When in India "died" wootz?

[ariel]

I have yet to see a single barrel made out of wootz. Plenty of acid-etched damascening, plenty of pattern-welded ones, but not wootz.

Barrels were either cast whole, or made out of spiral billets welded together.


The former is obviously impractical taking into account small size of crucibles and the requirement for slow cooling to allow formation of the dendrites.


As to the latter, perhaps the strongest argument against it is the purely ceremonial nature of the so-called " chevron" blades, with segments of wootz welded to segments of plain or pattern-welded steel. There are always cracks in the welds, making the blade unusable for fighting. But if the same technique is used for a barrel, the gases will tear the whole structure apart. This, BTW, is the main reason why modern barrels are not using spiral welds any more, and just drill a hole in a long steel cylinder.