Viking Swords and Wootz

[Gonzalo G]

All depends on which europeans, and in which timeline. In Spain wootz was imported and forged to the mid 19th Century. You can see some references here:

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=80073

Sorry if I cannot follow in real time this discussion, but I don´t have many chances to get into internet.

In fact, there are many articles form Verhoeven online, and some of them are posted in forums, as you can´t find them on Verhoeven´s page anymore, but the last word on the antique wootz heat threatments and wootz blade quality (as the steel, it´s forging and the resulting sword cannot be separated completely), is yet to come from other sources and more extenisve studies of old blades. I believe there are more discoveries to make.

There are also other many sources about wootz, in english and in other languajes. Srinivasan and Ranganathan are some of them, but you can also find articles from the publications of the Indian National Science Academy, among others, here:

http://www.insa.ac.in/html/home.asp

The excellent work from Verhoeven "Matallurgy for Bladesmiths and Others...", is not very indispensable to the specific study of wootz, unless you want a deep comprehension of it´s chemical characteristics and structure, and it is a heavy reading for those not interested in learning metallurgy and forging and heat threating blades. But is a great treatise on this last subject, which I love and appreciate very much. It provides, neverthless, with the necessary understanding of general steel inner structures and how they are produced.
Regards

Gonzalo