Vice-versa: The iron trade in the western Roman Empire between Gaul and the Mediterranean

Abstract

Starting from the second century BC, with the fast expansion of the Roman Empire, iron production and consumption developed exponentially in north-western Europe. This rapid growth naturally led to an increase in trade, that still remains to be studied encompassing a broad scope, so as to not neglect long-distance exchanges. This is today possible by taking advantage of the progress made in the past 40 years in archaeology and archaeometallurgy. Cargoes of iron bars recovered from a group of 23 wrecks located off the coast of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Bouches-du-Rhône, France), opposite an old branch of the Rhône River, constitute a rich opportunity to examine this trade, by comparing the slag inclusions trapped in iron bars to primary slag from the six main ironmaking areas in Gaul. Based on a trace element analysis of these inclusions and this slag, we suggest that ships travelled down the Rhône carrying iron produced in Wallonia (Belgium), while others sailed up the Rhône transporting iron produced in Montagne Noire (Aude, France).

Old wine into new wineskins? “Legacy data” in research on Roman Period East Germanic iron smelting

“…G. Pagès and co-authors mainly used PCA, while AHC was an auxiliary method. An artefact provenance was verified based on a production area-artefact match on PC graphs gathering over 75% of the data variance [ 53 ]. E. Bérard and co-authors solely relied on PC graphs with 90% of variance [ 65 ].…”

“…Another issue is the use of P and Mn (or their oxides) for pre-filtering purposes, as their discriminating potential is indisputable [ 46 , 51 , 53 ]. P 2 O 5 cannot be included in multivariate methods, as it is easily reducible and goes both to metal and slag [ 36 , 38 , 50 , 51 ].…”

“…It was applied in many previous works [ 46 , 50 – 53 , 62 – 65 , 67 , 68 ], but it was expressed with a different equation, which produces exactly the same results: …”

Archaeology of the Landscape of Metalworking Sites in Italian Alpine Areas (Orobic Alps) between the Middle Ages and the Modern Era

“…The practice of separating iron from its ore is attested in the European area from the 9th century BC. [11,12]. In the early Middle Ages, the transformation process took place in a closed furnace where layers of ore and natural coal were arranged; the coal was ignited while air was supplied by hand-operated bellows to fuel combustion.…”

L’invention de l’industrie antique et médiévale

“…Des estampilles frappées à chaud dans le fer restent encore difficiles à interpréter, sauf quand elles font référence à une zone géographique ou à un peuple. Les analyses archéométriques des matériaux permettent de pister l'origine des fers et de percevoir l'ampleur et la complexité des réseaux d'échanges 25 . Des barres de fer de Gaule belgique étaient transportées vers la Méditerranée, mais de nombreuses autres zones de production utilisaient la circulation fluvio-maritime du Rhône qui pouvait se faire en sens inverse, de la Méditerranée vers la Gaule, notamment depuis Narbonne, un des plus grands ports de Méditerranée occidentale après Ostie 26 .…”