How did ancient civilizations make ovens so hot that they could melt metal without the kinds on materials we have today?
In: Engineering
It progressed over time
Early copper was cold worked, aka not melted. Then someone figured out bellows and made a kiln that could melt copper allowing it to be cast and then worked. Once you can melt copper you can also melt tin so now you’ve got some bronze which is harder than copper.
Iron was the hard one. Without coal you can’t really liquify iron and make proper steel so ancient cultures relied on clay bloomeries which would give you a blob of iron and slag that needed to be worked to beat the slag away and give you decent iron. Early iron would have been comparable or worse than the bronze of the era and it wasn’t anywhere close to even basic iron that you’d get today.
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