The bloomery furnace, which was typical of Central and Northern Europe in the La Tène culture and in the period of Roman influence, as well as the iron smelting process became of interest to Polish researchers in 1955. The works of Mieczyslaw Radwan such as "Ziemia" ["Earth"] and "Hutnik" ["Ironworker"] published in 1936 and 1937 respectively show the state of the knowledge at the time. The first of these works does not seem to present the complexity of the metallurgical process which took place at the foot of the wiê-tokrzyskie Mountains. He wrote, metal sponge saturated with slag gathered at the bottom, under a layer of slag [1]. In his second work he presented a view that metallurgical operations were not complex. It was necessary to dig up a pit in the ground, which was then sometimes covered in clay. Then fire was lit and when it was strong enough the pit was filled with powdered ore. A natural draft was used and that is why the pits were dug up on the slopes. Perhaps hand bellows were used. Metal sponge saturated in slag gathered under the lower layer of slag" [2].This Polish metallurgist was not the only one to think that. German researchers, who in 1907 analyzed different aspects of bloomery furnace stations with slag blocks in Silesian Tarchalice, claimed that metallic iron should gather at the bottom of the furnace. They could not imagine a different way of smelting iron. A similar view was presented by a Czech archaeologist J.A. Jira [3].

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Cette troisième et dernière contribution à la présentation de la sidérurgie ancienne des Montagnes Sainte-Croix en Pologne (cf. DHA 21/1, 1995 et 22/1, 1996), comporte l'étude archéométrique de deux ateliers (l'un de forge, l'autre de réduction) décrits précédemment et dresse un tableau d'ensemble de la recherche sidérurgique européenne de l'époque romaine, tant en deçà qu'au-delà du "limes", pour permetre d'y replacer cet immense district productif.

Fourty years of excavations by К. Bielenin in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland have revealed one of the most important zones of iron production of the period which have been studied so far in barbarian Europe. In this area of about 800 square km there are 6000 sites with an average of 100 furnaces each. Some 10,000 tonnes of iron were produced during the first four centuries AD. This first part of a series of three articles is a synthesis of the results up until 1990 both in the technological field (the supply of ore and fuel, the typology and method of operation of the batteries of furnaces) and in the study of the socio- economic aspects of the iron production. It examines clearly the fundamental question of the outlets for this iron which were probably mainly oriented towards the Roman Empire.

Cette seconde livraison (cf. DHA 21.1, 1995, p. 203-224), présente les résultats des derniers travaux (1991-1994) qui apportent une riche moisson de données entièrement neuves dans plusieurs domaines : — la prospection de terrain sur 150 km², avec 400 ateliers classés et datés, précisant et nuançant les acquis des quarante années précédentes ; — la fouille, avec d'une part, deux sites associant habitat et ateliers (réduction et forge) ; et d'autre part, une nécropole implantée au cœur du district de production avec plusieurs tombes de forgerons identifiés par un lot d'outils. La fouille de trois sites de type différent relie habitat et travail, livre des témoins des étapes de la chaîne opératoire du fer postérieures à la réduction seule présente jusqu'ici ; enfin date habitats et nécropoles avec deux phases distinctes chevauchant les second et troisième siècles de notre ère. Ces recherches éclairent d'un jour nouveau le monde des métallurgistes des Montagnes Sainte-Croix et apportent une contribution précieuse à la connaissance du contexte culturel et chronologique d'une des plus importantes régions sidérurgiques de l'Europe ancienne.