steel in african weapons

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by LOUIEBLADES

ausjulius

You must realize that if one does not wear too much more than a loin cloth and carries a cow hide shield than Iron spears and daggers do not need to be tempered to a high hardness do accomplish their intended work.


Lew

come now tell that to the dayaks... :P

or the celts, many didnt wear much atal when they fought,,,.. but they had tempering and lamination techniques equial to those used in the middle ages..
as to the heat,, india is as hot or hotter than africa,, and ... welly ou can see armour is very common there...
and has always been etheopia is not arctic nation as plate and chaim armour had exsisted ther ein abundance for a very lond time ,
yemen and oman ,, body armour was very common up untill the late 17th centuary.. heat and armour dont have much relation....

metal working skill and armour do.
steel availability does..
warefare techniques do..

so this i find facinating..
the quilted armour comes form the middle east and arived very late..
the crude untreated leather vests ive observed before,

but this is far more primative than the armour used in the pacific for exsample, which was realt quite advanced...........
and rememebr in the pacific they lacked even leather let alone metal

this realy makes me wounder if there was any form of metal brestplate used..... or any other for of armour or any metalic helmets..
gauntlets ect ect..


it so odd that people had mastered iron productin so well but never advanced the metal craft further.

i do wounder has there been much research into iron use in africa, i wounder how long iron weapons have been made in large numbers there, and how long swords have exsisted there..

and what the previous styles were like.. and if bronze or copper were used before that to produce swords .....

i wounder how long these styles have exsisted and what sort of swords were before, .