A hunting sword with Damascus blade of Yataghan type

[Tatyana Dianova]

I normally do not buy European arms, but I couldn’t let go this huge yataghan-style blade forged from the fine Damascus steel! I believe it is a completely European-made sword. Maybe it is a Hungarian Pandur sword? The fittings also resemble French hunting swords from the 18th century?

[mariusgmioc]

Hello Tatyana,

Very interesting sword (Karabella Yatagan), but for accuracy one needs to mention it is PATTERN WELDED Damascus and not true/oriental Damascus steel (aka WOOTZ).

Regards,

Marius

PS: And my guess is that it is pretty recent, more exactly XX (or late XIX) century Turkish...

Maybe you should post the thread on Ethnographic forum.

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

Hello Tatyana,

Very interesting sword (Karabella Yatagan), but for accuracy one needs to mention it is PATTERN WELDED Damascus and not true/oriental Damascus steel (aka WOOTZ).

Hello Marius,

absolutely no one can say for sure what the famous oriental Damascus was .
The ancient descriptions we have are not exactly enough.
What we can say for sure is that Wootz was 5-6 times more expensive than pattern welded steel of best sword-quality (early 19th ct.).
Average Wootz-blades are highly overrated, either soft and easy bend or hard and brittle. Top Wootz-blades with differential hardening are extremely rare.


Regards,
Roland

[mariusgmioc]

Hello Roland,

I believe we can say with sufficient certainty that the ancient "oriental Damascus" is Wootz.

However, I believe the often used term "Damascus steel" is terribly confusing and imprecise as it can refer to both, pattern welded and wootz steels and we all know there is a huge difference between them.

In Tatyana's example, I stressed this distinction because the pattern of the blade is very similar to the pretty famous "Turkish ribbon" and in my oppinion is a pointer towards Turkey.

Just my two cents...

[Hotspur]

This looks like patterned wootz to me (folded cast steel). Plain folded patterns are usually more homogenized steels worked together with few voids, rather than one cake of wootz being manipulated with a minimum of being beat on. There are grades of wootz/cast as well.

Cheers

GC

[Tatyana Dianova]

Thank you guys for your replies!
Of course you are right: the blade is made of twisted-core pattern-welded steel. In the place where I live it would be called Damast- or damaszener steel, that's why I used the word Damascus without further thinking - sorry for the misunderstanding!
Still it would be interesting to know the origin of this sword. I believe it is not later than 18th century, having fire-gilt bronze mounts (please see the original pictures - I have cleaned later the fittings with Flitz) in a typical baroque style. The Karabela type hilt made of green painted bone (most probably ivory) and it points to the Eastern Europe, and the blade shape is yataghan inspired, although most probably European made. I wasn't able to find a similar sword in my books or online.
One of the heads on the guard have a small moving detail in his chin - I do not know it purpose, but it is not occasionally there :-)
I will ask the administrator to move the thread to the Ethnographic Forum, maybe we will get more ideas there.

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

However, I believe the often used term "Damascus steel" is terribly confusing and imprecise as it can refer to both, pattern welded and wootz steels and we all know there is a huge difference between them.

As far as I can tell, "damascus steel" was used historically for both patterned crucible steels and pattern-welded steels; a suitable alternative English term is "watered steel" (c.f. damask = watered silk).

Descriptive not of the type of steel, but of the appearance of the steel, so both watered-pattern crucible steel and watered-pattern pattern-welded steel should be considered "true damascus" (and "false damascus" is if the pattern is engraved/etched into homogeneous plain steel). Similarly, unpatterned crucible steels would not be "damascus", historically.

Al-Kindi mentions Damascus swords, but that has nothing to do with patterns, just geographical origin (just another type of "native" sword, along with Khurasani, Basran, Egyptian, and other "native" swords).

Some readings and quotes from sources: http://www.history-science-technolog...icles%205.html

[Battara]

I will bring to the attention of Lee to move this to the Ethno section.

[A. G. Maisey]

Tatyana, production of mechanical damascus was widespread and not at all uncommon in Britain and Western Europe from the 1500's through to the end of the 19th century. It was used for bladed weapons and for gun barrels. Some superb examples exist which in my opinion equal or exceed the beauty of mechanical damascus produced in other parts of the world.

Two excellent references are:-

Damaszener Stahl - Manfred Sachse, I have the English edition:- ISBN 3-514-00522-2

On Damascus Steel - Leo S. Figiel, ISBN 0-9628711-0-9 & ISBN 0-9628711-1-7

This particular sword that you have shown is outside my area of expertise, so I will not express an opinion on place of origin, however, it was not uncommon for sword smiths in Western Europe to copy Eastern styles.In fact, Germany has a long tradition of highly skilled damascus smiths, who continued into the era of WWII and after. One exceptionally skilled smith was Paul Muller who worked during the WWII period. An example of his work is shown below. As you will understand, this sword of yours does not need to be particularly old to be particularly beautiful and valuable.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

for accuracy one needs to mention it is PATTERN WELDED Damascus and not true/oriental Damascus steel (aka WOOTZ).

I would not even mention the word "damascus" when describing what is clearly pattern welded. I know the terms are commonly mixed up but pattern welded is pattern welded and damascus / wootz / watered steel is something completely different.

[ALEX]

Marius is correct. Damascus means any pattern, and further categorizes into mechanical (pattern welded) and true/Oriental (crucible/wootz). Even artificially induced pattern such as acid etch is also Damascus.
Refer to Leo Figiel "On Damascus Steel" classic.

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by ALEX

Marius is correct. Damascus means any pattern, and further categorizes into mechanical (pattern welded) and true/Oriental (crucible/wootz). Even artificially induced pattern such as acid etch is also Damascus.
Refer to Leo Figiel "On Damascus Steel" classic.

People use the term "damascus" incorrectly (in my opinion) to describe several types of steel, but this term is most accurately used to describe wootz / watered steel and not pattern welded which is a completely different type.



Purdue University, Materials Engineering

[estcrh]

"Damascus and pattern-welded steels - Forging blades since the iron age: Forging blades since the iron age" by Madeleine Durand-Charre, 2014

Steels are a class of materials with multiple and complicated transformations; this is true even for steels of the basic cutlery industry. A damascus steel is a fascinating subject to study, rich in multiple facets, that appears in a first approach as a composite material artistically exploited. Damacus steel was developed in the first millennium AD in India or Sri-Lanka. Its reputation is related to its exceptional properties and to the moire pattern. A similar damask pattern could be obtained by forge-welding giving rise to controversies. Recent findings allow a better understanding of this pattern formation. This book presents firstly, observations of ancient blade samples examined with modern technologies such as electron microscopy. The features of many typical swords from different periods are discussed: Celtic, Merovingian, Viking and oriental wootz swords, Persian shamshirs, Japanese katana, rapiers etc. In the second part, microstructural observations at different levels of magnification are displayed and their interpretation is discussed in detail, thus revealing the secret of sophisticated forgings. One chapter is devoted to introducing the main transformations undergone by these steels during the forging processes. The book is intended for all those people interested in the history of science and more specifically to the metallurgists, to the archaeologists and all the researchers confronted with the problems of the expertise of the vestiges, to the blacksmiths, and to the collectors of valuable artistic blades. Madeleine Durand-Charre has taught structural metallurgy at the Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble and at the University Joseph Fourier of Grenoble. Her research work concerned microstructure formation and determination of phase equilibria. She investigated complex alloys such as superalloys and steels. Her work on vanadium cast irons was awarded the Vanadium Shield in 1989 from the Institute of Metals. She is author of several books and articles in metallurgy.