Suleiman II

A athanor is a term of Alchimie indicating a furnace, used to provide heat for the alchemical Digestion.

Athanor comes from the Arab “ At-tannūr” (rear RTL التنور) which wants to say the furnace , the baker's oven or the source of warm water .

An important process in alchemy was the Distillation. The substances brought at the gas state by warming, condensed on the paroies vessel before running in a container preconceived for this purpose. One could also obtain same manner of the substances by Sublimation: a solid material was reheating and its gases accumulated in the form of solid bodies in the fresher places of the equipment of sublimation. A third process was the aforementioned alchemical digestion : the substances were placed in a container closed for a certain amount of time, at a regular temperature, likely there to undergo a chemical conversion or to arrive at any maturation.

With the Moyen-âge it proved to be difficult to regulate the temperature of the furnaces. The invention of the Slide able to control the air flow made it possible to obtain different temperatures in the same furnace. Before the advent of this invention, the alchemist was imperatively to have a particular furnace for each temperature.

Structure and types of furnaces

The furnaces was usually built containing bricks and was mastiqués with a special clay. There were also metal furnaces containing copper or of iron, as well as clay furnaces. The fuels used were wood or the coal. Each furnace integrated in theory a part for ashes, another for fire and a third which was used as workshop, which all was separate one of the other.

The athanor was also called philosophical furnace , because it was to make it possible to carry out the Philosopher's stone ( lapis lazuli philosophorum ). In such a furnace, a substance could be treated over one period prolonged with a precise and regular temperature. Construction had the shape of a tower, and at his interior one found a container oval ( the egg philosophal ). This container contained the substance which was to be transformed into the philosopher stone.

With the XVIe century a furnace was born (also called Henri the lazy or in Latin piger henricus for the comfort which it allowed in its use) which had a tube with fuel separated, allowing a food of quasi automatic charcoal fire. The alchemist did not have thus to supervise combustion in a permanent way.

See too

Athanor, Earth of the thousand worlds , a Roleplay

Athanor is a French label of industrial Musique

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