PRE-INDUSTRIAL IRON SMELTING AND SILVER EXTRACTION IN NORTH-EASTERN GREECE: AN ARCHAEOMETALLURGICAL APPROACH* N. NERANTZIS† 31st Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Archaeological Museum of Abdera, Greece; In contrast to Western Europe’ s well-documented contribution to global industrialization, Eastern Europe has not received adequate attention. This paper addresses this asymmetry by defining a secure socio-technical framework for the development of metallurgical technology in one of the most important mineralized zones in Eastern Europe, namely the uplands of north- eastern Greece. The interplay of technological innovation, geography and social process has made this region central in European political history from the Classical and Roman periods up to recent times. Metal procurement has been crucial particularly between the 15th and 19th centuries ad, when armed conflicts escalated across the Balkans and the high inflation throughout Europe increased the demand for raw materials from the East. Field data from north-eastern Greece and instrumental analysis corroborate the concept of iron extraction during this period from complex ores that were potentially used for their precious metals contents as well. Chemical analysis of slag points to iron bloomery processes, while analysis of respective residues (speiss) reveals significant concentrations of silver and thus testifies to the extraction of precious metals. This study addresses concerns that preoccupy political and technological minds today, and provides a context for understanding the effects of changing attitudes to the environment, social development, consumption and natural resources. KEYWORDS: METALLURGY, SILVER EXTRACTION, BLOOMERY, BYZANTINE EMPIRE, OTTOMAN EMPIRE INTRODUCTION The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) is amongst the longest lived of any political institution of Eastern Europe and the Near East, spanning from the fourth to the 15th century ad. With the spread of the Ottomans and the establishment of an Empire in former Byzantine territories, new power relations and different attitudes towards natural resources and labour were used to articu- late a pre-industrial state ideology that lasted up to the late 1800s (Issawi 1980). The influence of both these empires across the Mediterranean and Europe is well documented (Inalcik and Quataert 1994; Cameron 2007; Herrin 2008), yet understandings of such complex political enti- ties are too often restricted to biased concerns, with the assumption that technology stagnated un- der Byzantine rule and then gradually developed under the Ottomans (Issawi 1980). In contrast to the Western European states, this area is diachronically depicted as lagging behind in technolog- ical or scientific innovations. This is due to wider issues relating to the Occident’s conceptuali- zation of the Orient (Said 1979), but also to misunderstandings of technology, especially the social and political dimensions of technological choice and innovation (Pfaffenberger 1992; Casella and Symonds 2005). *Received 22 April 2014; Revised 12 January 2015; Accepted 02 February 2015 †Corresponding author: email nnerantzis2001@yahoo.co.uk Archaeometry 58, 4 (2016) 624–641 doi: 10.1111/arcm.12196 © 2015 University of Oxford