When in India "died" wootz?

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by ariel

I was re-reading this topic and re-thinking the info.

The issue under discussion is in fact truly analogous to the pharmacokinetic model of half-life. During a period peculiar to each and every drug, its concentration decreases by half: 100% at zero time, 50% at one half life, 25% at two half-lives etc. Thus, after 6 half-lives no matter what, it declines to ~1.5% of its initial concentration, i.e. below any biological effect.

After~1850, when the numbers of bladesmiths progressively declined, the technology gradually also died out. One or two remaining bladesmiths might have produced negligible number of daggers, but could not recruit sufficient numbers of students, who witnessed wootz-making as a career dead end. Thus, after several more years wootz-making truly and permanently went Dodo.

However, it can artificially be restored: renewed interest in wootz resulted in re-appearance of masters, trying to resurrect wootz technology. Sometimes it may even result in the creation of decent wootz daggers, but as we can see virtually nothing of the "Assadulla" caliber appeared on the market. Old masters needed a century or two of experience of several uninterrupted generations of predecessors to figure out crucial tricks, but contemporary masters do not have such luxury. Regretfully, their overall numbers are small and so are the numbers of their students. We shall have to wait another 100-200 years to see if the technology of wootz bladesmithing gets truly revived. But will anyone care?

Anosov had it easy: the composition of steel ( iron+carbon) was figured out by Faraday 20 years before, and Capt. Masalsky went to Persia in 1837 for a short-term specific assignment to record every step of making wootz ingots ( early example of industrial espionage). Interestingly, both Masalsky and Anosov published their papers in the same issue of " Mining Journal" in 1841: Masalsky about making wootz ingots and Anosov about " his" method of obtaining wootz ( re-phrazed Masalsky's report) and forging them into blades. He sent a gift to Faraday (a yataghan with the ugliest handle I have ever seen and a blade with barely sham-like snippets of wootz in some places, likely due to incorrect temperature control) together with the accompanying letter. Anosov desperately tried to ingratiate himself to Faraday, to the point of thanking him for “flattering remarks” in one of Faraday’s lectures, whereas Faraday (AFAIK) never mentioned "his" allegedly “wootz” method. The accompanying message he sent to Faraday through Murchison is also quite the same: “...he begs to send to you as a proof of his admiration of your discoveries & of the value of your researches.”

Faraday apparently never responded to Anosov, at the very least there is no copy of such a letter in the detailed and voluminous archives of Faraday's correspondence.

Now i am curios. Is there a picture of the yatagan Anosov sent to Faraday?

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Drabant1701

Now i am curios. Is there a picture of the yatagan Anosov sent to Faraday?

Yes.
I have a detailed series of those pics, but I signed a nondisclosure agreement with the source that is valid till I have a written permission to reproduce them in my slowly written paper:-(

However, there are pics of a dagger gifted by Anosov to a British geologist Roderick Murchison sold by Bonhams in 2008 for $56,017 ( premium included, $73,234 inflation corrected). By far the best example of Anosov's wootz structure.

[Ian]

We have strayed from the original topic of this thread and it seems appropriate to call a halt here. If someone wants to present new data on the topic, then starting a new thread would be appropriate. Discussion in this thread is now closed.