How did ancient civilizations make furnaces hot enough to melt metals like copper or iron with just charcoal, wood, coal, clay, dirt and stone?

Question

How did ancient civilizations make furnaces hot enough to melt metals like copper or iron with just charcoal, wood, coal, clay, dirt and stone?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

copper, gold had relatively low melting points which could be melted with the fanned flames of wood and coal .

Iron doesn’t need to be heated to liquid temperatures to work with. Iron can be forged when heated to 1800-2000F. Through forging, you can hammer it into various shapes and even join two pieces together.