Bellows
Fuelle de cuero para hornos metalúrgicos
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Mesopotamia and Egypt (tomb of Rekhmire, Thebes)
- Credited to
- Mesopotamian and Egyptian metalworkers
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Leather bag with a valve and clay tuyère that blows pressurised air into the furnace, raising the temperature well above what natural draught or blowpipes allow. It made the smelting of copper, bronze and, later, iron efficient.
The foot bellows is clearly depicted in the tomb of Rekhmire (c. 1450 BCE); its earlier use is inferred from ceramic tuyères of the 3rd millennium.
What it led to
- Metal production at workshop rather than trial scale, cheapening weapons and tools
- Larger furnaces and workshops with a division of labour
- Iron smelting (which requires even higher temperatures) at the end of the Bronze Age
Built on
- Reed blowpipe
- Copper smelting furnace
- Hide tanning