Why were the ingots mostly round?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi all, sorry for my absence.

Thank you for the answers witch I find very interesting. As the one who knows little about the subject, I have an additional question.

From the answers you have written I understand, that the bigger the ingots were the more difficult it was to make them. As far as I know the ingots varied in size from a few hundred grams to about 3 kg, but most were made for making two sword blades out of an ingot. If the big ingots were so difficult to make, why did they not make the small ones only? Is it possible to forge left over from two different ingots together and get a good result? How close it the wooz pattern in the ingots made in the same furnace?