Morphology and metallurgical studies on a few archeological samples found in old forges in Japan

Abstract

An investigative study was carried out on a few archeological samples collected from very old and abandoned forges situated near Izumo city of Shimane prefecture in Japan. The samples were named as Koedo Tatara (in Japanese) and identified as Koedo-21, Koedo-39 and so on, as per the number of well dug for hunting the samples. In the naked eye observation the samples were looked like the rusted iron lump of heterogeneous shapes having brownish and blackish colours. A variety of minerals such as ilmenite (FeO.TiO₂), fayalite (2FeO.SiO₂), hercinite (2FeO.Al₂O₃) along with ferrite (FeO) were identified by observing the structural morphologies in optical microscopic study. EDS (Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) study revealed that most of the samples were the composite of iron oxides along with a few amount of carbon, silica (SiO₂), alumina (Al₂O₃), rutile (TiO₂) etc. Vickers micro-hardness test revealed that several samples were moderately hard and some others were nonmetallic oxides and not fit for hardness measurement. It was realized that the samples were the by-product of old blacksmiths forges which were dismantled for hundreds of years in the natural environment.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbas.v37i1.15679

Journal of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences, Vol. 37, No. 1, 43-50, 2013