For almost 50 years now the "Dymarki Świętokrzyskie "archaeological festival has been organised annually in Nowa Słupia, at the foot of Łysa Góra (Bold Mountain). It is an occasion to present the achievements of the archaeological and metallurgical research in the field of the metallurgy of the region. For the past few years the presentations have had the form of an archaeological picnic devoted to the metallurgy but also other aspects of life of inhabitants of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains region in the Roman times.
The "Dymarki Świętokrzyskie" archaeological festival became an occasion to organise accompanying concerts and a folk fair forming a versified setting for the "Piecowisko" area (the Slag-pit furnace cluster) where archaeological demonstrations and experimental smelting take place.
A bird`s eye view of the Bold Mountain and the Saint Cross Monastery on its peak (Photo A. Przychodni)
The archaeological festival taking place in mid-August makes it impossible for everyone interested in ancient metallurgy (i.e. organised groups of students) to participate in it because of the date and very often because of the great number of visitors in the "Piecowisko" area. Therefore for the past three years, in mid-May, we have been organising a different type of meeting with the period of the Roman influence. The name of the event is "Iron Roots" and from the year 2004 it has taken place in Starachowice on the area of the Nature and Technology Museum. To the North of a big metallurgical district, in the Starachowice vicinity, there existed metallurgical settlements those inhabitants specialised in the production of the precious metal. Furnace areas - workshops grouping from dozens to hundreds of pit furnaces - are known from the territory of the town and its vicinity. Such production workshops are present in the basin of the Kamienna river, both near settlements and far from permanent dwellings discovered by archaeologists. In Świętomarz of the Pawłów commune in the Starachowice district the largest slag-pit furnace cluster (the so-called ordered furnace cluster) in the Holy Cross Mountains with the traces of 231 pit furnaces was discovered and researched.
The reconstruction of the ancient bloomery process according to H. Johns