Cast-iron Trade in the Golden Horde
The article presented deals with issues of castiron foundry trade of the XIVth century A.D. in the Golden Horde. A reconstruction of mouldcasting and founding of cauldrons process has been suggested. Methods of metallography and chemical analysis data have been widely used. The moulding technology had been practically uniform on the territory from the Danube till the Urals. Small groups of items have been singled out which had been brought from the then Mongolian capital Qaraqorum together with imitations to Central Asian specimens. The skill of obtaining pig-iron and an ability to make castings from it had been introduced to the Golden Horde's towns from Kazakhstan and Central Asia where the pig-iron casting was made use of already in the IVth - IInd centuries B.C.