Question on medieval adze

[Ed-NH]

Hi all,

I'm not sure where to post this question so I thought I'd start here as I know there is HUGE wealth of information from everyone here

I am restoring an iron medieval adze. A friend and detectorist gave this piece to me as a gift. He knows I like old iron and has seen some of my home made restorations.

Anyway, he found this piece in northern Ireland alongside other medieval artifacts. As I restore this piece I am seeing what appears to be small chunks of dark stone embedded in the forged iron. They look very similar to the dark stones we see at the beach that are smooth. These small pieces are not magnetic like the rest of the adze.

I have been searching the internet for any ancient forging techniques but have had no luck on this subject. Would anyone know if stone could be present in medieval forged iron AD1200-1600? This would help me to better age this wonderful relic that I am working on. I will be sure to post before and after pictures of the awesome piece.

In the picture you will see a round stone in the lower left of stone1.jpg and a semi-circular stone in the lower middle of stone.jpg

My 'after' pictures of the restored piece should show them much clearer with more detail.

Thanks for checking it out.

 

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[Montana Jim]

Couldn't a stone just have been dropped or placed in the molten iron?

 

[Ed-NH]

Couldn't a stone just have been dropped or placed in the molten iron?

Yah I'm wondering if they put stone into the iron for some reason back then. There seems to be lots of small bits embedded in this one. I've never seen stone embedded in any of my older finds from the 1700-1800's.

 

[diggerfororo]

Usually, Iron implements were made from small "billets". These billets were made from pieces of iron ore smelted in a furnace. To make a tool, several billots were heated in a forge and hammered together. I don't think any small stones would have survived this process. Your item might have been crudely cast in a mold and the stones may have been in the mold. These stones must be very hard as you would think they would fracture with that much heat.

Les