How Iron was Smelted.

Iron was first smelted in bloomeries which are large clay furnaces that use bellows to force air through the furnace. This allows more oxygen to get at the fuel increasing the temperate of the furnace. However the temperature was still not hot enough to melt the metallic iron created from the iron oxides and it collected at the bottom of the bloomery in a bloom. This bloom was then beaten and folded multiple times to form wrought iron. Wrought iron is not very strong compared to bronze however it was widely used and the bronze age gave way to the iron age. Iron ore was more plentiful then the copper and tin which was needed to make bronze which meant it became more popular. Iron was also easier to process into billets of useable metal as bronze is an alloy which had to be made from already processed copper and tin.




The video below gives a good insight into how iron was smelted using old techniques, wooden logs were used as anvils and tools would have been made from wood and other metals such as bronze.