Experimental Workshops
Wool
What exactly was the tank used for? Many uses have been suggested, but whatever it was, it must have been a process that demanded a lot of hot water. Experiments with the tank showed that it was relatively straight forward to get relatively high temperatures by adding hot stones. One process that requires hot (though not necessarily boiling) water is washing of wool to remove lanolin and prepare it for spinning.
Washing the fleece in the hot water
Removing the fleece and rinsing it in clean water (note, many burnt mounds are situated next to streams or other sources of fresh water)
Drying the cleaned wool
Wool spun from the fleece
More detailed experiments will be held next year - check back to this site to get more details.