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Wait a second, why exactly could they not transport charcoal? I did this plenty of times, real charcoal, mind you, which one can buy easily in Germany. I unders

Wait a second, why exactly could they not transport charcoal? I did this plenty of times, real charcoal, mind you, which one can buy easily in Germany. I understand that it is brittle, but putting it into sacks and carrying it off should not produce any problems after 4km, right?

outworlder 6y ago
Carrying it, how? Assume uneven terrain, either human or animals. The sacks are being banged around (and are probably pretty porous). They may not necessarily have chariots, wagons or other animal powered vehicles at all or in the necessary quantity. > I did this plenty of times How much did you carry? Was it for barbecue or are you a blacksmith? How did you transport it over 4km? Did you use any roads? Any modern containers? Like the article says, iron smelting requires an enormous amount of charcoal.
- choeger 6y ago
  It doesn't really matter how I carried it (using a car most of the time and occasionally a bicycle), but that the author claimed it would have been too brittle to do so. I understand the limitations of medieval logistics. What I do not understand is the difference in transporting charcoal compared to, e.g., lumber.
  - setr 6y ago
    I would imagine a horse-led wagon on wooden wheels with no suspension mechanisms over under-paved dirt paths would be dramatically more bumpy than a car on presumably paved road/dirt.
DanBC 6y ago
It crumbles into dust and tiny fragments which makes it much harder to use.
legitster 6y ago
I think the author over emphasized the brittleness. At the scale you would need the stuff, it would be much harder and more expensive to move than it is worth. For the same reason that even today things like gravel and sand are almost always locally sourced. Remember that in the medieval period, even sacks were relatively valuable things.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Also, prior to the invention of the steam engine, you couldn't move goods overland with any sort of efficiency. You needed, at a minimum, canals. The author of the blog has covered this in great detail in previous posts and it comes out to something like you can't have an overland supply chain longer than a week in pre-modern times because the draft animals will eat more than they carry in food in a week. A 5-day supply chain is already carrying more in food than it is other goods. And you can't just rely on pasturage because (a) it's often not available (and highly depends on season), (b) your draft animals would need to spend hours each day foraging to get enough food, which is hours they aren't spending moving, and thus (c) the trip takes longer and you need to bring more food for the humans accompanying it. So, yeah, you could probably have carried charcoal from one town to the next, but you aren't gonna see long supply chains of charcoal, same way you didn't see long supply chains of anything else. That's why the biggest cities in the period were so small by modern standards, and were all along rivers/oceans; you literally couldn't supply more than a medium-sized city by land because it was impossible to get enough food into the city.
  - teleforce 6y ago
    The exception to that if you have camels as your draft animals. It is reported that camels can survive 6 to 7 months without proper food or drink [1]. Ancient Arabia has established trading routes that operated from Mecca, during winter to Yemen and during summer to Sham (modern Syria). [1]https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/camel-go-without-water1.htm https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/camel-go-without-w...

outworlder 6y ago

Carrying it, how? Assume uneven terrain, either human or animals. The sacks are being banged around (and are probably pretty porous). They may not necessarily have chariots, wagons or other animal powered vehicles at all or in the necessary quantity. > I did this plenty of times How much did you carry? Was it for barbecue or are you a blacksmith? How did you transport it over 4km? Did you use any roads? Any modern containers? Like the article says, iron smelting requires an enormous amount of charcoal.

choeger 6y ago
It doesn't really matter how I carried it (using a car most of the time and occasionally a bicycle), but that the author claimed it would have been too brittle to do so. I understand the limitations of medieval logistics. What I do not understand is the difference in transporting charcoal compared to, e.g., lumber.
- setr 6y ago
  I would imagine a horse-led wagon on wooden wheels with no suspension mechanisms over under-paved dirt paths would be dramatically more bumpy than a car on presumably paved road/dirt.

DanBC 6y ago

It crumbles into dust and tiny fragments which makes it much harder to use.

legitster 6y ago

I think the author over emphasized the brittleness. At the scale you would need the stuff, it would be much harder and more expensive to move than it is worth. For the same reason that even today things like gravel and sand are almost always locally sourced. Remember that in the medieval period, even sacks were relatively valuable things.

CydeWeys 6y ago
Also, prior to the invention of the steam engine, you couldn't move goods overland with any sort of efficiency. You needed, at a minimum, canals. The author of the blog has covered this in great detail in previous posts and it comes out to something like you can't have an overland supply chain longer than a week in pre-modern times because the draft animals will eat more than they carry in food in a week. A 5-day supply chain is already carrying more in food than it is other goods. And you can't just rely on pasturage because (a) it's often not available (and highly depends on season), (b) your draft animals would need to spend hours each day foraging to get enough food, which is hours they aren't spending moving, and thus (c) the trip takes longer and you need to bring more food for the humans accompanying it. So, yeah, you could probably have carried charcoal from one town to the next, but you aren't gonna see long supply chains of charcoal, same way you didn't see long supply chains of anything else. That's why the biggest cities in the period were so small by modern standards, and were all along rivers/oceans; you literally couldn't supply more than a medium-sized city by land because it was impossible to get enough food into the city.
- teleforce 6y ago
  The exception to that if you have camels as your draft animals. It is reported that camels can survive 6 to 7 months without proper food or drink [1]. Ancient Arabia has established trading routes that operated from Mecca, during winter to Yemen and during summer to Sham (modern Syria). [1]https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/camel-go-without-water1.htm https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/camel-go-without-w...