Where's the Wootz?

[urbanspaceman]

I find this a deep and impenetrable issue which has perplexed me from the start, and continues to do so, despite reading everything I can find, and now watching all the postings on Youtube.
This question I ask here is focused and coherent:

"Was the 'Crucible Method' used to produce steel in the Middle-East; as opposed to the common and typical 'billet-welding'.
Plus, are there examples of sword blades made from such steel, and how do we tell.

Pertinently, I am not talking about blades made from Wootz produced in India and Sri Lanka then exported along the Silk Roads; I refer, specifically, to crucible steel made in the Middle East.
Perhaps someone has absorbed and assimilated all the - often contradictory - theses out there. I hope so.
It has taken me a long time to firmly grasp the production method, but the above remains elusive.
With thanks in anticipation.
ps
Hi Jim.

[Bryce]

I am not sure I fully understand what you are asking. There are plenty of wootz blades that were made in places like Iran. For example the famous "Assad Allah of Isfahan" blades. Are you asking were they made in Iran, from wootz steel that was produced in Iran or were they made in Iran from wootz steel that was produced in India?

I am not a wootz scholar, but my assumption was that the wootz steel was also produced in the middle-east, not just India.

Cheers,
Bryce

[urbanspaceman]

Pertinently, I am not talking about blades made from Wootz produced in India and Sri Lanka then exported along the Silk Roads; I refer, specifically, to crucible steel made in the Middle East.

[urbanspaceman]

It is a bit ambiguous, I agree.

[Jim McDougall]

I think the issue at hand is, as crucible steel is in essence produced in the same manner as the mysterious 'wootz' of Middle East, India but in the west. So the question, in my 'lay' perception is.....how are the smelted products of these versions of steel different?
If I understand correctly, the smelted steel becomes ingots, and these ingots of iron fashioned into carburized steel are then used to forge blades.

Then it becomes the manner in which the raw steel is forged, with proper tempering, temperatures, quenching etc.

As can be seen, my understanding of these important factors in the making of blades is hopelessly basic as my knowledge of edged weapons is more historic and of swords in finished product. The steel, its differences and characteristics is most important, and I admit its complexity has intimidated me to the point of avoidance.

If I have understood, the 'wootz' steel was produced in the Middle East, but the furnaces in India and Sri Lanka produced the ingots which were traded to many blade making centers in other regions and cultures.

In the same manner, steel produced in Sweden was a much traded and desired form which provided ingots to makers throughout Europe, England.
I am not sure if the Swedish steel was crucible or not......ingots seem like they were more blockish, like bars of precious metal.

How is crucible steel different from that produced in blast furnaces ?
Again focused on western methods.

[urbanspaceman]

It is believed that Wootz was produced as far back as 800bCe in Southern India and Sri Lanka.
It is a hypereutectoid 'Crucible' steel: i.e. its temperature rises to the point where it melts and the organic additives included in the crucible, which was a "clay" watermelon shaped vessel, become evenly distributed, as opposed to folding and hammering.
Those additives were rice husks, pomegranate peel, wood chips and leaves (?); also, it has been suggested that glass was added to homogenize impurities into a slag layer on top - but I remain uncertain as to the veracity of this suggestion.
The forges were on hillsides, and tent-like funnels directed wind into the furnace to achieve the necessary temperatures.
The resulting cakes of wootz could then be forged into blades given the appropriate knowledge and ability - which was not always a given.
So, was this method practiced in the Middle East?
That is my question.
Surely this is known and established.

[urbanspaceman]

The 'Crucible' method was lost until 1744 when Doncaster born clock and locksmith Benjamin Huntsman - in search of a perfect mainspring - moved to Sheffield and finally perfected the process.
Unfortunately, paranoid and guarded until the end, he never patented the method.
This method is the basis for modern steel making using the Bessemer converter.
There my knowledge ends.

[urbanspaceman]

Beware of typing Wootz into Youtube unless you are retired.

[urbanspaceman]

Sweden was primarily famous for its 'Oregrounds bar iron' which was very pure.
'Newcastle' steel, traded from the late 1600s into the 1700s, was produced by William Bertram in the Derwent Valley (Ca.Shotley Bridge) and recognized as the finest steel available anywhere.
He was known for using the 'German Method', which isn't surprising considering he was born and raised in Remscheid before moving to Wira Bruk, then Shotley Bridge after marrying a Swedish lass.
At its finest, it was almost too hard to work, and Sheffield tool-makers, when manufacturing shears for the fabric industry - 'Shear Steel' - complained... asking for a softer product.
The Bertram family descendants were producing "The World's Finest Cutlery" as late as the 1970s under the Hen and Rooster label.
Naturally, William was buying his bar-iron from Sweden and supplying the German smiths in Shotley Bridge with their steel; hence my knowledge of him.

[Interested Party]

There used to be some interesting videos of Al Pendray and John Verhoeven using ore from Damascus area and crucible technique assisted by local smiths to recreate crucible steel.

Has anyone mentioned the local variances in ores effecting the final outcome of the crystalline structure?

[urbanspaceman]

I remember seeing a lengthy documentary quite a few years back about Al and John making wootz: it was mesmerising; the more so because I had not yet begun my Shotley Bridge odyssey and knew nothing about arms, armour or metallurgy.
I have not yet found it on Youtube although there is a superb video featuring Al that is easy to come across if you type wootz and his name into the search engine; this will bring up an endless number of additional videos on wootz (and blade metallurgy)... as I said, take a week off work.
Equally, there are many of those videos regarding steel composition - and iron too.
Despite sending smiths over to the Middle East during the Christian Crusades, to steal the secrets, the Solingen blacksmiths have never used the Crucible method, which makes me suspicious about it ever being used in the Middle East, which is what prompted my question.
The local ore that was used in Remscheid is significantly responsible for the blade quality output from Solingen: breakdowns of ore content by location have been published extensively. The other important factor responsible for the high grade of blade output from Solingen, and Hounslow, Shotley Bridge, Klingenthal et al. is the specialisation system, where separate guilds (usually family based) performed only one process/stage in blade production; and considering it had been going-on for 2,000 years, they had definitely mastered the arts. Forging was, of course, the "Black Art"... worldwide actually, as I'm sure everyone is aware.

[urbanspaceman]

There has been much consideration over the years/decades regarding the ending of fine blade production in Damascus, with the predominant reasons considered being the loss of the blacksmith's secrets as families died out, but also the depleting of the necessary local ores.
I would be interested to learn what research has been done about this.

[Interested Party]

I think you have seen this or have processed the information from other sources https://youtu.be/OP8PCkcBZU4. Do minutes roughly 35-40 address some of your basic questions? While 38:44 https://youtu.be/OP8PCkcBZU4?t=2324 might be the heart of the issue? They are calling dendritic steel what many in the forum call crystalline wootz, and I believe other have called sham. Of course it could all be BS. I got sucked in by an English language summary of Anasoff that my grandfather gave me when I was 23 and have not forgotten the lesson of not believing everything that I read

Did you read Ann Feuerbach on Central Asian Crucible Steel, 2002? Rivkin has a nice summary in his Caucasian Arms book as well. I seem to remember lengthy debates in the forum archives as well.

Speaking about being retired I need to head off to work. Interesting topic.

[urbanspaceman]

Thank-you for those links, it is much appreciated.
I will continue this discussion tomorrow as I am needing my bed right now,

[urbanspaceman]

Wootz is wootz, regardless of where it comes from; I think that has now been firmly established thanks to modern blacksmiths replicating the formula and techniques.
Damascus means simply: 'Made in Damascus' and nothing more, but also allows for it to be wootz.
Coming back to my question: "Was wootz ever produced in the Middle East"?
Watching the video of Al and John after many years (thank-you again Interested Party from the Sierras) it is stated early on in the documentary (4:12) and I quote: "…However, the majority of wootz……came mostly from India. Bars of wootz were imported from India, probably traded in the markets of Damascus…"
This is the history I have always assumed was accurate after having watched that video years ago (six to be precise) then slowly becoming more and more perplexed as I absorbed all the subsequent takes on the issue, but now...
Al achieved his success using Jordanian dendrite ore from a mine seriously guarded by Saladin, and the site of many forges and crucible discoveries recently; which almost certainly means that wootz was being produced there.
Perhaps this was the only source of suitable ore in the wider area.
It would probably not have been accessible to German blacksmiths. I don't know enough history of the Christian Crusades to establish if this was the case.
Incidentally: my uncertainty regarding the inclusion of glass in the crucible is well founded, because, I realise, (better late than never) glass was probably not a readily disposable commodity 400 years bCe. Or was it?

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

Perhaps this was the only source of suitable ore in the wider area.
It would probably not have been accessible to German blacksmiths. I don't know enough history of the Christian Crusades to establish if this was the case.
Incidentally: my uncertainty regarding the inclusion of glass in the crucible is well founded, because, I realise, (better late than never) glass was probably not a readily disposable commodity 400 years bCe. Or was it?

Here is another Al Pendray link https://youtu.be/RDyU-15fzog?t=469 speaking about a carbide former and thermocycling rather than a quench. 7:49-10:25 They say 0.005 Vanadium needs to be present in the ore. So yes, that would reduce the number of iron deposits that were viable for this process. Glass had been around 3000 years by 400 bce. A tradeable commodity. I'm sorry I do not have any more pertinent information to your search.

I have been collecting iron rich sands when I find them at work. Basically they are fist sized chunks of rust. When I get about 90 kilos I would like to build a blast furnace and see what happens.

[urbanspaceman]

Saladin considered the source of the miracle metal so important he built a castle to guard the mine. What I meant when I said "the Germans would probably not have access to it" was the mine and its forges not the iron ore.
Solingen has always had access to ore with a vanadium content.
Birmingham didn't, incidentally, until they could get Oregrounds. Hence, crap swords all through the Middle Ages right up to the 1700s when Germans migrated there from Shotley Bridge and eventually taught us Brits a thing or two.
Still thinking about why Solingen never used the Crucible method - assuming they had learned the secrets from Damascus smiths – was it perhaps achieving suitably high temperatures. How did the Middle Eastern smiths achieve this?
I've been busy today but I will get stuck into studying those additional sources tomorrow; too tired now.

[urbanspaceman]

'The Secrets of Wootz Damascus Steel'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8P...ist=WL&index=1
I have now twice watched this brilliant documentary from six years ago, and realised that, while I may have retained odds and ends of details, the full story had become blurred. The business of the glass, for instance, is a perfect example.
Up to now, in my opinion, this must be one of the best introductions to the history and science of Wootz, and I would seriously suggest anyone with a passing interest in the history of sword-blade making devote an hour to watching it.
It pretty much wraps up this thread.
Of course, YouTube is full of recent takes on the issue, and I – again – warn you not to delve any deeper unless you have plenty time to spare.
My thanks to our 'Interested Party' for providing this valuable research material.

[Ian]

I would strongly recommend searching this site for answers to questions about wootz. The Ethnographic Forum has several excellent threads on the subject. Anything that Dr Ann Feuerbach has written on these Forums is well worth careful consideration. Her PhD and subsequent work has been on wootz. She has an article on this subject on the Vikingsword home page (click on the Viking sword at the top of this page). In this article she states:

"So-called “watered” or “damascus” steel objects were made of crucible steel. Crucible steel was a specific method of steel making and it was only produced in certain areas. Despite the common use of the term “damascus”, there is no evidence that it was ever produced in Damascus, Syria (Elgood, 1994, 103-108), but rather in various locations in India, Sri Lanka, Central Asia and Persia. Its appearance in other locations was due to trade or booty. Among evidence for the trade in finished products, there is also evidence for trade in intermediate products including ingots and steel bars, destined to be forged into shape and decorated in different places to reflect local taste and use of the consumer.

I favor Ann's opinion about wootz over anything you might find on You Tube. Also, there has been considerable debate about the quality of modern crucible steel and its relation to traditional wootz. The consensus seems to be that "modern wootz" is not the same as traditional wootz. You can find these discussions also on the Ethnographic Forum pages.

[Peter Hudson]

The excellent video mentioned several times is a great place to kick off on WOOTZ as are the many articles here on Forum and already noted. To say the least however not being a blacksmith or metalurgist or forge worker is a distinct disadvantage ...notwithstanding that I must refer to the very superb video again...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHRlJ3BSyN8

Kieth I forgot to mention that on the video at about 1899 on the timer it looks at the glass situation that was a simple trick to prevent oxygen getting into the mix. It acted as a sealant.

I noted that the wootz ore mine was in the introduction and The great ruler Salaadin had a castle built over it for protection...That was at Ajloan. The arabic saying for the best swordblade was Falooji Johar.

I also noted a lot of descriptive pointers or descriptives.. For example it cleverly describes WOOTZ as having Hardness, Toughness, Flexibility , Durability and a beautiful pattern.

Regards,
Peter Hudson.

[urbanspaceman]

There is a limit to how much metallurgical science I can assimilate, and... truth be told - need to.
I felt Al Pendray's successes, and the accompanying history in the video, fulfilled my quest for an answer.
Any more depth of research simply bewilders my layman's brain.
However, I must encourage others to follow-up on Ian's advice to see if there is more of pertinence to be discovered.