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MHG31713 - Iron slag - Ascoile

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Finds - Iron Slag.
A dark, peaty, earthen scrape, in the S side of the platform area of Feature 046 (above), reveals many large pieces of iron slag in various forms and shapes (see Plate 10). This rich finds-site, together with the associated evidence of the diverted burn of Feature 044 (above), immediately to the N, may indicate that this platform area was a bloomery mound and an important, former iron smelting location.

Many of the slag pieces, the largest discovered being 780g in weight and the size of a half-brick, exhibit the smooth, dark grey/black, shiny, outer surfaces, which chilled quickly on contact with air, and vesicle-filled, coarser-textured, inner surfaces which cooled more slowly. Some of the outer surfaces of the pieces have a wrinkled appearance, indicating that they were flowing up to the time that they solidified, and one piece found is funnel-shaped, possibly indicating that the molten metal was being poured into a container or a mould. The undersides of some these pieces can be determined by their very irregular, rough, pitted texture, which have been in contact with the ground and which, occasionally, have imprints of small fragments of wood and other vegetation/debris cast onto on the opposite side to the shiny, smooth, upper, air-exposed surface. <1>

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Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NC 8247 1110 (4m by 4m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NC81SW
Geographical Area	SUTHERLAND
Civil Parish	CLYNE

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