Iron as a Decoration

[Sevenbak]

Zak,

Do you understand what iron-ore mirrors are? No one contests that Mesoamericans used meteorite remnants and other metal outcrops to do simple metal-working. Olmec iron-ore mirrors are not new, and certainly of no help to the BoM.

Funny, I recall apologists insisting that Nephi could have also reasonably kept metallurgy secret, and thatâ??s why thereâ??s no evidence of it. Now Iâ??m being told itâ??s â??reasonableâ? that Mesoamericans obtained knowledge of metallurgy from Peru before the accepted 900 date range, despite the lack of evidence of it.

There is no evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica during the BoM time period.

But there sure was in North america!

You must look at this. Native American Iron Smelting artifacts...

http://www.archaeologyfieldwork.com/forums...4113b0bdaee70c9

[beastie]

Yes, there was Peruvian metallurgy during the BoM time period.

Scholars do not currently believe there was metallurgy in North America during the BoM time period. If you want to persuade me otherwise, show me some real research, not websites a la Barry Fell. (btw, I don't see any dates on your last set of photos)

Aside from that, if you all want to make a case for the BoM taking place in Peru or NA, you will have an uphill battle as far as population density and social complexity is concerned.

[Zakuska]

Yes, there was Peruvian metallurgy during the BoM time period.

Scholars do not currently believe there was metallurgy in North America during the BoM time period. If you want to persuade me otherwise, show me some real research, not websites a la Barry Fell. (btw, I don't see any dates on your last set of photos)

Aside from that, if you all want to make a case for the BoM taking place in Peru or NA, you will have an uphill battle as far as population density and social complexity is concerned.

Why would we want to argue that beastie?

The critics have been saying for years...

- no horses, cattle or livestock in America before columbus

- no silk in America before columbus

- no barley in America before columbus

- no metalurgy in America before columbus

All of which has been proven wrong.

[gtaggart]

Yes, there was Peruvian metallurgy during the BoM time period.

Scholars do not currently believe there was metallurgy in North America during the BoM time period. If you want to persuade me otherwise, show me some real research, not websites a la Barry Fell. (btw, I don't see any dates on your last set of photos)

Aside from that, if you all want to make a case for the BoM taking place in Peru or NA, you will have an uphill battle as far as population density and social complexity is concerned.

Speaking of uphill battles, you realize, don't you, that:

1. Evidence of metallurgy will eventually be discovered in Mesoamerica, and if not,

2. All you've shown is that the Book of Mormon story may not have taken place in Mesoamerica?

I think #1 is the more likely of the two, but if it's #2, no problemo, as post-Mixtecians are fond of saying.

[beastie]

The critics have been saying for years...

- no horses, cattle or livestock in America before columbus

- no silk in America before columbus

- no barley in America before columbus

- no metalurgy in America before columbus

All of which has been proven wrong.

The only points that are significant in this list are the horses and metallurgy. Despite your willingness to rely on specious claims and poorly supported "evidence", experts in the field still maintain that there were no horses in the new world (post their natural extinction, of course) prior to European introduction.

I don't know any critics who claimed there was no metallurgy in America before Columbus. Critics maintain there was no metallurgy in Mesoamerica during the BoM time frame, and experts in the field still maintain that is the case.

These things have been proven wrong only in your imagination and wishful thinking.

[gtaggart]

The only points that are significant in this list are the horses and metallurgy. Despite your willingness to rely on specious claims and poorly supported "evidence", experts in the field still maintain that there were no horses in the new world (post their natural extinction, of course) prior to European introduction.

I don't know any critics who claimed there was no metallurgy in America before Columbus. Critics maintain there was no metallurgy in Mesoamerica during the BoM time frame, and experts in the field still maintain that is the case.

These things have been proven wrong only in your imagination and wishful thinking.

Re the bolded part: You only get to make the rules if it's your football.

[beastie]

1. Evidence of metallurgy will eventually be discovered in Mesoamerica, and if not,

2. All you've shown is that the Book of Mormon story may not have taken place in Mesoamerica?

1.There's already evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica, just not during the BoM time period. I am extremely skeptical that evidence of metallurgy during the BoM time frame will ever be discovered in Mesoamerica, because their pottery shows that they did not have the ability to control heat at the high levels required.

2. Given the fact that Mesoamerica is the only region in the Americas that had a complex civilization and population density the story of the BoM requires, it is a very big deal if it did not take place in mesoamerica.

[gtaggart]

1.There's already evidence of metallurgy in Mesoamerica, just not during the BoM time period. I am extremely skeptical that evidence of metallurgy during the BoM time frame will ever be discovered in Mesoamerica, because their pottery shows that they did not have the ability to control heat at the high levels required.

2. Given the fact that Mesoamerica is the only region in the Americas that had a complex civilization and population density the story of the BoM requires, it is a very big deal if it did not take place in mesoamerica.

You're extremely skeptical? I'm shaking.

Beastie, how many books on Mesoamerica are you up to now? Did you read them all as poorly as you did Martha's?

[beastie]

Re the bolded part: You only get to make the rules if it's your football.

If you want to pretend that barley and silk have the impact on civilization that horses and metallurgy do, you'll have to find someone else willing to kick that deflated ball.

[Zakuska]

All the horse and elephant remains sure set Darwin for a loop... especially since they weren't turned to stone.

The fossils from near Santa F

[beastie]

Regarding how pottery, and the heat required to create various forms of pottery, help us judge whether or not Mesaomericans had the prerequisite technology to engage in metallurgy, I'll share this section from my previously linked website:

There are other ways to detect the possibility of a smelting technology other than looking for the artifacts and smelting operations. The ability to smelt metals is directly related to the ability to create and maintain heat at a very high temperature. Again, in From the Fiery Furnace, page 10: (this is a lengthy citation, but necessary to fully understand the connection between pottery and advanced metallurgy.)

The discovery by Neolithic man of how to smelt metals from their ores, where they are linked by strong chemical bonds to elements such as oxygen, sulphur, and carbon, must stand as one of the great achievements in human history. It called for a stretch of the imagination, allied perhaps with intuition, that even now, with the clarity of scientific hindsight, we find difficult to explain.

There were, to begin with, no obvious paths to follow from native metals to smelting. Certainly, men learned very early – possibly as early as the time of Catal Huyuk – that native metals could be softened by heat, and even melted and cast into moulds. But simply heating mineral ores does not release the metal they contain. Furthermore, there would have been little incentive to apply heat to mineral ores, since they bear no resemblance to the metals they contain. Copper ores are particularly deceptive. The vivid green of malachite – much admired in antiquity for jewellery – gives no hint of the red metal within, combined with oxygen and carbon. And yet malachite was almost certainly the first metallic ore to be smelted on a world-wide scale.

The link between native copper and malachite might well have been suggested initially Neolithic man by the common association of these two forms of metal in outcrops of ore. But the process by which he then learned how to extract copper from the malachite remains one of the most fascinating questions in all prehistory. It is a major challenge to the new scientific discipline of archaeo-metallurgy, in which archaeologists, prehistorians, anthropologists, geologists and metallurgists are not only looking at ancient habitation sites and early metal artefacts with new insights, but are using all the tools of modern chemistry and physics to establish the origin of metal working and the methods of its founders.

To smelt copper from malachite two conditions must be met. One is the application of energy, in the form of intense heat – at least 1084 C, which is the melting point of pure copper. The other is an atmosphere starved of oxygen but rich in carbon. Such an atmosphere draws off the oxygen from the heated ore and ‘reduces’ the copper to a molten metallic form. Given time and sufficient heat, the molten copper separates form the residue of the ore, which forms a lighter molten substance called slag.

This is an exacting process, and it is difficult to imagine it being conceived and applied by Neolithic man other than as the results of some accidental experience, or the observation of some related by haphazard event. Curiosity and intelligent experimentation might then have evolved a method of smelting which worked, even if it was not properly understood.

(p 12)The circumstances of that accidental experience or haphazard event are not easy to identify, and there is at present no generally accepted explanation. One obvious approach to the problem is to establish where in the ancient world copper ores might have been subjected, by accident or design, to those two critical conditions: a temperature close to 1200 C, and a ‘reducing’ atmosphere.

One possibility, which has been strongly supported, is the camp-fire. Early man, it is suggested, must on occasion have built his cooking fire on outcrops of ores such as malachite, or perhaps used ore-bearing rocks to make a fireplace. After a particularly hot fire, fanned by the wind, he might have found blobs of smelted copper in the ashes. It is a persuasive idea, and in fact some recent research suggests that it might well have worked for one metal – lead. Experiments at the Institute for Archaeo-Metallurgical Studies, associated with the Institute of Archaeology in London, have shown that lead can be smelted from its common ore, galena, in a wood or charcoal camp-fire. Such a fire burns at about 600 or 700 C, and this is well above the melting point of lead, which is only 327 C.

(13)However, where copper is concerned this theory faces difficulties which most authorities on metallurgy find insurmountable. To begin with, the melting point of copper is formidably high – 1084 C – and this is rarely achieved in an open fire, even with wind assistance. A greater problem is the maintenance of a reducing atmosphere. Burning carbon fuel does produce carbon monoxide gas, thus creating a reducing atmosphere immediately above the glowing coals, but in an open fire this is fitful and intermittent. There seems to be little likelihood of sustaining the two necessary conditions long enough to reduce copper accidentally, or even deliberately, in a campfire. Most archaeo-metallurgists are therefore inclined to look elsewhere for the genesis of this critical advance.

One other possibility, which is gaining increasing credibility, derives strong support from two historical facts: both smelting and pottery making appeared in Neolithic life at about the same time, and the potter, the first specialist in the management of heat, had under his control all the materials and conditions necessary for the smelting of copper.

The history of pottery making is concerned, like smelting, with the transformation of materials by the application of heat. It no doubt began with the observation that clay is soft and easily shaped while wet, but dries hard in the sun; if wetted again, of course, it softens once more. The natural progression might have been to reinforce or emphasize the drying process in a fire. And so, by about nine or ten thousand years ago, it became known that when clay is fired to about 450 C it undergoes a chemical change and becomes irreversibly hard and water-proof. Above about 1400 C it undergoes a second change: the silica in the clay takes on a glassy structure, and the pottery becomes even more rigid.

At first, pots were heat-treated in open fires. In many parts of the world, including New Guinea, they still are. Later it was found that more predictable results could be obtained by stacking the pots on top of the fuel before lighting it, and covering the pile with earth or other material to keep in the heat and distribute it more evenly. Eventually it was realized that a permanent cover, with a built-in flue, was more efficient than making temporary piles for each firing. Thus, somewhere around the beginning of the sixth millennium BC, the pottery kiln came into existence.

With its thick, heat-retaining walls and flue-assisted natural draught, the pottery kiln could maintain temperatures well in excess of 1000 C for hours. In the enclosed space the fumes from the fire would tend to create a reducing atmosphere. Two of the conditions necessary for the smelting of copper were present. And so, on occasion, was the third requirement: the copper ores themselves.

Very early in the history of pottery, metallic ores had come into use for decoration, perhaps as a direct continuation of the tribal custom of body painting with ground-up mineral ores. The pigments were applied to the pots in liquid form, covered with a glaze – usually made with a lead oxide base – and fired. The pigments took on bright, permanent colours, and the glaze formed a hard, transparent protective coating.

There are many ways where pots are still decorated with metallic ores in this way, and fired in kilns whose design has hardly changed in thousands of years. One is Jarasthan, in northern India. The traditional brightly patterned ‘blue pottery’ produced in and around Jaipur, the capital, is derived form the Islamic style of pottery introduced into India in the sixteenth century. Today there are scores of potter continually engaged, but one who stands out because of his technical grasp of pottery making and the behavior of metallic pigments is Kripal Singh. His work is in demand all round the world, and is remarkable for its consistency and quality. And yet, as he showed us, Kripal Singh still occasionally produces – quite unintentionally – smelted metal in his own kiln.

Kripal Singh uses many different metal ores for pigments, including copper, lead, iron, antimony, and cobalt. He makes his glaze by heating lead oxide crystals in the kiln. They melt down into a glassy substance which is ground into a powder, mixed with a binding agent, and applied to the decorated pots before firing. Sometimes Kripal Singh has to throw away a batch of melted-down glaze because it contains globules of pure metallic lead. More rarely, the transformation takes place later, during the firing of the pots, and produces patches of metallic lead in the layer of glaze.

(p 16) We cannot be sure, of course, that this is how the smelting process was first observed or contrived, but the repetitive nature of pottery firing and the conditions involved make it an obvious possibility. It may be more than coincidence that copper artefacts do not begin to appear in the archaeological record in any quantity until after pottery itself appears. And two areas where high-temperature pottery firing evolved – Mesopotamia and Egypt – went on to develop a high level of copper technology.

If it was in fact the pottery kiln which provided the first clues to smelting, it would soon have been appreciated that such a device was not ideal for the deliberate reduction of metallic ores. In the large are space the reducing gases were not evenly distributed, and much of the heat was wasted. So we can imagine people trying all kinds of methods of creating more effectively the conditions for smelting.

Many directions those early experiments took remain a mystery, but we do know that somewhere along the way the metal workers turned back to, or modified, the open fire. The walls of the fireplace were brought in closer to the fire and raised in height to make a more enclosed space, in which the reducing gases could be concentrated. The copper ore was brought closer to the source of the heat by mixing it with the burning charcoal. Air was blown into the heart of the furnace to raise the temperature. And, finally, other substances such as iron ore were added to the copper ore as a ‘flux’. Fluxing assists the reduction process, and improves the separation of the molten copper from the slag.”

By this point in this essay, it should come as no surprise that the ability to create and maintain high heat in a kiln can be detected in pottery, and was not present in Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon time frame.

Matheny comments upon this:

“Karen Bruhns has explored the issue of early metals in southern Mesoamerica in a well-researched article and remarks that the Maya had some access to metal objects from the Early Classic period onwards. After a review of the information available about these early metal objects, she concludes that the “only relatively certain statement that can be made is, with the possible exception of the Soconusco disks… all Classic period metal objects found in Mesoamerica are obviously southeastern in manufacture” (1989, 221). This means that these artifacts were not made in the Maya area or in another region of Mesoamerica but in lower Central America.

If these metal objects were available to the Maya by at least Early Classic times, then the obvious problem becomes explaining why the Maya did not begin producing their own metal artifacts given the availability of gold, silver, and copper in eastern Guatemala, western Honduras, and El Salvador. Bruhns suggests that the southern Mesaoamericans lacked adequate pyrotechnology to make the transition to successful metallurgy (1989, 224). Specifically they lacked the technological prowess to attain and maintain the necessary temperatures to smelt metal. The ceramics from the area were fired in poorly controlled open fires, which often resulted in fire-clouding and incompletely oxidized areas. Only by the Late Classic and Early Postclassic periods does evidence exist that the Maya had begun producing ceramic vessels in controlled firing situations, including kilns. The adoption of the Central American metallurgical technology occurred in the Maya area soon after the production of Plumbate pottery began. Plumbate pottery has a vitrified surface and, according to Bruhns, the “temperatures which produce the characteristic vitrification of Tohil Plumbate are precisely those which are appropriate for smelting.” (1986, 226)”

[The Dude]

You're extremely skeptical? I'm shaking.

Beastie, how many books on Mesoamerica are you up to now? Did you read them all as poorly as you did Martha's?

Seriously?

[beastie]

All the horse and elephant remains sure set Darwin for a loop... especially since they weren't turned to stone.

What does this have to do with the topic at hand?

[Jeff K.]

Seriously?

So do you answer the question or ridicule the person asking the question?

[Zakuska]

What does this have to do with the topic at hand?

...earlier you said...

The only points that are significant in this list are the horses and metallurgy. Despite your willingness to rely on specious claims and poorly supported "evidence", experts in the field still maintain that there were no horses in the new world (post their natural extinction, of course) prior to European introduction.

So now Darwin gives poorly supported evidence?

All the horse remains through him for a loop because he had assumed what people assumed for centuries... that everything good and technologically advanced in America came because of Columbus. The Indians were all primitive savages who couldn't even strike two stones together to make fire.

Darwin finds a CORRODED horse tooth... Not fossilied... among some of his specimens in a dig. He find "soft as cheese" elephant bones. You telling me these animals died 200 million years ago?

[beastie]

So do you answer the question or ridicule the person asking the question?

Why should the dude answer a question directed to me?

I've read over three dozen books about ancient Mesoamerica, and some others on related topics (Mound builders, general archaeology). Of course I've spent many hours reading research online, as well, but don't count that.

As for the silly Martha reference, I refuse to be diverted from the topic, no matter how many attempts are made to do so.

[beastie]

So now Darwin gives poorly supported evidence?

All the horse remains through him for a loop because he had assumed what people assumed for centuries... that everything good and technologically advanced in America came because of Columbus. The Indians were all primitive savages who couldn't even strike two stones together to make fire.

Darwin finds a CORRODED horse tooth... Not fossilied... among some of his specimens in a dig.

I can't even begin to understand how you managed to draw these conclusions.

Poorly supported evidence isn't finding a confusing, but verified, artifact. Poorly supported evidence is pictographs of horses that turn out to be known frauds, and references to websites written by individuals who make claims that directly contradict what experts in the subject accept without giving verifiable evidence to support those same claims. It's linking to pictures of pit furnaces without providing verified dating. It's relying on very old research while ignoring updated research that corrects past errors.

[Zakuska]

I can't even begin to understand how you managed to draw these conclusions.

Poorly supported evidence isn't finding a confusing, but verified, artifact. Poorly supported evidence is pictographs of horses that turn out to be known frauds, and references to websites written by individuals who make claims that directly contradict what experts in the subject accept without giving verifiable evidence to support those same claims. It's linking to pictures of pit furnaces without providing verified dating. It's relying on very old research while ignoring updated research that corrects past errors.

Which raises an intresting question? Why do you accept what Darwin wrote about in his Diary as a "verfied artifact"? His finds where contradiciting what the experts in his field as well as others had been saying. It was bucking many past assumptions. How do we explain these SOFT horse and corroding Elephant bones he dug up? Surley they didn't die 7000 years ago.

[Zakuska]

An Ancient Inca Tax And Metallurgy In Peru

Their study is scheduled for the May 15 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

The University of Alberta's Colin A. Cooke and colleagues point out that past evidence for metal smelting, which involves heating ore to extract pure metal, was limited mainly to the existence of metal artifacts dating to about 1,000 A.D. and the Wari Empire that preceded the Inca.

The new evidence emerged from a study of metallurgical air pollutants released from ancient furnaces during the smelting process and deposited in lake sediments in the area.

By analyzing metals in the sediments, the researchers recreated a 1,000-year history of metal smelting in the area, predating Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadors by 600 years. Their findings show that smelters in the Morococha region of Peru switched from production of copper to silver around the time that Inca rulers imposed a tax, payable in silver, on local populations.

Article: "A Millennium of Metallurgy Recorded by Lake Sediments from Morococha, Peruvian Andes"

http://inkanaturatravel.blogspot.com/2007/...gy-in-peru.html

[beastie]

Which raises an intresting question? Why do you accept what Darwin wrote about in his Diary as a "verfied artifact"? His finds where contradiciting what the experts in his field as well as others had been saying. It was bucking many past assumptions. How do we explain these SOFT horse and corroding Elephant bones he dug up? Surley they didn't die 7000 years ago.

What, exactly, are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that the horse tooth and the mastodon bones weren't really from the extinct animals later identified?

Or are you suggesting that since I accept that Darwin actually found the artifacts he claimed to find (and collected for future reference) that I have to accept the claims of some person on the internet who is making claims that directly contradict the accepted knowledge of experts in the field? And who won't even provide the "proof" on his website, but says it will be in the book?

I really can't figure out what you're trying to say.

Of course sometimes scientific discoveries are made that overturn previously accepted thought. No one is disputing that. What I am disputing is that the evidence that has been provided on this thread for Mesoamerican metallurgy is of sufficient quality to qualify as able to overturn currently accepted thought.

[lostindc]

What, exactly, are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that the horse tooth and the mastodon bones weren't really from the extinct animals later identified?

Or are you suggesting that since I accept that Darwin actually found the artifacts he claimed to find (and collected for future reference) that I have to accept the claims of some person on the internet who is making claims that directly contradict the accepted knowledge of experts in the field? And who won't even provide the "proof" on his website, but says it will be in the book?

I really can't figure out what you're trying to say.

Of course sometimes scientific discoveries are made that overturn previously accepted thought. No one is disputing that. What I am disputing is that the evidence that has been provided on this thread for Mesoamerican metallurgy is of sufficient quality to qualify as able to overturn currently accepted thought.

Were the three dozen books you read on Meso-America interesting? Did you have fun reading them? I just hope you are having some sort of joy in your life because you are quite upset and stating ridiculous things and I am starting to worry about you...

[gtaggart]

If you want to pretend that barley and silk have the impact on civilization that horses and metallurgy do, you'll have to find someone else willing to kick that deflated ball.

And you don't get to decide the questions either.

Which has had the greatest impact on civilization isn't at issue. The fact that silk and barley were at one time strikes against the Book of Mormon in the minds of many critics is the issue. Odd how things change, even things that you are "extremely skeptical" will change.

[beastie]

Were the three dozen books you read on Meso-America interesting? Did you have fun reading them? I just hope you are having some sort of joy in your life because you are quite upset and stating ridiculous things and I am starting to worry about you...

You can read the bibiographies on my website, that will give you a good idea. Yes, I had fun reading them - the Maya are a fascinating culture. I think they should get as much attention as ancient Eygpt does. Trying to understand, as much as possible, an ancient culture teaches one quite a bit about human nature in general. I strongly suggest it.

I'm not upset at all. I'm also not stating anything ridiculous - I'm stating what the experts who have studied this field for decades maintain. You have absolutely no reason to worry about me.

And you don't get to decide the questions either.

Which has had the greatest impact on civilization isn't at issue. The fact that silk and barley were at one time strikes against the Book of Mormon in the minds of many critics is the issue. Odd how things change, even things that you are "extremely skeptical" will change.

I get to decide what I want to discuss. If a thread had been started about silk or barley, I wouldn't even have participated. I haven't studied either of those issues and find them uninteresting because of their lack of overall impact.

I know that many believers like to find some criticism that some skeptic made somewhere in time (like wrought iron, I've never heard that brought up as a criticism, outside the metallurgy issue), and act like all skeptics are accountable in some way for that criticism (like adieu). I address the anachronisms that I think could not possibly be "translation artifacts" due to the contextual material, and anachronisms that are significant in terms of how cultures evolve. I have no interest in trying to deal with every single accused anachronism in the book, and despite what you seem to think, I do get to decide what to study and discuss.

Certainly things change. Perhaps you would like to address how metallurgy could really exist in ancient Mesoamerica and yet they did not use that type of controlled heat to produce pottery.

[Zakuska]

You can read the bibiographies on my website, that will give you a good idea. Yes, I had fun reading them - the Maya are a fascinating culture. I think they should get as much attention as ancient Eygpt does. Trying to understand, as much as possible, an ancient culture teaches one quite a bit about human nature in general. I strongly suggest it.

I'm not upset at all. I'm also not stating anything ridiculous - I'm stating what the experts who have studied this field for decades maintain. You have absolutely no reason to worry about me.

I get to decide what I want to discuss. If a thread had been started about silk or barley, I wouldn't even have participated. I haven't studied either of those issues and find them uninteresting because of their lack of overall impact.

I know that many believers like to find some criticism that some skeptic made somewhere in time (like wrought iron, I've never heard that brought up as a criticism, outside the metallurgy issue), and act like all skeptics are accountable in some way for that criticism (like adieu). I address the anachronisms that I think could not possibly be "translation artifacts" due to the contextual material, and anachronisms that are significant in terms of how cultures evolve. I have no interest in trying to deal with every single accused anachronism in the book, and despite what you seem to think, I do get to decide what to study and discuss.

Certainly things change. Perhaps you would like to address how metallurgy could really exist in ancient Mesoamerica and yet they did not use that type of controlled heat to produce pottery.

Well lets see... We know the Egyptians produced steele as early as 2900 BC. Its certianly possible that Lehi and co. brought the technology with them.

http://www.catchpenny.org/iron.html

[beastie]

Well lets see... We know the Egyptians produced steele as early as 2900 BC. Its certianly possible that Lehi and co. brought the technology with them.

I'm at a loss as how this responds to the point you quoted in your reply.

Yes, of course the suggestion is that the Lehites not only brought the technology with them, but, as stated in the BoM, Nephi taught his followers these sort of technologies.

The point is that there is no evidence of metallurgy in ancient Mesoamerica during the BoM time period. Even more problematic is the fact that there is no evidence that the ancient Mesoamericans, during the BoM time period, possessed the technology to control heat at the high temperature required for metallurgy, as witnessed in their pottery.