Poggetti Butelli slag locality, Scarlino, Grosseto Province, Tuscany, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Poggetti Butelli slag locality	Slag Locality
Scarlino	Municipality
Grosseto Province	Province
Tuscany	Region
Italy	- not defined -

Poggetti Butelli or Poggio Butelli was the name given to mounds of Etrusco-Roman slags located along the littoral north of Puntone Vecchio.

During the III century BC, when Etruria fell under the domination of the Romans (Etrusco-Roman age), iron ores exploited from the hematite–magnetite–pyrite–limonite deposits of nearby Elba Island were transported to several smelting sites along the Tyrrhenian coast including the mouth of the Pecora Valley. The Pecora Valley offered plenty of wood, fresh water, clays, sandstones and other raw materials necessary for Fe smelting and smithing, and also was easily accessible from the sea. In fact, at that time a pond (the so-called Scarlino Lake) existed at the mouth of the Pecora River which ensured good protection for the ships transporting Fe minerals from Elba Island. Later on, the lake evolved into a marshland (extending for about 800 ha northward to Follonica), remnants of which are still present at Padule di Scarlino-Le Chiarine, along the course of the Pecora River and two diversion channels in the so-called Piana di Scarlino.

At the beginning of past century, the large heaps of Etrusco-Roman Fe slags (totaling about 500,000 metric tons according to Dompè, 1921) present along the coast between Follonica and Puntone di Scarlino were dismantled and re-used both for the reclamation of the Piana di Scarlino marshland and for Fe processing purposes (Baiocco et al., 1990). Further dispersion of the slags over a broad area was caused by intense agricultural activity. Remnants of a furnace were found in 1998 in the area between the fuel station and Corte dei Tusci, on the right-hand side of the road named Via delle Collacchie, during archaeological excavations conducted by the University of Siena.

Nowadays the slags are occasionally found in the agricultural fields and along dirt roads and paths.

Macroscopically, the Etrusco-Roman slags from Poggietti Butelli are glassy and of variable size (from a few mm up to about 15 cm); they show prominent
flow textures and range in colour from dark brown to black. Brown clayey coatings are common. In some samples, small-sized fragments of refractory materials are included in the glassy matrix. The inclusion-free slags are interpreted as "tapped slags", i.e. discharged outside the furnaces, whereas inclusion-bearing slags are described as "furnace slags", i.e. formed within the smelting reactor. Unsmelted and partially smelted ore charges/fluxes are mostly composed of Fe oxides/hydroxides and minor calcite. Inclusion-free Fe slags consist of a glassy groundmass enclosing abundant, small crystals of fayalite and wüstite with minor amounts of magnetite, hercynite, and goethite. Droplets of metallic Fe, a few micrometres in diametre, are also present in trace amounts. In contrast, slags with refractory inclusions show the additional presence of quartz and plagioclase. Calcite and gypsum may be present in crusts or in cavities indicating that they are secondary with respect to slag formation. Textural features, both at the macro- and microscopic scale, indicate minor chemical–physical (exogenous) alteration, locally indicated by the presence of green to rusty patinas, that is mostly confined to the topmost superficial layers, commonly around gas holes, or along fractures.

References

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