Damascus Steel

ariel · 22nd February 2007, 05:18 AM

A question that always puzzled me: how did the Iranians "forget" how to to make wootz?
Why did not Javanese masters forget how to make pamor? The ban on carrying weapons came in Japan at about the same time the last Persian wootz blades were produced; nevertheless, the art of making Nihonto blades was fully preserved.
Why did it take Russian, German and American metallurgists to re-invent the technology of wootz manufacture?
Why weren't wootz blades manufactured in Turkey or Egypt? After all, it should have taken just a couple of Iranian masters brought to Istanbul to start up a mass production of wootz blades. I have a wootz yataghan of Balkan(?) provenance, but that's it.

Is it possible that there was no well-developed wootz-making industry in Persia, ie, the great majority of ingots ( or, in the extreme case, all of them) being made in India and exported to Iran for the final stage of blade forming? Is it possible that there was tight import control on the ingots consumed by Iran and not reaching the Ottomans? The withering of Iranian wootz swords ( mid-19th century) co-incides with the British ban on the manufacture of wootz ingots in India (allegedly to prevent deforestation). After that, all Iranian swords were of plain steel or mechanical damascus construction. That should not have happened had there been an established, independent wootz production in Iran. Russian Captain Massalski personally observed making wootz ingots in Bukhara in the first half of the 19th century. Are there any eyewitness accounts of wootz manufacture in Iran? This is a direct extension of Brian's earlier inquiry http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4047
Back to my original question: perhaps, Persians never "forgot" how to make wootz; they just never knew. Perhaps, the reason why the Europeans could not find the secret of Persian steel was that they looked in the wrong place: they should have asked the Indians and the Uzbeks

B.I · 7th March 2007, 08:34 AM

Hi Ariel,
The paper I was refering to in that post was not on wootz, but on Persian metalwork as a whole. But, the main criteria of the author was to challenge assumptions, and so this should also be the case with Persian wootz.
What the author did, was to challence the origin of a series of artworks in known museums, all assumed and accepted to be Persian (Safavid from memory) as the form is well known to be of this period and region. His stance, was that they were not Persian at all, but Indian. His case was well written, and backed with decorative iconography found in Bijapur and Golkonda, which was almost identical to that used on these particular pieces. He claims the main cetres of manafacture were Lahore and the Deccan, and they widely exported pieces made in Persian taste for a huge Persian market. He claims that Indian craftsman were widely respected and the Persians accepted that their own craftsman were 'inferior'. He re-translated insriptions, written on well known 'Persian' pieces and found the word 'Lahore' written next to the name of the craftsman.
I know this may sound extreme, and his theory can easily be argued against, but nothing he claims can be called extreme, as his arguement is well thought out and researched. The strangest thing, and something I really respect, is that the authour is patriotically Persian by birth! So, no matter whether his claim is accepted or not, his opinion is based on pure study without the bias of nationalism.
I am a big fan of marching against assumption, and so I found the article extremely interesting. I am not saying I agreed with it all, but it definately made me re-assess things that even I was guilty of assuming. Of course, this can be taken too far, and sometimes you have to assume a little, otherwise you never get to the second stage of an investigation.

FenrisWolf · 9th March 2007, 11:30 AM

I remember an article I read online some years ago, written by two metallurgists who had been studying the crystalline patterns formed in wootz steel with an eye to duplicating it in modern weapons. I don't remember all the details, and unfortunately didn't save the link to the articles, but as I recall one of the theories put forth was that in addition to the crucible method, the major contributing factors to the true wootz steel of the peak Indian years were impurities that were naturally occuring in Indian iron ore. According to the theory put forward, even if you set up an identical foundry in the middle east using all the methods used in India, and made weapons in the same manner as Indian ones, the trademark 'wootz' pattern would not be present because the ore from two different mines lack the same blend of impurities.

tsubame1 · 15th May 2007, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

Is it possible that there was no well-developed wootz-making industry in Persia, ie, the great majority of ingots ( or, in the extreme case, all of them) being made in India and exported to Iran for the final stage of blade forming? Is it possible that there was tight import control on the ingots consumed by Iran and not reaching the Ottomans? The withering of Iranian wootz swords ( mid-19th century) co-incides with the British ban on the manufacture of wootz ingots in India (allegedly to prevent deforestation). After that, all Iranian swords were of plain steel or mechanical damascus construction. That should not have happened had there been an established, independent wootz production in Iran. Russian Captain Massalski personally observed making wootz ingots in Bukhara in the first half of the 19th century. Are there any eyewitness accounts of wootz manufacture in Iran? This is a direct extension of Brian's earlier inquiry http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4047
Back to my original question: perhaps, Persians never "forgot" how to make wootz; they just never knew. Perhaps, the reason why the Europeans could not find the secret of Persian steel was that they looked in the wrong place: they should have asked the Indians and the Uzbeks

One thing that every ruler/nation/empire tried to avoid as pneumonia pestis
is to totally depend from foreign supply for very important army related stuffs and supplies. Even today some nations that have a strong need of safety and can't absolutely rely on outer supplies/technologies makes their own weaponry.
Comes to mind the jewish with the Merkava.
Why should the perians have relied on external sources of supply that would
have been easly cut for such an important supply as wootz ?
I know that wootz isn't really considered a good steel for combat in this
board, so maybe this matter has been skipped as "wootz is Kool and useless"
but still I wonder why Bukhara yes and Persia not. Can you explain
this ?

ariel · 29th May 2007, 03:42 AM

An interesting post on SFI:
This time around it is a Spanish book , mid-19th century, describing what they knew about wootz.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=80073
Again, they mention Bombay and Golkonda, but no Persia.

Gt Obach · 29th May 2007, 01:35 PM

yes but it doesn't say they didn't make it in Persia...

if you look at the structure of the crucible steels ... specially the waterings... they tell you there are some big differences in the process... .. Large waterings take much slower cooling times from liquid to solid... and need a long roast afterwards... .. small waterings require a much much shorter cool time and roast...

in my experience..... you can't take a short cool ingot and turn it into a large watering slow cool ingot...

i'd like to take my saturn and turn it into a Mercedes benz ... but it doesn't work that way...

Greg

Richard Furrer · 30th May 2007, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsubame1

I know that wootz isn't really considered a good steel for combat in this
board, so maybe this matter has been skipped as "wootz is Kool and useless"
but still I wonder why Bukhara yes and Persia not. Can you explain
this ?

Hello All,
I can not say with certainty all the places where wootz was made and where it was not, but we should be careful in stating that just because a steel was made in a crucible it is wootz....all wootz is crucible steel, but not all crucible steel is wootz.

As to wootz functionality:
My opinion on this has changed several times over the years. Most recently I had the opportunity to travel through some museums in Rajisthan, India with some talented museum folk and related persons with an interest in arms and armor. One of the most interesting and useful tools we had along were a few folk from the Wallace Collection (Drs Alan Williams, David Edge and Toby Capwell) with a Vickers micro hardness tester. During a conference hardness tests were conducted on many blades and the results, though not to "laboratory" standards given the situation, were educational. Certain generalities can be drawn from the data.
Robert Elgood will be publishing the results of the conference so I am not sure what I should reveal as far as vickers numbers, but allow me to say that given the sample body of swords we tested I would not feel at all opposed to using a wootz blade in the time periods where that form of material was in production against other blades made by other methods of the same time period.

Should anyone have any hard data one way or another I would be interested in seeing it. To my knowledge I have been the only one looking at flexibility, hardness and comparable study data with other blade technologies of the time. Does anyone else have hardness data they care to share or anything other than anecdotal information on the effectiveness of wootz in use?

Ric

22nd February 2007, 05:18 AM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	A question that always puzzled me: how did the Iranians "forget" how to to make wootz? Why did not Javanese masters forget how to make pamor? The ban on carrying weapons came in Japan at about the same time the last Persian wootz blades were produced; nevertheless, the art of making Nihonto blades was fully preserved. Why did it take Russian, German and American metallurgists to re-invent the technology of wootz manufacture? Why weren't wootz blades manufactured in Turkey or Egypt? After all, it should have taken just a couple of Iranian masters brought to Istanbul to start up a mass production of wootz blades. I have a wootz yataghan of Balkan(?) provenance, but that's it. Is it possible that there was no well-developed wootz-making industry in Persia, ie, the great majority of ingots ( or, in the extreme case, all of them) being made in India and exported to Iran for the final stage of blade forming? Is it possible that there was tight import control on the ingots consumed by Iran and not reaching the Ottomans? The withering of Iranian wootz swords ( mid-19th century) co-incides with the British ban on the manufacture of wootz ingots in India (allegedly to prevent deforestation). After that, all Iranian swords were of plain steel or mechanical damascus construction. That should not have happened had there been an established, independent wootz production in Iran. Russian Captain Massalski personally observed making wootz ingots in Bukhara in the first half of the 19th century. Are there any eyewitness accounts of wootz manufacture in Iran? This is a direct extension of Brian's earlier inquiry http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4047 Back to my original question: perhaps, Persians never "forgot" how to make wootz; they just never knew. Perhaps, the reason why the Europeans could not find the secret of Persian steel was that they looked in the wrong place: they should have asked the Indians and the Uzbeks

7th March 2007, 08:34 AM	#2
B.I Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 485	Hi Ariel, The paper I was refering to in that post was not on wootz, but on Persian metalwork as a whole. But, the main criteria of the author was to challenge assumptions, and so this should also be the case with Persian wootz. What the author did, was to challence the origin of a series of artworks in known museums, all assumed and accepted to be Persian (Safavid from memory) as the form is well known to be of this period and region. His stance, was that they were not Persian at all, but Indian. His case was well written, and backed with decorative iconography found in Bijapur and Golkonda, which was almost identical to that used on these particular pieces. He claims the main cetres of manafacture were Lahore and the Deccan, and they widely exported pieces made in Persian taste for a huge Persian market. He claims that Indian craftsman were widely respected and the Persians accepted that their own craftsman were 'inferior'. He re-translated insriptions, written on well known 'Persian' pieces and found the word 'Lahore' written next to the name of the craftsman. I know this may sound extreme, and his theory can easily be argued against, but nothing he claims can be called extreme, as his arguement is well thought out and researched. The strangest thing, and something I really respect, is that the authour is patriotically Persian by birth! So, no matter whether his claim is accepted or not, his opinion is based on pure study without the bias of nationalism. I am a big fan of marching against assumption, and so I found the article extremely interesting. I am not saying I agreed with it all, but it definately made me re-assess things that even I was guilty of assuming. Of course, this can be taken too far, and sometimes you have to assume a little, otherwise you never get to the second stage of an investigation.

9th March 2007, 11:30 AM	#3
FenrisWolf Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 181	I remember an article I read online some years ago, written by two metallurgists who had been studying the crystalline patterns formed in wootz steel with an eye to duplicating it in modern weapons. I don't remember all the details, and unfortunately didn't save the link to the articles, but as I recall one of the theories put forth was that in addition to the crucible method, the major contributing factors to the true wootz steel of the peak Indian years were impurities that were naturally occuring in Indian iron ore. According to the theory put forward, even if you set up an identical foundry in the middle east using all the methods used in India, and made weapons in the same manner as Indian ones, the trademark 'wootz' pattern would not be present because the ore from two different mines lack the same blend of impurities.

29th May 2007, 03:42 AM	#5
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	An interesting post on SFI: This time around it is a Spanish book , mid-19th century, describing what they knew about wootz. http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=80073 Again, they mention Bombay and Golkonda, but no Persia.

29th May 2007, 01:35 PM	#6
Gt Obach Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 116	yes but it doesn't say they didn't make it in Persia... if you look at the structure of the crucible steels ... specially the waterings... they tell you there are some big differences in the process... .. Large waterings take much slower cooling times from liquid to solid... and need a long roast afterwards... .. small waterings require a much much shorter cool time and roast... in my experience..... you can't take a short cool ingot and turn it into a large watering slow cool ingot... i'd like to take my saturn and turn it into a Mercedes benz ... but it doesn't work that way... Greg