Supplementary #A.

Optical microscopy investigation

The present research follows a methodology similar to that proposed by Leroy et al. (2017) for the quantitative
assessment of carbon content and distribution of carburized areas within the samples. The principal difference from
the approach by Leroy et al (2017). relates to quantification calculations, which reflect the fact that the assessment
of remnant structures in fully corroded artefacts is less accurate than in largely un-corroded objects. Depending on
the different degree of preservation of a particular remnant carburized structure (Stepanov et al., 2018), it can be
assessed with a different accuracy, for example: 0.2.-0.4% C or 0.2-0.3% C (or 0.2-0.5% in case of spheroidized
cementite structures). Given these complications, the present framework does not utilize the defined interval of 0.2%
C chosen by Leroy et al. (2017), but instead identifies the approximate average carbon content (± 0.05-0.1% C) in

20-30 different spots within the sample. The quantification of the mean rate of carbon ( X́ ) and the standard
deviation of the mean () is done following equations similar to those proposed by Leroy et al. (2017):

∑ Wi Xi
X́ = i=1
100

n
σ= √ 2
∑ W i ( X i − X́ )
i=1

Where Xi is the mean value of each of the carbon rate categories (0.1, 0.15,…..0.9) and Wi is the weight (surface
area, %) assigned to each of the carbon rate categories. Due to the low interval (± 0.05-0.1% C) between different
carbon rate categories and generally low carbon content of the Saruq al-Hadid samples, the  values of Saruq al-
Hadid samples are generally lower (avg.= 0.08) than those produced by Leroy et al. (2017; avg.=0.15-0.2).
However, it needs to be emphasized that due to the differences in quantification methodologies it is meaningless to
compare  values quantified during the present study with  values quantified by Leroy et al. (2017) for her
samples. The limit of homogeneous distribution of carburized areas in the present study was set as  = 0.075 (Fig.
1), which was based on the visual assessment of carburization patterns from the samples.
Fig. 1. Compositional domains of the alloy structure characterised for samples from Saruq al-Hadid.

Reference list
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Archaeometallurgical typology of architectural crampons as a method for reconstructing the iron economy of
Angkor, Cambodia (tenth to thirteenth c.). Archaeol Anthropol Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0524-3

Stepanov I, Weeks L, Franke K, Cable C, Overlaet B, Magee P, Händel M, Al Aali Y, Radwan M, Zein H (2018)
Methodologies for the investigation of corroded iron objects: Examples from prehistoric sites in South-eastern
Arabia and Western Iran. STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research.
https://doi.org/10.1080/20548923.2018.1424304