英文摘要: |
Crucible lead smelting, a unique traditional Chinese lead smelting technology, is a method using metallic iron to reduce lead from lead sulphide in crucibles. This paper summarises the documents on crucible lead smelting technology, and presents a detailed description of the whole smelting process including furnace construction, crucible making, charge preparation, smelting operation, and silver and gold extraction. In addition, crucibles and slag from two crucible lead smelting sites found in recent years are analysed to reconstruct the technology employed. This technology is then compared with other traditional crucible smelting technologies: zinc distillation and crucible iron smelting, and its technological characteristics are elaborated. |