5 ms·

The Inchtuthil Nail Hoard

80 points by Luc 1y ago

Nzen 1y ago
tl;dr The article examines some context around a 5 ton hoard of ancient roman nails discovered during 1959, at Inchtuthil (near Dunkeld in Scotland). The romans built a fort and stockpiled these nails (and other materials) at Inchtuthil. However, they needed to abandon the fort and opted to bury a cache of nails six feet below ground, rather than cart them away or leave them in place. This prevented the locals from impounding the nails and melting them into other weapons against the romans. The quantity of nails indicates the scope of materials needed to construct a fort, as well as the blacksmithing quality available at the time. If this interests you, I recommend Bret Devereaux's five part series about medieval iron production and use, https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-hammer-time/ https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
opwieurposiu 1y ago
I randomly found an anvil on sale for cheap and now our family has the blacksmithing bug. One of our favorite things to do is take a couple anvils and a small forge down to the park and let the kids smash red hot nails into "mini-swords". We have also started selling the swords on his lemonade cart, People actually buy them! You would think this would be a dangerous activity but it turns out to be petty tame. About 1/20 kids burns a finger, and when they finish yelling they inevitably tough up and get back to work because they are having so much fun. So anyway, scrounge up plumbing torch and some nails and let the kids make "mini-swords." You can use a sledge hammer or any big chunk of metal as your anvil. If you want to see what the "swords" look like my kid has pictures on his site: https://lemonsword.com/ https://lemonsword.com/
- CamperBob2 1y ago
  This is just too awesome for words. Those kids will come away with memories that they couldn't have made any other way.
  - IncreasePosts 1y ago
    More memories; fewer eyes
    - opwieurposiu 1y ago
      You're not wrong. Our family safety glasses compliance rate is about 50%, def something we could improve on. When supervising other people's kids I get that rate up into 90s. I will ensure we have at least have glasses on the next time we take photos for the website lol.
      - mmooss 1y ago
        This is really fantastic. But now that you've posted it, you'd better get that up to 100% or get a good lawyer. :)
  - metalman 1y ago
    I did a festivle where I set up a portable blacksmith shop, and was swarmed by kids,talking to the old time smiths, kids in shops, was the norm, given hammers as soon as they could get a good swing, it's something that never needs to be encouraged, like puppys, bicycles, and all the rest, now with video games and I got my start when I was 8....letting myself in anywhere the big doors were open. It is a known fact that making nails and small chain was a task that fell to women and children in historical times. And I must say that I am quite angry and disapointed by the archiologists who decided to send 5 tons of good ancient nails to be melted down as scrap,last paragraph in the article, as it demonstrates a very strong indication that the entire proffesion needs to be better educated and regulated.....the old times would say * " theys spoilt you, used to sucking from the front tit!"* * agricultural reference to the hiarcical order of piglets maintaining there positions when nursing over time.
- peepeepoopoo122 1y ago
  [flagged]
- mcphage 1y ago
  That’s really sweet! What do you mean by a “small forge”? My son is interested in blacksmithing.
  - opwieurposiu 1y ago
    We just got the cheapest single burner propane forge eBay/Amazon. Working great so far. Looks like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/176573538859 https://www.ebay.com/itm/176573538859 Note that a forge produces big noisy flame and burns a lot of gas. If all you want to do is heat a nail a plumbing torch will suffice. But if you want to make a knife you will need some sort of forge.
    - janderson215 1y ago
      Looks like an Ooni pizza oven!
    - mcphage 1y ago
      Thank you!
- hacknewslogin 1y ago
  They look great! Double-headed nails make great mini swords. I use them to show that I can make a sword in one heat. Smash it flat, file some small tapers and you're set. Plus, it fits in the hand of a lego person :P
a_shovel 1y ago
In another era this would have been a kingly fortune. That's one risk of buried treasure: not all treasure will keep its value well. You might find a pile of gold coins, or maybe it'll be aluminum spoons (once highly valuable), cowrie shells, or iron nails.
- opwieurposiu 1y ago
  The labor for this many nails is intense. They had to first smelt the iron, cast the pigs, "puddle" the cast iron to remove carbon and make wrought iron, hammer the wrought into rod, and THEN they could start making the nails. 800,000 nails × 3 minutes = 2.4 million minutes = 40,000 hours = 20 Years of labor
  - Aloisius 1y ago
    3 minutes seems like an awful long time for an experienced smith to forge a nail.
    - ejp 1y ago
      Judging from a recent thing I watched[1] ... ~1.5 mins per nail (as of the 8.5 hr + 352 nail mark), while streaming and talking. That would bring it down to only ~7 years of labor if we call it 1 min per nail, assuming that you're already working from prepared bar stock. Still a significant expenditure of skilled labor! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jAFLG8Y1XY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jAFLG8Y1XY
      - Aloisius 1y ago
        A nailer in the US in the 18th century could apparently make 200 nails per hour.[1] One in the UK reported making 3,000 nails/day in the 19th century.[2] Adam Smith reported seeing boys making 2,300 nails/day.[3] As I understand it, nail making was largely unchanged from the Roman era. One would have to adjust for work hours which differed in the past than today for those, but it like it would take someone 2 years to produce that number working modern hours, though likely less than 1 in the era they were produced. [1] https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/issue-15-t-o-c-kenneth-schwarz-accustomed-to-handle-the-hammer-the-nail-making-specialty-in-pre-industrial-manufacture https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/issue-15-t-o-c... [2] https://www.bournheath-pc.gov.uk/about-bournheath/bournheath-nailmakers/ https://www.bournheath-pc.gov.uk/about-bournheath/bournheath... [3] https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/chapter-1-of-the-division-of-labour https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/chapter-1-of-the-di...
aaroninsf 1y ago
It came as some surprise that Inchtuthil was not a Nahuatl place name. That did resolve my confusion, with nails not AFAIK being used by the Aztecs.

80 points by Luc 1y ago

Nzen 1y ago

tl;dr The article examines some context around a 5 ton hoard of ancient roman nails discovered during 1959, at Inchtuthil (near Dunkeld in Scotland). The romans built a fort and stockpiled these nails (and other materials) at Inchtuthil. However, they needed to abandon the fort and opted to bury a cache of nails six feet below ground, rather than cart them away or leave them in place. This prevented the locals from impounding the nails and melting them into other weapons against the romans. The quantity of nails indicates the scope of materials needed to construct a fort, as well as the blacksmithing quality available at the time. If this interests you, I recommend Bret Devereaux's five part series about medieval iron production and use, https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-hammer-time/ https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-...

opwieurposiu 1y ago

I randomly found an anvil on sale for cheap and now our family has the blacksmithing bug. One of our favorite things to do is take a couple anvils and a small forge down to the park and let the kids smash red hot nails into "mini-swords". We have also started selling the swords on his lemonade cart, People actually buy them! You would think this would be a dangerous activity but it turns out to be petty tame. About 1/20 kids burns a finger, and when they finish yelling they inevitably tough up and get back to work because they are having so much fun. So anyway, scrounge up plumbing torch and some nails and let the kids make "mini-swords." You can use a sledge hammer or any big chunk of metal as your anvil. If you want to see what the "swords" look like my kid has pictures on his site: https://lemonsword.com/ https://lemonsword.com/

CamperBob2 1y ago
This is just too awesome for words. Those kids will come away with memories that they couldn't have made any other way.
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  More memories; fewer eyes
  - opwieurposiu 1y ago
    You're not wrong. Our family safety glasses compliance rate is about 50%, def something we could improve on. When supervising other people's kids I get that rate up into 90s. I will ensure we have at least have glasses on the next time we take photos for the website lol.
    - mmooss 1y ago
      This is really fantastic. But now that you've posted it, you'd better get that up to 100% or get a good lawyer. :)
- metalman 1y ago
  I did a festivle where I set up a portable blacksmith shop, and was swarmed by kids,talking to the old time smiths, kids in shops, was the norm, given hammers as soon as they could get a good swing, it's something that never needs to be encouraged, like puppys, bicycles, and all the rest, now with video games and I got my start when I was 8....letting myself in anywhere the big doors were open. It is a known fact that making nails and small chain was a task that fell to women and children in historical times. And I must say that I am quite angry and disapointed by the archiologists who decided to send 5 tons of good ancient nails to be melted down as scrap,last paragraph in the article, as it demonstrates a very strong indication that the entire proffesion needs to be better educated and regulated.....the old times would say * " theys spoilt you, used to sucking from the front tit!"* * agricultural reference to the hiarcical order of piglets maintaining there positions when nursing over time.
peepeepoopoo122 1y ago
[flagged]
mcphage 1y ago
That’s really sweet! What do you mean by a “small forge”? My son is interested in blacksmithing.
- opwieurposiu 1y ago
  We just got the cheapest single burner propane forge eBay/Amazon. Working great so far. Looks like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/176573538859 https://www.ebay.com/itm/176573538859 Note that a forge produces big noisy flame and burns a lot of gas. If all you want to do is heat a nail a plumbing torch will suffice. But if you want to make a knife you will need some sort of forge.
  - janderson215 1y ago
    Looks like an Ooni pizza oven!
  - mcphage 1y ago
    Thank you!
hacknewslogin 1y ago
They look great! Double-headed nails make great mini swords. I use them to show that I can make a sword in one heat. Smash it flat, file some small tapers and you're set. Plus, it fits in the hand of a lego person :P

a_shovel 1y ago

In another era this would have been a kingly fortune. That's one risk of buried treasure: not all treasure will keep its value well. You might find a pile of gold coins, or maybe it'll be aluminum spoons (once highly valuable), cowrie shells, or iron nails.

opwieurposiu 1y ago
The labor for this many nails is intense. They had to first smelt the iron, cast the pigs, "puddle" the cast iron to remove carbon and make wrought iron, hammer the wrought into rod, and THEN they could start making the nails. 800,000 nails × 3 minutes = 2.4 million minutes = 40,000 hours = 20 Years of labor
- Aloisius 1y ago
  3 minutes seems like an awful long time for an experienced smith to forge a nail.
  - ejp 1y ago
    Judging from a recent thing I watched[1] ... ~1.5 mins per nail (as of the 8.5 hr + 352 nail mark), while streaming and talking. That would bring it down to only ~7 years of labor if we call it 1 min per nail, assuming that you're already working from prepared bar stock. Still a significant expenditure of skilled labor! [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jAFLG8Y1XY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jAFLG8Y1XY
    - Aloisius 1y ago
      A nailer in the US in the 18th century could apparently make 200 nails per hour.[1] One in the UK reported making 3,000 nails/day in the 19th century.[2] Adam Smith reported seeing boys making 2,300 nails/day.[3] As I understand it, nail making was largely unchanged from the Roman era. One would have to adjust for work hours which differed in the past than today for those, but it like it would take someone 2 years to produce that number working modern hours, though likely less than 1 in the era they were produced. [1] https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/issue-15-t-o-c-kenneth-schwarz-accustomed-to-handle-the-hammer-the-nail-making-specialty-in-pre-industrial-manufacture https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/blogs/blog/issue-15-t-o-c... [2] https://www.bournheath-pc.gov.uk/about-bournheath/bournheath-nailmakers/ https://www.bournheath-pc.gov.uk/about-bournheath/bournheath... [3] https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/chapter-1-of-the-division-of-labour https://www.adamsmithworks.org/documents/chapter-1-of-the-di...

aaroninsf 1y ago

It came as some surprise that Inchtuthil was not a Nahuatl place name. That did resolve my confusion, with nails not AFAIK being used by the Aztecs.