Danish Vikings Metal Recycling Plant

[Ichingcarpenter]

An 11th-century metalworking site recently discovered in the city of York (This area was settled by Danes) is likely evidence of a makeshift recycling center, where Vikings took weapons for reprocessing after battle, according to historian Charles Jones, organizer of the Fulford Battlefield Society, which advocates preserving the battle site against potential development.

Jones and his team have found hundreds of pieces of ironwork—including axes, sword parts, and arrowheads—along with lumps of melted-down iron and the remains of smelting pits.

"We found several 'smithing hearth bottoms'—the remains of the molten metal which dribbles down during the reprocessing of the weaponry ironwork," he told the York Press.


"The Vikings were very skillful metalworkers," Sindbæk, an archaeologist, told National Geographic News. "Their weaponry is famous for the way iron is treated.

"Any metal was a precious material that would be recycled," he added. "Whoever won a fight in this period would collect what was left on the battlefield."



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091214-viking-recycling.html