron metalworking centres in Europe in the 1th Millenium BC. The relavant smithed bloom production between 600 and 100 BC (probably in excess of 1400 tonnes) is clearly testified by the huge amounts of slags and other metallurgical debris discharged onto the Baratti plains. Most surviving evidence of early furnaces is confined to fragments of more or less vitrified and slagged sandstones, fired clay linings and tuyeres. We have carried a detailed anlysis of some of these fragments. in order to reconstruct as far as possible the shape and the structure of the Etruscan furnaces, as well as to characterize the geologic material they are made of.