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Depending on which era you are talking about; metal workers either used dirt holes in the ground or carved surfaces of rock with hollow bowl shaped indentations
Doing it in dirt obviously produced very low quality metal
Some also used thick clay pottery which would be destroyed to remove the metal after it cooled
Eventually it was discovered that different metals also require different temperatures to melt so it was possible to use one metal for the bucket and another for the smelting. The bucket was often cast using a clay mold which was shattered during the process