A Box Containing Carpenter's Accessories from The Akko 1 Shipwreck, Israel: Archaeometallurgical Analysis of Surviving Ironwork

The Akko 1 shipwreck was an Egyptian armed vessel, built at the beginning of the 19th century. A wooden saw handle and a box containing iron nails and two split pins were discovered towards the stern. Given their function, location and context, these were part of the ship's carpenter's tools and accessories. A methodology was developed for conducting systematic metallurgical analysis in order to understand the manufacturing process of the surviving ironwork items, as well as to enlarge our knowledge regarding ironworking technologies during the early 19th century. Such methodology may assist in the future understanding of the technological evolution of similar wrought-iron objects. The results demonstrated that the artefacts have a wrought-iron heterogeneous microstructure and were manufactured by hot-working prior to surface hardening by pack carburization.