Fieldwalker surveys substantially expanded on the original
discoveries with the recording of eighteen distinct iron production
loci. These newly documented sites were characterised by mounded
accumulations of fragmentary industrial waste: tuyères (air
delivery pipes), furnace wall, ore and gangue mineral, and slag, as
well as large (50e100 þ kg) slag blocks3. The sites are restricted to
the eastern half of the Preah Khan complex, between the 3rd and
4th enclosure walls, and are almost universally associated with
what are thought to be Angkorian period water tanks (Fig. 3). This
spatial patterning is in accordance with Kuay ethnographic accounts
that smelting sites were always positioned near a source of
water (Dupaigne, 1987: 206),