Abstract :
[en] The aim of this paper is to contribute to enlighten the organisation on the circulation and on the manufacture of iron bars and the possible bar standardisation of a given set of artefacts in order to throw more light on the commercial rules during Antiquity. A set of 48 iron based metal bars made from the Roman wrecks of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (France) has been studied using comprehensive metallographic observations from macroscopic to microscopic scales and slag inclusion (SI) analyses. A comparison of the results allows one to distinguish different metal qualities (inclusions, pores, welding, carbon content) that may be linked to morphological types which shows the possible standardisation of this set of artefacts. Moreover, SI analyses allow to distinguish various origin for the Primary Pieces of Metal, thereby enlightening a specific organisation of the iron bar production line during the late Roman period.
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