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Author Topic: Asbestos in History  (Read 905 times)

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Offline nogoodnicksleft

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Asbestos in History
« on: September 14, 2016, 02:01:30 pm »
I was quite surprised today to find out during an Asbestos Awareness Course that it was used in the times of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and woven into cloth to create fire resistant clothing and items. The thought occurred to me that probably some of the cloth might have been used during the minting process, smelting of flans etc. Does anybody know of a good resource where I can find out more about the subject?

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: Asbestos in History
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2016, 04:54:58 pm »
Interesting. I've found asbestos 'in the wild' myself, and have no problem imagining people from that era being able to mine it and use it in a few places. Does anyone know more.
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Offline SC

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Re: Asbestos in History
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2016, 01:12:12 pm »
Found one interesting reference.

From: Italian textiles from prehistory to Late Antique times, Margarita Gleba, University of Cambridge

"A fragment of asbestos textile supposedly from the Etruscan area is currently in the collections of the British Museum (Granger-Taylor 1982:23 note 2).  The fragment is a relatively coarse tabby 13x14 cm with possibly one selvedge preserved. The yarn is s-twisted, about 1-2 mm in diameter.  The thread count is about 5-6 warp threads/cm and 4 weft threads/cm. Asbestos is derived from
a mineral amphibole and has a unique quality of withstanding extremely high temperatures (Pionati Shams 1987:3-11), a trait that was noticed and used in antiquity. Thus, in the first century AD, Pliny the Elder (36.19-21) calls it live or incombustible linen and praises its usefulness for making funeral shrouds, napkins, lamp wicks and fishing nets."

As you know from your awareness course the fibres last forever and are hard to get rid of.  I would guess that if they were used for protective garments as a forge or smelting facility, including one used for heating coin blanks, modern archaeology would allow for the fibres to be found.  The problem of course is we don't know the exact location of any Roman mints - except perhaps the Temple of Juno Moneta in Rome.

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Offline nogoodnicksleft

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Re: Asbestos in History
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2016, 02:20:04 pm »
Thank you, I suppose to reverse that idea, perhaps the finding of such fibre particles might indicate that a place could have been a mint? still it is more likely that such cloth is going to be found in other places like a blacksmiths.
Wouldn't it make sense to locate the mints within an existing establishment, where a source of heat was already available ? Either a smithy, a jewellers or perhaps an temple dedicated to Vulcan ?. 
I would guess a temple would be a much more secure place than perhaps either a jewellers or a smithy.

Offline Lee S

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Re: Asbestos in History
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2016, 05:36:44 pm »
Once you have the concept of a forge they are easy to build and operate, and take up little space.... A pair of bellows is the most complicated item needed, after that the rest can be constructed from stones. As long as you have a source of charcoal and a slave to pump the bellows, and perhaps 2 square meters of floor space you are good to go!! ( my father built a small forge in his shed to make knife blades... He used an electric air pump, but it took up only about 1 meter square )

 

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