For such a bloom to be used it has to be freed from the slag intermixed with the iron, and then forged into shape. As this cannot be done by hammering the cold bloom it has to be made red-hot and then hammered on an anvil, a technique alien to the early bronzesmith accustomed to casting and cold-working technique. Not only would such smiths have been unfamiliar with this aspect of working hot metals, but they would also have lacked the toolkit, most notably the tongs and longhandled, heavy hammers, needed to process red-hot blocks of metal; a lack which would have prevented them from utilizing any wrought iron which they produced either by accident or as a result of the experimental smelting of iron ore, a process which must surely have occurred from time to time.