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Roman iron production exaggeration

84,750 tons is an exaggeration and the absolute high estimate of Roman iron production. It is based on 1970-1980s estimates of Romano-British iron production being 2000-3000 tons while be proportionally smaller in terms of overall production. Other more modern estimates for Romano-British iron production range include 700-800 tons annually, and Britain playing a larger role in overall production. See the "The Wealden Iron Industry" - or the website listed below that sums up some of its major points. J. S., Hodgkinson. 2008. "The Wealden Iron Industry." (The History Press, Stroud).

Gun Powder Ma, or 'Tibet Libre' of CHF has been discussing the validity of the Roman metallurgical estimates of 80k tons on CHF forums. If you are familiar with the subject and could input some knowledge, that would be great.

• http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/34145-the-pre-industrial-economies-of-western-europe-and-china/
• http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/13206-han-vs-rome-military-comparisons/page__st__1365

Intranetusa (talk) 03:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Dubious comment on iron production figure

Removing a complete table when you disagree with just a single number is disruptive and vandalism. Then, Hodgkinson, the source you claim you quote, nowhere refers to Craddock's 84,750 t for the whole empire as an "high estimate of Roman iron production". It actually does not deal with Craddock at all. It only deals with Roman iron production in the English Weald, that is in only one production center in one province (Roman Britain). So how on earth do you come to your "disclaimer"? Have you checked out WP:OR yet? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The estimated 84,750 t of Craddock 2008 (who btw is one of the foremost expert on ancient metallurgy) conform to WP:Verifiability. However, this edit is not at all supported by the source cited, hence it needs to be removed according to the same guideline. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:41, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I added two more references supporting the approximately 80,000 t. There is an half a page long discussion in Healy, but I can't be arsed to quote it here given Intranetusa's bullish bevahiour. Your loss. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to:

• 1. provide some newer data rather than ones that date back to the 1980s, or data by other scholars that confirms the original *figures
• 2. provide some sources on how these figures were calculated. At this point you're just pulling numbers out of books. I could *quote a thousand books that give crazy estimates and figures too.
• 3. We don't even know how these numbers were calculated in the first place. There is absolutely no record on the total amount of *annual iron production by the Romans themselves. That's why you don't see crazy figures for other articles - like the ancient *Egyptians in 1000 BCE produced 1000 tons of copper and 10 tons of gold a year, or the Gupta Dynasty produced 500 tons of silver. *Nobody knows what the actual figures are unless the ancients wrote it down themselves!

Intranetusa (talk) 03:34, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

• 1. The estimate has been adopted by Craddock in his 2008 in the The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, so it is considers up-to date by the author who is an international expert on ancient metallurgy.
• 2. The estimate is referenced by three sources.
• 3. Blabla

I thus remove your synthesis. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Dubious iron production figures

The 82,500 tons iron comes from Craddock p. 108, which uses Cleere and Crossley 1985: 57-86. It relies on the rather high estimate of 2250 tons annually for Romano-British iron production. Lower estimates are credible and has to be taken into account. Intranetusa (talk) 18:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

If the figures are to be used, it is surely important to establish how they were estimated. What method was used to arrive at the figure quoted? Is it based on reliable estimates of extracted ore or archaeological remains or what? I think the exercise is beset with problems, and the least that could be done is to provide error bands to suggest that the figures are guesstimates rather than based on, say, statistical returns to the government in Rome. Peterlewis (talk) 18:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Error bands could be useful if they are available in the literature. If not, it is not up to a Misplaced Pages editor to analyze the data to generate an error band. That would be original research. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Dito. There are unfortunately no error bands; it is an estimate a priori not better, nor worse than any other, but from an international expert in a recent, high-quality publication on ancient technology, so absoluty in accordance with WP:Verifiability. This hysterically going around, deleting whole tables and trying to discredit the estimate by adding fabricated criticism which is not by any means supported by the cited sources is pretty immature (talk about WP crowded by nerds and singles). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Could you explain the "a priori" method then? This seems to me to be meaningless. Peterlewis (talk) 12:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Verifiability: The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

• Craddock's ca. 80,000 t = verifiable = keep
• Intranetusa's comment construing some outlandish connection between Wealden output and Craddock's estimate = not supported by source = remove Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The comment is not an outlandish claim. Craddock's estimate of 82,500 tons per year is an outlandish claim based on outdated data. He based this number of an exaggerated amount of 2000-3000 tons of annual iron production in Roman Britain/Wealden Britain. There are plenty of figures out there that aren't that high, so it stands to reason this is an exaggeration and/or the high estimate. The 700-800 tons figure for annual Romano-British production is a figure that is just as credible, and more believable. Take a look at the wiki article on the history of the Wealden Industry that contradicts Craddock's data. You currently have two wiki articles with contradictory statistics:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/Wealden_iron_industry
• http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/543912

"Total iron production has been estimated at 700-800 tons per year, but under one third of that after 250 AD." Intranetusa (talk) 23:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

This amount only refers to one iron production center in Roman Britain (the Weald). How this should "contradict" Craddock's estimate of ca. 2,000 t for the whole of Britain and of ca. 80,000 t for the whole empire is beyond me: Your http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/543912 has nothing to say whatever about total output of Britain or the Empire. I know it rattles your Han national pride big time that modern scholars find the Roman Empire outproducing all other ancient empires by two-digit factors, but if you cannot even stomach harmless estimates move back from Baltimore, USA, to where you've been making cheap propaganda for all along. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a Han nationalist. If you're going to play low ball like that - why, are you an Italian nationalist or something? And if you really want to bring that up, then we can discuss you constantly creating ridiculous and ill-mannered threads on CHF forums and elsewhere. I know you hate the modern Chinese communist government and want Tibet to be free, but that's obviously cloudy your judgment regarding ancient history. Literally every topic and every post you've made on CHF is about how East Asia sucks. You should understand that modern events is not representative of ancient history. The fact that you edited Roman metallurgical topics immediately after you had an argument with on CHF makes me highly suspicious of your motives. And you haven't bothered responding to the criticisms of your flawed statistics either.

Sinocentrism is bad, but bashing entire cultures and promoting other forms of biased centrisms like you are now is just as bad. That's just utter hypocrisy.

Now moving on to the topic:

• 1. provide some newer data rather than ones that date back to the 1980s, or data by other scholars that confirms the original *figures
• 2. provide some sources on how these figures were calculated. At this point you're just pulling numbers out of books. I could *quote a thousand books that give crazy estimates and figures too.
• 3. We don't even know how these numbers were calculated in the first place. There is absolutely no record on the total amount of *annual iron production by the Romans themselves. That's why you don't see crazy figures for other articles - like the ancient *Egyptians in 1000 BCE produced 1000 tons of copper and 10 tons of gold a year, or the Gupta Dynasty produced 500 tons of silver. *Nobody knows what the actual figures are unless the ancients wrote it down themselves.

Intranetusa (talk) 03:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Talking about low ball: although you might not have even noticed yet, but in most places on earth, and I subscribe to that view heartily, people who do renrou sousuo are considered as morally defective. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm not exactly well acquainted with the communist terminologies that you seem to be so intimately familiar with. And after reading that article, I don't see how that term even applies to this situation either. Considering how nationalistic and vitriolic your posts have been on other forums, your assertions would be the pot calling the kettle black. Intranetusa (talk) 20:05, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I do not normally deal with this period, but have intervened after observing of Intranetusa's talk page a warning about edit-warring here. I went there because he asked me on my talk page to participate in a discussion on another forum, which was considering iron prodction in China. I suspect that all the estimates for iron, about which you are fighting, are in fact based on one by Henry Cleere in about 1976. This estimates annual output in the eastern Weald at up to 750 t pa. This is based on actual data. This is a good sample figure, but the more diffcult question is how to relate this sample even to Roman Britain as a whole let alone the Roman Empire as a whole. A further comment on this will be found on my own talk page. I do not regard the guess (I am not clear whose) that 750 t was a thord of British production as outrageous, given that I have estimated consumption in England and Wales (much the same area) as 4500 or 5000 t in the early 16th century. I have not removed all the preceding text after editing, as i am not sure of its basis. I leave that to others. Peterkingiron (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I see, thanks. I will check it out. Intranetusa (talk) 20:06, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not an expert on the Roman economy (read a few short clips and Gibbons), but I find the figures for iron production a bit dubious to say the least. Considering that iron production in Song China, a thousand years after the Roman Empire, was just 125,000 tons, it is highly dubious that the Romans, who did not have access to cast/wrought iron/steel making and other Song technologies, could have an output 2/3 that of the Song (Even Western European iron production did not surpass this figure until six or seven centuries later). Using the production of one iron center to estimate the output of an entire empire is extremely dubious; that area may have been an extremely specialized area whose production was far higher than the empire as a whole. For example, there is a town in China that makes something like half of the world's buttons- if we were to use this figure to extrapolate button production for earth in 2008 we would end up with ridiculus numbers. Regards. Teeninvestor (talk) 13:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

My difficulty in commenting is that I have not seen what Craddock said. Cleere's estimate for the eastern Weald is based on his measurement of the size of slag heaps. I regard the Weald as 1/3 of Britain as credible. Unfortunately his methodology cannot be apploied in some other regions as cinders were removed for resmelting in the blast furnace era. There was certainly a significnat Roman iron industry based on Forest of Dean ore with iron smelting cites including Ariconium and Worcester; at least that is the most probable origin of the ore used at Worcester. Additionally, there is evidnce of smelting in other areas, but perhaps on a smaller scale. Craddock's 82500 would seem to be on the basis that the Weald was 1/110 part of the whole Empire. This is all based on multiplying up a single estimate. It may even be worse that that, as Cleere may have estimated the whole Weald based on slag at one site. On the other hand, I suspect that the Chinese estimates are also based on a very small sample. These are probably the best estimates available, but they have to be regarded as extremely tentative. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Chinese samples were based on the iron mining tax, in which the government took a fixed percentage of the output of iron mines (say 1 or 2%), and not based on extrapolation.Teeninvestor (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Removal of this figure

Because concerns above have not been addressed, I have removed the figures. We cannot put an iron production figure on here with just extrapolation from one already shaky estimate. That's ridiculus; you might as well extrapolate average US per capita income based on bonus estimates at Goldman Sachs.Teeninvestor (talk) 20:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Nice try, but all three cited sources comply to WP:Verifiable. One of the sources, The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, published by Oxford University Press, is even the most recognized, rcently-published single volume on ancient technology in English, so try harder to discredit the number which your sinocentric bias evidently cannot stomach. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 22:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Last ruler of a unified Roman Empire

The chronology derived from Shepard (1993) in the lead of this article says that the institution of the Roman Empire began with Augustus and ended with Constantine I. This is simply false. A monumental figure he may be, Constantine was not the last man to rule both halves of the Roman Empire; that can only be said of Theodosius I. Yet there were others who ruled over all of the Roman Empire after Constantine; Julian the Apostate is an example. And for that matter, the institution of the Roman Empire did not die with Constantine. Even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries later, the Eastern Roman Empire not only existed, it rebounded under Justinian I. So please, someone check Shepard (1993) on this! If he truly said this about Constantine, clearly we need another reliable source for the time line.--Pericles of Athens 22:42, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

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