Posted on 06/06/2004 4:50:09 PM PDT by blam
Blast blower some 2,500 years old discovered in Xinjiang
www.chinaview.cn 2004-06-06 11:02:29
URUMQI, June 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists claim that as early as 2,500 years ago people living in the current northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had begun to use blast blowers, as they discovered a bronze blowpipe in the Yanghai Tombs in Turpan.
"The function of the blowpipe is much like that of the blast blowers which people are using now," said Lu Enguo, a research member with the Xinjiang archaeological research institute.
"Although we discovered bronze blowpipes several years ago in Kuqa County and the northern part of Xinjiang, they were all made in the Han (206 B.C.-220) and the Tang (618-907) dynasties," said Lu.
"But after research we concluded that the blast blower we discovered in the Yanghai Tombs was made in the Warring States period (475 B.C.- 221 B.C.), the oldest one we ever discovered in this region," said Lu.
"It proves that as early as 2,500 years ago the local people living in Xinjiang had grasped the ability to smelt bronze," said Lu.
According to Lu, although similar in function, the blowpipe is still different from the current blast blowers in structure as an uneven bronze part takes the place of the blast fan and a bronze tube is used to blow wind.
The Yanghai Tombs can be dated back from 1,000 B.C. to the Christian era, where pottery, wooden wares and textiles were unearthed. Enditem
One assumes they are talking about Tuyeres of some type.
I thought we already KNEW that the bronze age man used blowers in their smelting - that's how they got the heat high enough to melt the ores?
Or is this another attempt to re-write history?
Oh yeah - I think the ones that used to be given credit were a 'caucasian' bronze age man?
The use of mud tuyeres allowed primitive African tribes to smelt metals early on. With out forced blast it's difficult
to reach elevated temps.
Blacksmith for 30 years.
The water cooled tuyeres in your link are primarily used
in Blast furnace operations.
Even with forced blast from a Catalan forge the most wrought iron ball that could be formed in the puddling
process was a couple of hundred pounds, it wasn't until
the Bessemer process that mass production of steel really
took off.
Here they are concerned with bronze casting but anything
that would make the process more efficient was important.
You don't melt metal in a camp fire, where did the knowledge come from?
The oldest bronze smeltering site ever discovered is in Thailand. (You missed the point completely)
"Blast Blowers" ?
I though this thread was about Bill, Hillary and James Carville.
Never mind.
LOL, chip-maker, 30 years.
What is a Blast Blower? I think I was sleeping during the Blast Blower class.
At first I thought an errant gardener had left his leaf blower behind.
Well, actually you do, or at least you can with copper ore.
It is possible to do some smithing in a wood fire, the cherokee indians here in Ga, used to use hickory blocks,
but for real smithing a forced blast is necessary, in other
parts of the world a simple fan, a goat skin or even breath
power does the trick.
Absolutly, and with bronz, the tin requires the higher temps that twyers give. Also, some copper smelting requires higher temps depending on the impurity. As a blacksmith, you would be interested in some of the forge setups they have found in Southeast Asia. Some of the later replacement casting methods were ingenious.
Note: this topic was posted 6/6/2004. Thanks blam. Nice weekly digest ping, despite its age.
YEAH, that’s one of the mysteries of civilization I wonder about. Who was the guy that said, “Say Moog, I think I’ll see if this rock burns and something comes out of it that we can use.”
I think it was probably more like, "hey, come look at this stuff that's left where we had the big camp fire last night. I wonder if we can do that again? Where did you get those rocks that made the fire turn green a little?
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