Populonia, Etruria, September 245
Thucer Leixu shoveled another lot of old iron scories into his wheelbarrow, which was about as full as it was going to be and still be in his capacity to move around. Living in the lower area of Populonia, the man did not have far to go. The whole area was covered with the remains of centuries of iron extraction from the raw stones brought over from the island nearby.
From one of the oldest families of Populonia, Thucer had always lived in the city, in the shadow of the ruined temples of its acropolis. The temples showed how rich the city had been once, thanks to the iron trade : the island did not have enough trees to fuel the extraction of metal from ore, so the later had been carried to the beach of Populonia where powerful men had broken the ore into smaller bits that were then melted to extract iron.
But the trade had declined, the mines had been emptied of their riches, and Populonia had become a sleepy fishermen town with only a single smith to carry on the glorious tradition of his forefathers. At least 20 generations of Leixu had worked metal in this place, and Thucer had kept the proud line and hoped his son would follow in his footsteps.
The discovery he’d made a few months before would probably insure his fortune and that of his heirs for generations to come. Learning about the new types of furnaces, Thucer had built one and had thrown in some old skoria as his first test. To his amazement he’d seen a puddle of iron appear, much larger than what he’d expected. So much in fact that it had been almost twice as much iron as he would have gotten from that amount of ore with his old furnace !
He’d melted more ore and had gotten the same result, and an iron of quality as had been proven by his tests of the metal. He’d been able to do both modern cast iron and traditionally worked objects, but with free iron ore ! He just had to ensure he had coal if possible, but even charcoal could do because the new furnace were more efficient than the ancient ones.
Once he’d discovered the situation he’d covertly begun to buy as much of the area as possible, becoming the owner of a large part of the slag area. He now had centuries of already excavated ore at his disposal, without having to pay mining taxes or extraction costs ! Soon he’d be rich beyond measure. He’d already decided he’d rebuild the three temples of the acropolis to thank the gods and his ancestors for this unforeseen boon. Populonia was about to live again !