Metallurgy

A special chapter in the life of the Slavs is represented by iron production. Throughout Moravia and Silesia we find evidence that iron metallurgy was particularly important, relatively well-developed and intensively practised in the pre-Great Moravian Period already. Among these finds are not only slag and tools, but also bloomery furnaces, which are sometimes clustered to form batteries. Abundant evidence of iron production was discovered directly at Chotěbuz. This concerns not only the metallurgical and forge slag, from which already dozens of kilograms were found, but also clay nozzles (mouthpieces of bellows) or an iron ingot. The ingot is axe-shaped – in this way the iron intended for storage or trade was processed and individual ingots could be attached one to another with the help of holes. In the first outer bailey, in the neighbourhood of the rampart fortification, features were concentrated which we can identify as iron production facilities – furnaces, smithies, etc. It seems that most of the iron objects were made on site; outcrops of iron ores of a not very high quality are situated in the vicinity of the site.