Preparations for the smelting experiments began in early April and were scheduled to take about two months. During the first days, we installed the roasting bed and dug the trenches of the two furnaces under the watchful eye of Sam. We used clay as mortar for the furnace walls and also lined the insides with more clay. Surprisingly it took only three days to build the roasting bed and both furnaces although it was a hard task to dig the trenches into the debris of the basalt quarry.
Subsequently, we started to crush the sufide ore, a superb way to reduce aggression, especially the ones arising from the incredibly hard ore pieces, where ore and host rock are intimately grown. In total, about 140 kg of ore were crushed.