21st January 2007, 09:37 PM | #31 | |
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Arabia
Posts: 278
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Quote:
It sure looks almost identical to this sword. I guess it is the same blade. Still, I would not understand who would inscribe England 1510 in a tudor fashion on the spine. |
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22nd January 2007, 01:29 PM | #32 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 181
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Quote:
My memory is a bit rusty, so bear with me while I try and remember the particulars. It seems that at the time of wootz's first appearance, India was the center for the mining and smelting of iron ore as well as producing billets of steel. The ore deposits that were the source for wootx steel had natural impurities in the ore that produced the patterned blades. In addition to being the source of Indian wootz, India actually provided the steel used by early Middle Eastern smiths to make their blades. Billets of steel travelled on the Silk Road from India to the Middle East. It was later on, when the deposits in the original mines petered out or changed that the smiths had to experiment to create their own patterned wootz steel, but it was never quite the same as the originals from India. I believe that the reason the Indian blades continued to do well was that, being close to the source, the Indian metalsmiths had a better chance of duplicating the impurities after the ore changed. Anyway, that's what I remembered when you mentioned your source's preferences for Indian over Persian wootz. I will hunt for that article, but it's been so many years I don't know if I'll be able to track it down. Fenris |
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