Meetings and Events

The Society holds a number of meetings throughout the year. The Annual General Meeting is usually held in different part of the UK in May or June each year. Visits and fieldtrips form a part of many of our events and these cover a range of different activities from visiting mines, to the remains of furnaces or workshops, visiting working mills, seeing live metallurgy experiments or even going behind the scenes of museums or exhibitions. In the autumn the Research in Progress meeting provides a forum for the presentation of current, usually unpublished research. At these meeting there is an award for the best student presentation by a current or recent student (within 12 months of graduating).

HMS also manages a list of events that might be of interest to our members.

Upcoming HMS Events

HMS Research in Progress Meeting 2024

The Research in Progress Meeting provides a forum for everyone working on topics related to ancient and historical metallurgical practices, the past use of metal objects, and related fields.

22nd November 2024
Online

Details here

Other Related Events

The Historical Metallurgy Society maintains a list of events that may be of interest to our members. Below are the events that we have heard about but if there are events we should be aware of or if you want your metallurgy related event listed please contact our events officer.

Festival of Metals

25 and 25 May 2025
Butser Ancient Farm, Hampshire, UK

A Historical Metallurgy Society event combining ‘bigger picture’ presentation with demonstrations in metal-related craft.

Click link for details

HMS Student Prize

Research in Progress Best Student Presentation

The prize is offered for the best presentation by a student (or recent graduate within 12 months of graduation) at the annual Research in Progress meeting as chosen by those members of HMS Council present at the meeting.

Recipients of the HMS Council Prize for the Best Student Presentation at the annual Research in Progress meeting are listed below.

2023 – Evgeny Shnyr: ‘Data science in the service of archaeology: Pinpointing the geographical source of ancient lead-containing metals using machine learning.’

2022 (delayed until April 2023) – Raluca Lazarescu: ‘Copper production in the medieval Moroccan Sahara’

2021 – Braden Cordivari: ‘Copper production in the Niari Basin (Republic of the Congo) during the 15th-17th centuries CE’

2020 – no award (Covid pandemic)

2019 – Saltanat Amirova: ‘Copper and tin bronze metallurgy on the Late Bronze Age site of Semiyarka (Kazakhstan)’. UCL

2018 – Ethan Greenwood: ‘Roman iron production in the Weald of South East England’. York

2017 – Alan Williams: ‘Characterising Bronze Age copper from the Great Orme mine to reveal its spatial and temporal distribution’. Liverpool

2016 – Yi-Ting Hsu: ‘Analysis of cupels and minting materials from the late medieval Mint of Porto (Portugal).’ Birmingham

2015 – William Hawkes: ‘Polishing our performance and winning silver’. Brunel, London

2014 – Ragnar Saage: ‘The evolution of smithies from 11th to 19th c. in Estonia’. Oxford

2013 – Giovanna Fregni: ‘Minimum tools required: a system for organising Bronze Age metal-smithing tools’. Exeter

2012 – Yvette Marks: ‘Any way the wind blows: a re-assessment of the working parameters of the Bronze Age Aegean perforated furnace’. Newcastle

2011 – Sian James: `Faunal Remains from the Great Orme Copper Mines´. Sheffield

2010 – Loïc Boscher: `Speiss and arsenical copper production in Early Bronze Age Iran´. UCL, London

2009 – Jui-lien Fang: `Colour Change in Copper Alloys through Alloying´. Bradford

HMS Prizes at other events

The Historical Metallurgy Society also awards student prizes at other events. If you are running a metallurgy event and would like HMS to sponsor a student prize please contact the HMS event officer.

2019 – Carina Bennerhag: ‘Early Iron Technology in the Circumpolar North.’ Best Student Oral Presentation at Archaeometallurgy in Europe, Hungary.

2019 – Viktória Mozgai: ‘Niello before the 11th century – an experimental study on the preparation and application of lead-free niello inlays.’ Best Student Poster Presentation at Archaeometallurgy in Europe, Hungary.

2017 – Kamila Brodowska: ‘One of 150000 – How to ‘read’ furnace artifacts from Mazovian centre of metallurgy.’ Best Student Oral Presentation at Iron in Archaeology, Prague.

2017 – Ragnar Saage: ‘Later Medieval and Early Modern Smithy site of Kaku, Estonia.’Best Student Poster Presentation at Iron in Archaeology, Prague.

2015 – Julien Flament: ‘Lithage cakes from Castel-Minier (Ariège, France): understanding stratergies of the cuppelation in a multi metals workshop from the 15th century’. Best Student Oral Presentation at Archaeometallurgy in Europe, Madrid.

2015 – Maria Teresa Plaza: ‘Gold technology and the Tiwanaku Culture in San Pedro de Atacama, Northern Chile (AD400-1000)’. Best Student Poster Presentation at Archaeometallurgy in Europe, Madrid.