Kondoma Tatars and the Bloomery Process (source: the Great Northern Expedition)

• Main Author: Evgeny V. Vodyasov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sochi State University 2016-06-01
• Series: Bylye Gody
• Subjects: Kondoma tatars; Western Siberia; the iron smelting; the Great northern expedition; Johann Georg Gmelin; Johann Wilhelm Lursenius
• Online Access: http://bg.sutr.ru/journals_n/1465041701.pdf

The article presents for the first time the unique source for studying indigenous ironmaking in West Siberia. This is a copy of the illustration made by Johann Wilhelm Lursenius on 19 September 1734 during the Second Kamchatka Expedition (the copy is kept in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts). On that day, the artist together with German scientist Johann Georg Gmelin observed the iron melting process in a Tatar yurt in Gornaya Shoria, and they both documented these observations in detail, each in his own way. The synchronous description and sketching of a traditional trade technology is a most singular or even the unique phenomenon in Siberian ethnography of the early 18th century. The article features excerpts from Gmelin’s 1751 work devoted to iron ore smelting by Kondoma Tatars and provides an analysis of the illustration by Lursenius. Ferrous metallurgy of Kondoma Tatars in the 18th century involved using «small» iron-smelting furnaces (0.3 m high at the most) placed at the hearths of yurts. Besides, Tatars decorated the upper part of the furnace with carving. As seen from the analysis of archaeological and ethnographic sources, the tradition of building such furnaces and smelting iron ore in dwellings existed in the Upper Parts of Ob River from the early 5th century AD to the ethnographic modernity. Ethnographic sources and archaeological experiments reveal that one small furnace could yield about 1 kg iron. According to historical sources, a few kilograms would make a year of trouble-free housekeeping for a Tatar family. This explains why «home production» of iron was so widespread, when a dwelling would be turned into a metallurgy shop to provide the family with all necessary tools and utensils.