Dr Fabian Wadsworth fabian.b.wadsworth@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor
Friendly fire: Engineering a fort wall in the Iron Age
Wadsworth, Fabian B.; Heap, Michael J.; Dingwell, Donald B.
Authors
Michael J. Heap
Donald B. Dingwell
Abstract
There is widespread evidence that the walls of Iron Age forts across Europe were set on fire, causing partial melting of the stonework followed by either recrystallization or glass formation on cooling – a process termed “vitrification”. The motivation for fort wall firing has remained speculative since its first description in 1777. Since the suggestion of MacKie (1969) that fort vitrification might destabilize fort walls, the debate as to motives has focused on combative or destructive intentions. Here, a multidisciplinary analysis of experimental fort wall samples shows that in fact vitrification results in strengthening, not weakening. The strengthening involves diffusive and viscous sintering of material aggregates and size-dependent heat transfer. These new results support a long-since-dismissed idea that Iron Age fort walls were intentionally set ablaze in order to fortify the walls.
Citation
Wadsworth, F. B., Heap, M. J., & Dingwell, D. B. (2016). Friendly fire: Engineering a fort wall in the Iron Age. Journal of Archaeological Science, 67, 7-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2016.01.011
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jan 23, 2016 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 13, 2016 |
Publication Date | Mar 1, 2016 |
Deposit Date | Mar 20, 2018 |
Publicly Available Date | May 29, 2018 |
Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science |
Print ISSN | 0305-4403 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 67 |
Pages | 7-13 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2016.01.011 |
Files
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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