Siderurgia republicana en Carthago Nova. Primeras evidencias

The archeological excavations we have been conducting these last few years in the amphitheatre of Cartagena (Murcia, Spain) have supplied a vast quantity of iron slags, probably furnace bottom from a non-slag tapping bowl furnace. Some of them belong to the abandonment levels of a habitat dated between the end of the III. c.B.C and the beginning of the II. c.B.C, even though the larger part was found in filler levels dating from the end of the third century B.C. to about the middle of the first century AD. The metallographic and electronic microscope analyses carried on about 12 slag samples and on one iron object (an arrow's head) have given a high percentage of iron (nearly 70%) and a small percentage of silicon, calcium and aluminium. The macroscopic aspect, together with the high percentage of iron, places our slags close to similar items from a Punic environment (Byrsa and na Guardis) with a similar chronology and in no way similar to Roman metallurgical products (Les Martys, La Roche-en-Breuil) . For want of a more thorough analysis, we suggest that those slag flans could be used as raw material of a future iron and steel process

Archaeology · Chronology · Geography · Hoard · Metallurgy · Mineralogy · Slag (welding · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Geology · Materials Science · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts