International collaboration into Iceland's early crucible metallurgy
2014-01-09
University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen's Tom Birch travels to Budapest to have Iceland's crucible remains analysed at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
In late November, Tom spent a week in Budapest working with scientists from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to study crucible remains from Iceland (9th-13th centuries CE). Nearly all known examples from Iceland were analysed for their composition using neutron- and proton-beam techniques, making this one of the first national studies of crucibles. The study aims to understand what non-ferrous metallurgy was taking place and where the crucibles were made. The analytical work for the project, entitled 'Iceland's early crucible metallurgy: a new investigation into Viking Age technology', was funded by CHARISMA (http://www.charismaproject.eu) after a successful application. The programme, part-funded by the European Commission, aims to offer free access to scientific instruments for archaeologists and conservators to improve their research. The ongoing research is an international collaboration with Skagafjörður Heritage Museum (Guðmundur Sigurðarson) and UCL (Dr. Marcos Martinón-Torres), led by Tom Birch (Aberdeen). This is the second visit for Tom, who also had a successful application in 2011 to help with his PhD research at Aberdeen into iron provenancing.