Green Village Sustainable ancestors action
Náttúrustofa Vestfjarða ,Iceland , 28.May th – 05th June 2011
Introduction:
The Icelandic action of sustainable ancestors took place in Iceland from 28. May to 05. June 2012. The task of the workshop was
to try to make iron from bog iron. This was done in Iceland from the settlement of Iceland in the 9 th century until late middle
ages when inportend iron took over. I Iceland over the recent years we have had excavations on few sites around Iceland were it
has become known that we see to have been in mass production of Iron in Viking age. The sites show remains of many iron
smelters and huge piles of slag suggest that the quantity of the iron made there was not small. The fureses that are excavated
have one problem, we can just see the bottom of them as the rest has gone over the last 1000 years. On to of that the furneses
often had to be destroyed to restract the iron bloom at the bottom. So the first task we had before the project started was to
figure out how we wanted to make the furness and what documents it shoud be based on. Most iron smelter in Europe are
made out of clay. Iceland do not have clay that is workable. The reason is that Iceland is volcanic island and it is young in geology
teams and the clay that we do find here has not proven to be workable due to the young age of the soil and the clay do not fire
like in other countries. We decided to make a Furness that was based on the interpitation that the archaeologist Kevin Smith
made of a furness that he excavated in the west of Iceland in Hals in Borgarfjörður. Kevin saw that the furness had been made
out of turf and stones and he made a drawing of how he though that the furness had looked like. With that drawing and advices
we desited to give it a go and make the 4 attemt to smelt bog iron since the middle ages. One group in Akranes had tryed with
good success 3 times and our try would be number 4 in Iceland that had been made over the last 400 years
Exchange of Skills and Knowledge
In the task we had before us we had on the other hand drawings of how a possible furnace had looked like
in Iceland. And we had been in contract with people in Canada that had made similar attempts for many
years, but no one had made a furness in Iceland like we attemted to do. The one made in privies attempts
in Iceland was made out of bricks. Bricks did not come to Iceland until the late middle ages so it is clear
that the Vikings never used them. We also had fuesses that are made in Europe with clay that we looked to
as the function of a iron smelter is the same regardless of how he is constructed.
What we had was in fact just a crazy idea that we were going to try. No one of the team had done this
before. The only thing we had was the deep motivation to try this. But what helped us was how the team
that came from Green village was constructed and also we had team of VETPRO trainers from UK that had
all experience that helped us. So in fact it was due to the team and to the differed background and skills of
the people taking part in the action that this was possible. No one the team knew what they were doing,
but with team work and combined knowledge of the people of the team from Green village and VETPRO
we started . So in fact the exchange of skills and knowledge was put to the real test in this action.
The making of the furnace
The first thing we did was to make the base of the furness , that was made with stones as the excavated
one show that a circular stone foundation is at the bottom. Here we were lucky that one of the VETPRO
participants was master dry stone wall builder as well as the hoist of the event. The stone bulder layed the
fudation with drawings of that the tree archaeologists’ of the group had found during their preparation
going though written documents and reports. After the pit or the bottom of the furmess had been layed
we made a cut into one of the stone to insert the triune were the air needed to come into the furness.
Then we needed to construct the walls of the furmess, that is usually made of clay in outher countrys. We
took thick layers of flat turf similar to thouse used to lay grass. But thise one had densed layer of roots
system in them that made them heavy and dense. The turf was cut so it made a circular furness on top of
the stone base. Of cores one can not stuff charcoals into a turf furnace were the heat is around 1200
degrees. In the report from the archelolgist Kevin Smith thinks he saw a small remains of a clay and he
interperd it the way that the furniss was lined insite with clay. Martin Clark from the Green village had a lot
of expirance of making clay over the years. So the team had a crazy idea. We knew that the only place
were we finde clay close to were we were located was in the next village. The village is called Hveragerði
and is 10 min away from were the team was bulding the furness. Hveragerði means the place of the hot
springs and the town is full of boiling hot springs. We got permission from the university of agriculture that
is located there and has a few hot springs on there premissis to extract clay from the hot spring.
The hot sping that we got the clay from was ,,born,, in 2008 when big earthquake happend in the south of
Iceland and in the middle of the woods above the university the ground opend in few places and new hot
springs developed sending bouling water and clay up to the surface. Bouilg and killing all the trees around.
The team went to one of them with bucets and spades and retracted few bucets of 100 degree hot clay.
The nest step was to mix it with sand and hores manure and we has bucets of clay made.
We had no idea if this clay woud work but we smierd the turf furmes with the clay as well as the bottom
part of stone. The big question was if this clay would hold the heat from the truf so it would not set the
furness on fire. We desites to pre-heat the the furesss the day before the smelt after the construction of it
was over. The reason was to dry the clay so the evegy of the fire would not go into dyring tha clay and to
see if the clay would hold. The clay seemd to hold that day, it became hard and did not burn. There was
just 3.cm of clay betewwn the fire and the turf. But the big question was if the clay would holde when air
was led into the furnace and the head would be around 1100 degrees.
The ore the we used was just iron rich soil found everywere in the south. It has a rich red color of iron but
is unlike normal iron ore as it us bog iron.
Bog iron refers to impure iron deposits that develop in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical
oxidation of iron carried in the solutions. In general, bog ores consist primarily of iron oxyhydroxides,
commonly goethite (FeO(OH)).
Iron-bearing groundwater typically emerges as a spring. The iron is oxidized to ferric hydroxide upon
encountering the oxidizing environment of the surface. Bog ore often combines goethite, magnetite and
vugs or stained quartz. Oxidation may occur through enzyme catalysis by iron bacteria. It is not clear
whether the magnetite precipitates upon first contact with oxygen, then oxidizes to ferric compounds, or
whether the ferric compounds are reduced when exposed to anoxic conditions upon burial beneath the
sediment surface and reoxidized upon exhumation at the surface.
Iron made from bog ore will often contain residual silicates, which can form a glassy coating that grants
some resistance to rusting.
So in the aria were we took the iron it was just in the from of iron rich soft soil that we dyed.
We had prepare 60 kg of iron ore before the project. There was no need to roast the bog iron soil before as
the soil in Iceland seem to be very magnetic. With the 60 kg of dryed iron ore and 80 kg of charcoal we
were ready to try to make iron like our sustainable ancestors had done around 1000 years ago.
The big day started at 8 a clock with the pre-heat of the furness. At that point we saw that the bellows that
we intend to use were not geting the fire hot engoug to smelt iron. We would have needed 2 bellows so
we turned to plan b witch was had driven forge motor, but soon that broke so we needed to get back to
plan c with were unfortunately a vacuum cleaner, not exactly what our sustainable ancestors had used.
But at 10 a clock we started to feed the furness with iron ore and charcoal and keept putting ore and coal
every 10 min or so. The oven was fead this for 6 hours when the heat was going down, then we taped the
slag from the oven and soon after that we saw that the smelt was coming to an end due to the loss of heat
for some reason. The clay held the whole 8 hours and the turf never burned and caught fire, event thoug at
some point the fire tryed to get out the clay was stronger.
At 5 a clock we opened the furness and restacked a bloom from it, we had to take the furness apart to
take out the bloom. It was taken out and beeten to beat out the inpuretys but turend out to be just slag,
then the team stoped and took a brake, happy that the furness worked but did not make iron. One houre
later we went back to the furness and to our happiness we found another bloom at the bottom of the pit.
That bloom was beaten and turned out to have iron and in that bloom we got 2.8 kg of iron.
That made the team very happy and was amazing that a team of people that had never done this before
was able to pull this off with this fantastic result. This was only possible tough team work and the fact that
the team was from different parts of the world with different background andexperiences. This action
prove undoubtedly that the best way is learning by doing
Engaging Communities (WP1):
What we did in this action in Iceland was to involve the community, that was done by having a Viking day,
on the same day as the iron smelting. Every one in the Árbær village or community was involved. As well
we placed a advertisement in the local paper about the Viking day. We had entertainment all day, Vikings
came and demastoted Viking games and battle, Viking woman showed wool coloring at the Viking house
that was built at Green village action sustainable building the year before. We thing that over 100 people
came to the evetnt and almost all the villagers of Árbær took part one way or the other, by helping out or
just coming to the event. By combining the iron smelting with the Viking day we go a lot of guests that took
part in the action. The day was sunny and warm and most people stayed all day for the event. By involving
all the comunety of Árbær this proved to be a huge success. People came to help out, make tea, dress as
Vikings, play games, play instruments and just helping in any way possible.
Learning By Doing (WP3):
The participants ‘in the action in Iceland came from 4 countries from Green village and Iceland they were, people, Slovakia sent
two , England two , one came from Rumania. And one from Italy
list is as follows
Martin Clark Grampus Heritage and training, England
David Watson, England Blacksmith
Margrét Hallmundsdóttir Archeologist Náttúrustofa vestfjarða, Iceland GV
Guðjón Kristinsson Stokkar og steinar (teacher) Iceland Contractor
Hildur Hákonardóttir Weaver Iceland
Guðrún Jóna Þráinsdóttir Archeology student Iceland
Tibor Pálinkás - archaeologist, Slovakía GV
Ľudovít Dudáš – Blacksmith Slovakía GV
Monica Opran Salu verde Romania GV
Carolina Lombardini, IVALSA Italy researcher
Tómas Smári Guðmundson villager/ student
Guðbjartur Daníel Guðmundsson villager/ student
Linda Ásdísardóttir Árnessýsla folk museum
Large part of the Icelandic participants’ were funded my match funding from the south coast cultural fund and also donated
their work to the project.
A large picture needs to be included here, as
we want to make the reports visually
interesting (images are often better than
words).
Right-Click on this picture and select “Change
Picture” to add your own.
(1) –Foundation stones of the house laid
(2) – The foundation
(4) – Turf and stones on the outer wall
(5) – the preparing of the frame ...
(10) – The first post were placed
(11) – then the frame itself
(3) – more layers and turf in between
(6) - ... the inside of the house was just stones
(12) – split driftwood under the turf that would be placed
The building was made of turf and stone with stone on the inside and turf and stone on the outside the wall was then filled with
gravel and the foundation stones were the biggest and cheerfully chosen. Then a layer of turf was placed on top and then filled
with gravel, then the next layer of stones. The stones on the inside needed to have as flat surface and possible.
While part of the team was building the walls of the house another part was preparing the wood for the frame. At the last day
the wood workers came to the house with the timer and the team raised the frame.
With all this skilled people working the walls of the house and the wood frame went up in just 4 days and that is unbelievable
result of team of people that was in no way familiar with building of turf and stone.
Learning By Doing (WP3):
The participants ‘in the action in Iceland came from 4 countries and Iceland they were, Germany that sent 4 people, Slovakia
sent one, England sent 3 and one came from Rumania. They list is as follows Martin Clark Grampus Heritage and training,
England
Martin Clark England GV,
John Lloyd Thomas, England GV
David Watson, England
GV
Margrét Hallmundsdóttir Náttúrustofa vestfjarða, Iceland GV
Guðjón Kristinsson Stokkar og steinar (teacher) Iceland Contractor
Nikola Trbojevic P.hd Archeaology student Iceland
Scott Riddel P.hd Archeaology student Iceland
Hildur Hákonardóttir Wever Iceland
Guðrún Jóna Þráinsdóttir Archealolgy student Iceland
Dieter Kotras Germny GV
Peter Kaiser Dubener Heude Naturpark Garmany
Torsten Wagner Germny GV
Albrecht Hagen Germany GV
Allila Apa Slovakía GV
Monica Opran Salu verde Romania GV
Tómas Smári Guðmundson villager/ student
Guðbjartur Daníel Guðmundsson villager/ student
Linda Ásdísardóttir Árnessýsla folk museum
Large part of the Icelandic participants’ were funded my match funding from the south coast cultural fund and also donated
their work to the project.
Eco-Check (WP6):
The marital used in the pit house was very environmentally friendly. The house is build out of stone and turf and gravel. All the
marital is found within 10 km from the building site. The timber for the frame was donated to the building by local forestry
department and the wood came from natural cutting of the trees in the forest. The turf was cut in Stokkseyri near the building
place and the stones came from a mine close by. So almost all the marital was local. We use driftwood for the roof and that is
the only material that came from other part of Iceland, form the westfjörds were the beaches are often filled with driftwood.
From the settlement the use of driftwood was very important part of timber use in buildings in Iceland. The marital was
transported on site by trucks. The only part of the house that could be considered not environmentally friendly is the plastic
that was placed between the timber roof and the turf but that is necessary to keep the roof waterproof and to keep the turf
alive on to of the house.
Monitoring and Evaluation (WP5):
This project went extremely well and in just for days the walls and the frame were finished, that is really good result as no one in
the group had ever build from stone and turf before. The reason for this susses was the team that worked together as one and a
lot if experienced people came to the project, with a lot of work experience know how to work with their hands. Many of the
participants’ have worked on reconstructions of other houses and that also resulted in this excellent team. The building of the
house was a great success but the house has a after live..... Archaeologists and Archaeology students have thought that in the
house in Árbær will be conducted experimental archeology and is planning to install an oven similar to those remains have been
found in excavations We intend to put up upright loom to tests on whether the properties of wool will change some of the
heat. As well the plan is to investigate the temperature and different heat sources and special equipment will be obtained to
measure pollution from different sources. The building will serve the purpose of research as well as being a fun house for people
to meet in and the plan is to build up more Viking houses in the same place and use it for teaching and transferring knowledge in
Viking crafts.
All participants expressed great satisfaction about action and working on the house, that information was gathered by talking to
the participants’. Feedback form will also be sent to all that took part in building this Viking age pit house in Iceland
Also, what tools did you use to evaluate the success of your action? Feedback forms, simply talking to the participants and
asking them questions, self-evaluation, a check-list of targets etc.
The pit house in its final stages