Craft:Lime burning

Rock lime is mined and then ground in mills. It is good for improving clay soils and acid soils, and so welcomed by farmers with the capital to spend to improve their fields.
Quicklime can be created by heating lime in a kiln. Quicklime this is a powerful alkali that can be used to dispose of bodies, for use in naval warfare, or slaked with water (a process which produces a lot of heat) and sprayed on fields to reduce soil acidity. Quicklime is most important however for its use in making mortar. When quicklime is added to sand and water the mortar made from the correct proportions is vital in building large stone buildings such as castles and cathedrals and the mortar lasts millennia.
The use of quicklime as a weapon was banned by the Orthodox Imperial Temple in 27 HC after the rebellious count Aeric of Bacaele cast huge amounts of powered quicklime into the air when upwind of the ArchDuke of Boeruine's ships as they pursued him. The quicklime caused terrible burns to the Boeruine sailors and blinded many of them before the furious archduke caught his rebellious vassal and had him prisoned in one of his own quicklime casks and hurled into the sea to burn to a deservedly horible death.
Quicklime is often used during Plagues to ensure the utter destruction of the body, and is often preferred to burning the body as it does not produce vast clouds of smoke that might carry the plague further.
Slaked lime (quicklime with added water, left for a while and dried) mixed with water can also be used to whitewash a house, although it will brush off if rubbed. Whitewashing homes is common in the Khinasi lands where white buildings are welcomed as they reflect more of the heat of the sun and are deemed to bring Avani's favour and indiciate the purity of the house.
Quicklime is also sometimes used in the making of paper, pottery and glass.