In both Pirates of the Caribbean- Curse of the Black Pearl, and in the new Conan there are big cog/wheel things in forges- the donkey-driven one in POC, and a water wheel in Conan. Is this just Hollywood, or would there have been something like that in ancient forges, and if so, what would the be used for?

Thanks!

IIRC in both movies the cogs power the bellows. I have no idea if that's historically accurate or plausible.

Historically the use of water power was the first step toward industrialization. Forges used water power for trip hammers and bellows. Both of which dramatically increased the quality and quantity of the steel produced.

In bigger cities, with a huge demand, such a bellows would be plausible, at least from late medieval times onward.
(Not that Conan is referring to any real time period.)

The average village blacksmith would have used a hand pulled version and did so until a few decades ago.
(My own are still hand/foot powered.)

More important is one little sentence in Pirates of the Caribbean "Not where I left you...?".
A blacksmith always stores his tools in the exact same spot. :)

I may be wrong in this but I think the early use of the word 'mill' involved more than 'milling grain' and often would have multiple buildings that were water powered, to include billows and hammers. I can not access YouTube from here but there is a vid of a German recreation group that built a medieval power hammer. The shaft of the hammer was a 18" timber it looked like.

There indeed were waterwheel powered bellows, and water powered trip hammers, and by the Renaissance, water powered grind wheels. Look toward the bottom.

http://www.oakeshott.org/metal.html

This is a somewhat modern forge using water power, and I have a much better you tube vid of a working waterwheel powered forge from the 16thc but it's burried in my bookmarks somewherenso I'll have to post it later. A couple more to help illustrate the idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_e...-jpupth2aA
http://www.victorianweb.org/technology/ir/8.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSQqSfS8ASE&feature=related

Thank you! Question answered! :-)