wrote in message
oups.com...
I am a graduate student at the Unviersity of Texas at Austin in
archaeology. I have a technical question about how and if alum (or
other astringent substances containing alum or ferrous sulphate) can be
used in bronze-smithing.

FYI, bronze is for the most part cast, not smithed. To attempt such will
cause it to break apart because it is hot-short.

The reason I ask is because bronze-smiths appear to be consistently
associated with alum procurement in a group of texts from a site
(Pylos) the Late Bronze Age in the southwest of Greece.

Huh. I don't know of any use, chemical or metallurgical. As a flux, it's a
bad one, providing sulfur that'll embrittle your metal, as well as alumina
which tends to be refractory, countering the effect of the potassium in the
alum. I can't think of anything iron alum (potassium ferric, not ferrous,
sulfate) could be used for.

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms