Interdisciplinary Research of Iron Casting Technologies in the Town of Juketau during the Golden Horde Period

The work features the results of interdisciplinary research of cast iron dishware fragments discovered in the territory of one of the largest towns of the Volga-Kama region in the Golden Horde period. The microstructure of cast iron samples and surface mapping have been studied using scanning electron microscopy  (SEM), and the microelemental composition was determined by emission spectral analysis (ESA). The characteristic features of the manufacturing technology have been revealed as a result of research of the elemental and phase composition across the area of the transverse fracture and longitudinal polished section. The results of SEM allowed to carry out a comparative analysis with archaological material from the territory of Bolgar settlement – capital of the Bolgar Ulus of the Golden Horde. According to the results of microelemental analysis, two groups of cast iron were determined with differences attributed to various sources of  raw material.