Wootz: Persian or Indian?

ariel · 3rd January 2007, 07:46 PM

Recently, I saw an article about a young Russian swordsmith, Mr. Ivan Kirpichev, who produces wonderful wootz blades.
http://www.persianmirror.com/Article...ubCategory=117
One part was quite fascinating:
( here is the direct quote):
"While talking about Persian blades, Mr. Kirpichev says that most of them are easily recognizable, as to state they were made by some standardized technology and from the same materials. The crucible steel blades from India, on the other hand, vary significantly, from very good to very poor quality. Also, in history books, it is well-documented – says Mr. Kirpichev – that Persians were traveling to India – possibly to teach Indian smiths or to share the technology of forging blades with crucible steel. "
Is Mr. Kirpichev correct? Are Persian wootz blades uniformly good and are Indian ones so variable that some are of "poor" quality? Did Persian smiths go to India to teach or, perhaps, to learn? Ot just to exchange notes, as equal?
Having seen a lot of Indian wootz blades of the highest quality, I have a problem imagining Indian smiths as bumbling amateurs who learned the rudimentaries of their craft at the knee of their brilliant Persian teachers.
Is Mr. Kirpichev correct in his assessment?

S.Al-Anizi · 3rd January 2007, 08:04 PM

I would have to disagree with Mr.Kirpichev. Centuries of literary evidence and historical documents show that it was Indian smiths that excelled in making blades, after which come the Yemeni's (im talking medieval era here). Unless Mr.Kirpichev comes with solid foolproof evidence (not some nationalist BS), I wouldn't believe it.

ShayanMirza · 3rd January 2007, 09:11 PM

The way I've always heard it, including from respectable Persian historians (and I'm Persian myself) is that it was most likely developed first in India, then soon spread north to the Iranian plateau, and then spread to the rest of the Middle East from there.

As an aside, how is Mr. Kirpichev spouting "nationalist BS?" He's Russian, not Persian. Though I do agree, as a budding historian (still in college

) I do hate it when history is hijacked for nationalism. Einstein said "Nationalism is the greatest disease of our age." I couldn't agree more. Pride in one's country and heritage should not (and does not) necessitate xenophobia and jingoism.

Andrew · 3rd January 2007, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

The way I've always heard it, including from respectable Persian historians (and I'm Persian myself) is that it was most likely developed first in India, then soon spread north to the Iranian plateau, and then spread to the rest of the Middle East from there.

As an aside, how is Mr. Kirpichev spouting "nationalist BS?" He's Russian, not Persian. Though I do agree, as a budding historian (still in college

) I do hate it when history is hijacked for nationalism. Einstein said "Nationalism is the greatest disease of our age." I couldn't agree more. Pride in one's country and heritage should not (and does not) necessitate xenophobia and jingoism.

Welcome to the forum, Shayan. Excellent post.

Do you read Farsi?

S.Al-Anizi · 3rd January 2007, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

The way I've always heard it, including from respectable Persian historians (and I'm Persian myself) is that it was most likely developed first in India, then soon spread north to the Iranian plateau, and then spread to the rest of the Middle East from there.

As an aside, how is Mr. Kirpichev spouting "nationalist BS?" He's Russian, not Persian. Though I do agree, as a budding historian (still in college

) I do hate it when history is hijacked for nationalism. Einstein said "Nationalism is the greatest disease of our age." I couldn't agree more. Pride in one's country and heritage should not (and does not) necessitate xenophobia and jingoism.

Welcome to the forums Shayan. I do realize that Mr.Kirpichev is Russian, however, I guess you're still not too familiar with the online sword community, and how nationalism stirs up many, 'newly discovered evidence', which are taken up as facts, which then spreads misconceptions and ignorance, especially when it comes to mid-eastern weaponry, as they're so similar and related.

Cheers!

ariel · 3rd January 2007, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

The way I've always heard it, including from respectable Persian historians (and I'm Persian myself) is that it was most likely developed first in India, then soon spread north to the Iranian plateau, and then spread to the rest of the Middle East from there.

As an aside, how is Mr. Kirpichev spouting "nationalist BS?" He's Russian, not Persian. Though I do agree, as a budding historian (still in college

) I do hate it when history is hijacked for nationalism. Einstein said "Nationalism is the greatest disease of our age." I couldn't agree more. Pride in one's country and heritage should not (and does not) necessitate xenophobia and jingoism.

Welcome to the Forum, Shayan!
I could not agree more. How do you like UVA? Gorgeous campus, first-rate education and a good football team ( coming from a UofM Wolverine..... We lost badly...).
Well, I guess even football patriotism is quite poisonous: look what happens with the Ohio State!

( Not to be confused with the Ohio University from Athens who are the Good Guys).
The most popular tee shirt in Ann Arbor says" Oh How I Hate Ohio State"

ShayanMirza · 3rd January 2007, 11:54 PM

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

Andrew, I do indeed, though not as a heritage learner, ironically. I'm learning it the hard way.

Mr. Anizi, thank you for the warning, I'll keep my eyes open in the future when I'm reading articles on weapons that appear to have priorities other than the exploration of the art or function of the tools of war.

And Ariel, I LOVE UVA!!! It is a wonderful town, Charlottesville. Though to be honest, I haven't been to a single football game yet, which in this town makes me half a man! Football rivalry gets almost absurdly intense here...that said, TECH SUX!!!

Just kidding. Kinda.

Thanks again for the welcome, everyone!

ShayanMirza · 4th January 2007, 04:03 AM

"It is important to recall Bronson’s observation that no first hand ethnographic reports from South India mention that the steel produces a Damascus pattern (Bronson, 1986, 39-40). In addition, the experiments performed by Wilkinson (1839, 389) on crucible steel ingots from Cutch, in Northern India on the India-Pakistan border, and from Salem, southern India, concluded that only the ingot from Cutch produced a good pattern, whereas the Salem sample had only a slight indication of a pattern. Therefore, the evidence from all archaeological, ethnographic, and replication experiments, indicates that crucible steel from South India/Sri Lanka, i.e. the areas associated with the terms wootz, produced crucible steel blades with either no pattern or a faint pattern only. Arguably, it is the coarse pattern, such as the Kara Khorasan pattern, that is most often associated with or characterizes “Damascus steel” (refer to Figures 97-100). As mentioned above, the archaeological evidence from Merv and Termez indicated that the microstructure of the ingots could have resulted in a coarse patterned blade. In addition, textual evidence (e.g. al-Beruni in Said, 1989, 219-220), and ethnographic reports (e.g. Abbott, 1884; Wilkinson, 1839, 38) all state that crucible steel blades with a good pattern were produced in Central Asia and Northern India, places where the term pulad (or related term) was used. Therefore, all the afore mentioned evidence indicates that crucible steel from Central Asia, which includes Northern India, could produced crucible steel blades with a coarse pattern, while the South Indian/Sri Lankan wootz ingots probably did not. This is contrary to the generally accepted opinion that Indian wootz steel was primarily used to produce “Damascus blades” (e.g. Verhoeven, 2001; Figiel, 1991, 7; Rostoker and Bronson, 1990, 130; Sachse, 1994, 67). "

That's from (soon to be) Dr. Feuerbach's thesis, available in the thread regarding the practicality of wootz.

Rivkin · 5th January 2007, 11:49 PM

Well, Shah Abbas I was quite specific (at least to me) that indian bulat is better than a persian one. This obviously does not contradict the universal recognition of persian work, which one can commonly encounter in XVI-XIXth century literature. I think we went through this in "practicality" of wootz thread.
I would agree though that on average persian wootz is more contrasty then the indian one.
Kara-Khorasan and Kara-Taban are really controversial topics since it is not clear what these termins refer to. In XIXth century one can very often encounter depictions that these are ultimate types of Bulat; they come either from Persia or from Cairo/Damascus area; they are not being produced anymore, and very few people even know how they look like (as in Anosov "On Bulats"). The most interesting story is that for example russian sources (all utlimately coming back to Anosov and his intellegance operations) insisted that these types of bulats where not produced at least since Timur's conquests.

Novadays it is often assumed that these bulats are very high contrast persian bulats. This might be true, but it might be not true as well.

ariel · 6th January 2007, 12:42 AM

What Rivkin refers to, is the famous report of the Russian ambassador to Persia, Prince Andrey Zvenigorodsky, to Tsar Fedor Ivanovich. This is dated 1593.
Shah Abbas showed Prince Andrey his treasures " helmets and head covers, and bulat (damascus) armour inlaid with gold, and plated armour" and said "this is what is made in our Empire, but the most excellent and beautiful bulat comes to us from India and the best armour - from Circassia".
In 1615, Circassian ( Kabardinian ) Prince Mudar Alkasov went to Shah Abbas' court and took with him as a present 5 Kabarda horses and chainmail.
Sounds clear to me, too: even Shah Abbas himself valued Indian swords higher than Persian ones and also preferred Circassian ( not locally produced) armour.

ShayanMirza · 6th January 2007, 05:49 AM

As far as pulad steel production goes, how much does region have to do with quality? In an age before the instant dissemination of information, would a region have collectively better swords than another region at a similar stage of material/scientific sophistication due to a superior tradition of swordmaking? Did swordmakers of a region share techniques or jealously guard their higher arts? I always conceptualized swordmaking as a very localized affair, with the quality of blades varying between swordmakers on a far smaller scale. Obviously the quality of ore would make a difference, but one may have good ore and poor workmanship and vice versa. All of this sweeping generalization about whose country makes better swords confuses me, since that kind of argument seems to me to be like saying one country has better art than another, which is a patently absurd comparison. What criteria go into determining which country has better swords in an era where the idea of a nation had not even been formulated? Do we attempt to measure the average quality of blade? Someone please clarify, I have a ton of confusion on what seem to me to be massive generalizations.

Rivkin · 6th January 2007, 06:03 AM

I do not want to make comments on Dr. Feuerbach's thesis since I have not read it in its entirety. It is accepted among some, not without a reason, that "persian" bulat has more contrast than an indian one, something I agree with, even though I am not a bulat-collector. Is it good or bad, I think the answer is we don't know.

Concerning the quality of weapons, the issue should be taken not with us, but with Shah Abbas and probably a hundred or so of other authors that used such generalizations. I would however be cautious here since Abbas speaks about bulat, not nesseseraly swords, may be they used indian bulat, which they thought to be superior (since time immemoria, even in Shahname they swing "indian" swords) to make swords locally.

In any case there was big difference in quality and style among sword producing regions, level of smiths and personal preferences of customers. Persian weapons were in general considered to be good ones, indian weapons often were considered the best, then there is a question of solignen and western weapons vs. eastern weapons. Caucasus surprisingly was always known as an excellent armour production center, but there is very little mentioning with an exception of a few time periods (chalibs, as and then - XVIth and XIXth century respectively) of a quality swords produced there.

It is like with rugs - New-York is not exactly the place known for good ones.

Rivkin · 6th January 2007, 06:22 AM

Ariel, since when do you read Persian Mirror ? Now I am no bulat-knower, but the article is filled with strange things. The art of making bulat was lost and rediscovered by Anosov, who yet somehow managed to collect/supervise first hand observations of bulat production and had working in his factory bulat makers from different areas. It would be very interesting to know how exactly Anosov's swords outperformed Toledo, solingen and others, because all I have read is a comparison between super-expensive, individually made Anosov's swords (which btw involved such complex procedures that no one was able to reproduce them) and pretty much simply good quality "western" steel. How they performed during Caucasus war ? What was the unit that carried them ? And why such facts where so poorly known to the russian people that even in XXth century they made their decisions to change military patterns with no reference to this fact (I have a really great presentation made before RKKA on the adoption of a new cavalry weapon. One can find a ton of references to "volchok" there, but not a single one to Anosov).
In all, russian work on bulats in XIXth century is actually a great example of bulat failure (they where not adopted as a standard steel for russian weapons, despite all their promise).

Again, I like bulats, but somehow even significant scientists, like Wadsworth, when they start talking about bulats - goodbuy science, hello magic.

ariel · 6th January 2007, 03:03 PM

We have already flogged the " quality of wootz" horse to death on another thread.
And, of course, RKKA was correct rejecting the idea of arming every Red Cavalry unit with bulat blades: far too expensive, time consuming and counterproductive. Even at that time the idea of cavalry charges was viewed as obsolete and supported only by semiliterate dinosaurs like Budyonny. The new breed of military commanders ( Tukhachevsky, Yakir) were hell bent on modernization: tanks, artillery, airforce etc.
But, I guess, even they would love to have a real Bulat saber! It is very pretty!
" Bulat is for show, AK-47 is for dough"

3rd January 2007, 07:46 PM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Wootz: Persian or Indian? Recently, I saw an article about a young Russian swordsmith, Mr. Ivan Kirpichev, who produces wonderful wootz blades. http://www.persianmirror.com/Article...ubCategory=117 One part was quite fascinating: ( here is the direct quote): "While talking about Persian blades, Mr. Kirpichev says that most of them are easily recognizable, as to state they were made by some standardized technology and from the same materials. The crucible steel blades from India, on the other hand, vary significantly, from very good to very poor quality. Also, in history books, it is well-documented – says Mr. Kirpichev – that Persians were traveling to India – possibly to teach Indian smiths or to share the technology of forging blades with crucible steel. " Is Mr. Kirpichev correct? Are Persian wootz blades uniformly good and are Indian ones so variable that some are of "poor" quality? Did Persian smiths go to India to teach or, perhaps, to learn? Ot just to exchange notes, as equal? Having seen a lot of Indian wootz blades of the highest quality, I have a problem imagining Indian smiths as bumbling amateurs who learned the rudimentaries of their craft at the knee of their brilliant Persian teachers. Is Mr. Kirpichev correct in his assessment? Last edited by ariel; 3rd January 2007 at 08:04 PM.

6th January 2007, 05:49 AM	#11
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	Relevance of Region As far as pulad steel production goes, how much does region have to do with quality? In an age before the instant dissemination of information, would a region have collectively better swords than another region at a similar stage of material/scientific sophistication due to a superior tradition of swordmaking? Did swordmakers of a region share techniques or jealously guard their higher arts? I always conceptualized swordmaking as a very localized affair, with the quality of blades varying between swordmakers on a far smaller scale. Obviously the quality of ore would make a difference, but one may have good ore and poor workmanship and vice versa. All of this sweeping generalization about whose country makes better swords confuses me, since that kind of argument seems to me to be like saying one country has better art than another, which is a patently absurd comparison. What criteria go into determining which country has better swords in an era where the idea of a nation had not even been formulated? Do we attempt to measure the average quality of blade? Someone please clarify, I have a ton of confusion on what seem to me to be massive generalizations.

3rd January 2007, 08:04 PM	#2
S.Al-Anizi Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Arabia Posts: 278	I would have to disagree with Mr.Kirpichev. Centuries of literary evidence and historical documents show that it was Indian smiths that excelled in making blades, after which come the Yemeni's (im talking medieval era here). Unless Mr.Kirpichev comes with solid foolproof evidence (not some nationalist BS), I wouldn't believe it.

3rd January 2007, 09:11 PM	#3
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	The way I've always heard it, including from respectable Persian historians (and I'm Persian myself) is that it was most likely developed first in India, then soon spread north to the Iranian plateau, and then spread to the rest of the Middle East from there. As an aside, how is Mr. Kirpichev spouting "nationalist BS?" He's Russian, not Persian. Though I do agree, as a budding historian (still in college ) I do hate it when history is hijacked for nationalism. Einstein said "Nationalism is the greatest disease of our age." I couldn't agree more. Pride in one's country and heritage should not (and does not) necessitate xenophobia and jingoism.

3rd January 2007, 11:54 PM	#7
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone! Andrew, I do indeed, though not as a heritage learner, ironically. I'm learning it the hard way. Mr. Anizi, thank you for the warning, I'll keep my eyes open in the future when I'm reading articles on weapons that appear to have priorities other than the exploration of the art or function of the tools of war. And Ariel, I LOVE UVA!!! It is a wonderful town, Charlottesville. Though to be honest, I haven't been to a single football game yet, which in this town makes me half a man! Football rivalry gets almost absurdly intense here...that said, TECH SUX!!! Just kidding. Kinda. Thanks again for the welcome, everyone!

4th January 2007, 04:03 AM	#8
ShayanMirza Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Charlottesville Posts: 25	"It is important to recall Bronson’s observation that no first hand ethnographic reports from South India mention that the steel produces a Damascus pattern (Bronson, 1986, 39-40). In addition, the experiments performed by Wilkinson (1839, 389) on crucible steel ingots from Cutch, in Northern India on the India-Pakistan border, and from Salem, southern India, concluded that only the ingot from Cutch produced a good pattern, whereas the Salem sample had only a slight indication of a pattern. Therefore, the evidence from all archaeological, ethnographic, and replication experiments, indicates that crucible steel from South India/Sri Lanka, i.e. the areas associated with the terms wootz, produced crucible steel blades with either no pattern or a faint pattern only. Arguably, it is the coarse pattern, such as the Kara Khorasan pattern, that is most often associated with or characterizes “Damascus steel” (refer to Figures 97-100). As mentioned above, the archaeological evidence from Merv and Termez indicated that the microstructure of the ingots could have resulted in a coarse patterned blade. In addition, textual evidence (e.g. al-Beruni in Said, 1989, 219-220), and ethnographic reports (e.g. Abbott, 1884; Wilkinson, 1839, 38) all state that crucible steel blades with a good pattern were produced in Central Asia and Northern India, places where the term pulad (or related term) was used. Therefore, all the afore mentioned evidence indicates that crucible steel from Central Asia, which includes Northern India, could produced crucible steel blades with a coarse pattern, while the South Indian/Sri Lankan wootz ingots probably did not. This is contrary to the generally accepted opinion that Indian wootz steel was primarily used to produce “Damascus blades” (e.g. Verhoeven, 2001; Figiel, 1991, 7; Rostoker and Bronson, 1990, 130; Sachse, 1994, 67). " That's from (soon to be) Dr. Feuerbach's thesis, available in the thread regarding the practicality of wootz.

5th January 2007, 11:49 PM	#9
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Well, Shah Abbas I was quite specific (at least to me) that indian bulat is better than a persian one. This obviously does not contradict the universal recognition of persian work, which one can commonly encounter in XVI-XIXth century literature. I think we went through this in "practicality" of wootz thread. I would agree though that on average persian wootz is more contrasty then the indian one. Kara-Khorasan and Kara-Taban are really controversial topics since it is not clear what these termins refer to. In XIXth century one can very often encounter depictions that these are ultimate types of Bulat; they come either from Persia or from Cairo/Damascus area; they are not being produced anymore, and very few people even know how they look like (as in Anosov "On Bulats"). The most interesting story is that for example russian sources (all utlimately coming back to Anosov and his intellegance operations) insisted that these types of bulats where not produced at least since Timur's conquests. Novadays it is often assumed that these bulats are very high contrast persian bulats. This might be true, but it might be not true as well.

6th January 2007, 12:42 AM	#10
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	What Rivkin refers to, is the famous report of the Russian ambassador to Persia, Prince Andrey Zvenigorodsky, to Tsar Fedor Ivanovich. This is dated 1593. Shah Abbas showed Prince Andrey his treasures " helmets and head covers, and bulat (damascus) armour inlaid with gold, and plated armour" and said "this is what is made in our Empire, but the most excellent and beautiful bulat comes to us from India and the best armour - from Circassia". In 1615, Circassian ( Kabardinian ) Prince Mudar Alkasov went to Shah Abbas' court and took with him as a present 5 Kabarda horses and chainmail. Sounds clear to me, too: even Shah Abbas himself valued Indian swords higher than Persian ones and also preferred Circassian ( not locally produced) armour.

6th January 2007, 06:03 AM	#12
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I do not want to make comments on Dr. Feuerbach's thesis since I have not read it in its entirety. It is accepted among some, not without a reason, that "persian" bulat has more contrast than an indian one, something I agree with, even though I am not a bulat-collector. Is it good or bad, I think the answer is we don't know. Concerning the quality of weapons, the issue should be taken not with us, but with Shah Abbas and probably a hundred or so of other authors that used such generalizations. I would however be cautious here since Abbas speaks about bulat, not nesseseraly swords, may be they used indian bulat, which they thought to be superior (since time immemoria, even in Shahname they swing "indian" swords) to make swords locally. In any case there was big difference in quality and style among sword producing regions, level of smiths and personal preferences of customers. Persian weapons were in general considered to be good ones, indian weapons often were considered the best, then there is a question of solignen and western weapons vs. eastern weapons. Caucasus surprisingly was always known as an excellent armour production center, but there is very little mentioning with an exception of a few time periods (chalibs, as and then - XVIth and XIXth century respectively) of a quality swords produced there. It is like with rugs - New-York is not exactly the place known for good ones.

6th January 2007, 06:22 AM	#13
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Ariel, since when do you read Persian Mirror ? Now I am no bulat-knower, but the article is filled with strange things. The art of making bulat was lost and rediscovered by Anosov, who yet somehow managed to collect/supervise first hand observations of bulat production and had working in his factory bulat makers from different areas. It would be very interesting to know how exactly Anosov's swords outperformed Toledo, solingen and others, because all I have read is a comparison between super-expensive, individually made Anosov's swords (which btw involved such complex procedures that no one was able to reproduce them) and pretty much simply good quality "western" steel. How they performed during Caucasus war ? What was the unit that carried them ? And why such facts where so poorly known to the russian people that even in XXth century they made their decisions to change military patterns with no reference to this fact (I have a really great presentation made before RKKA on the adoption of a new cavalry weapon. One can find a ton of references to "volchok" there, but not a single one to Anosov). In all, russian work on bulats in XIXth century is actually a great example of bulat failure (they where not adopted as a standard steel for russian weapons, despite all their promise). Again, I like bulats, but somehow even significant scientists, like Wadsworth, when they start talking about bulats - goodbuy science, hello magic.

6th January 2007, 03:03 PM	#14
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	We have already flogged the " quality of wootz" horse to death on another thread. And, of course, RKKA was correct rejecting the idea of arming every Red Cavalry unit with bulat blades: far too expensive, time consuming and counterproductive. Even at that time the idea of cavalry charges was viewed as obsolete and supported only by semiliterate dinosaurs like Budyonny. The new breed of military commanders ( Tukhachevsky, Yakir) were hell bent on modernization: tanks, artillery, airforce etc. But, I guess, even they would love to have a real Bulat saber! It is very pretty! " Bulat is for show, AK-47 is for dough"