The research of crucible steel production in Central Asia is quite new. I studied the material from Merv, Turkmenistan, and Thilo Rehren and Olga Papakristu have been studing the remains from Uzbekistan. At Merv we have small scale production but in Uzbekistan they have at least 100,000 crucible, from centuries of production. I reviewed every ethnographic account of crucible steel production I could find. Yes, furnaces are different but some things appear the same...check out
http://moltenmuse.home.att.net for some information on the differences and similarities. It seems the fine indian pattern is due to the fact that they tool the crucibles out when the steel was liquid, which caused fast solidification, small dendrites, which means closer dendrite spaces, and Verhoeven et al found that the cementite aligns along these dendrites. In Central Asia, the ingots solidified slowly, this produces larger dendrites, bigger spacing between them and therefore you can have thicker patterns. Of course forging also plays a part. Also, Mn was deliberatly added sometimes in Central Asia, which would make the lines darker when etched. This still needs more research but we are working on it!
