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Abstracts Justine Bayley English Heritage Centre for Archaeology, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Road, Eastney, Portsmouth PO4 9LD The examination of metalworking debris from sites of medieval date in Britain has led to the positive identification of evidence for a variety of precious metal refining processes: cupellation, assaying, salt parting and acid parting. Initially the finds posed problems of interpretation, and their functions were unclear. By marrying the descriptions contained in medieval texts (such as those by Theophilus, Ercker and Agricola) with chemical and mineralogical analyses of the finds, most of them could be linked to particular processes, resolving many of the original uncertainties. These successes will be reviewed and illustrated, together with a few pieces that still present problems. | Back to Abstracts | Back to the Timetable | |