Several items like this one were collected during excavation on the iron smelting site of undetermined chronology. The material of the imprint most likely was used as a flux during smelting process. Any suggestion as to the imprint material nature? Thanks.
Could the imprint be a trace of the flow of molten iron? I do not think that the pattern is man-made.
Yes. The imprint was probably the result of the wooden material used as charcoal during smelting or the grasses used for keeping the furnace burning in the course of smelting. It may also be result of surface of the ground through which the slag flowed off from the shaft furnace on reaching its melting point before solidification.
It does not appear to me to be an imprint of an object of botanical origin.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate all your comments and suggestions. As most of archaeologists I assumed this "something" to be the trace of organic material (wood/charcoal), which would be the most logical explanation regarding finding context - iron smelting site. And many of them really are, but wood or charcoal have different pattern. After visual and microscopy inspection the version of organic material was rejected by researchers on wooden material and dendrochronology. The organic material is too soft to leave defined traces like these. Wooden material would leave less regular undefined pattern, which is more similar to fiber or tuft. The item under consideration displays very regular linear texture with strictly paralell lines streaching on both sides of "stem". I added more images of items with similar pattern and also added one which is identified as potential trace of organic (wooden?) material. They look different. Meantime, my latest explanation of this "something" is non-organic material used as flux, potentially some kind of invertebrates? Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything like this.
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