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Originally Posted by Gonzalo G
...Do you meant iron ores, since wootz a product made of iron, carbon and other igredients? I don´t have a map with the ancient iron ores sites distribution, but it would be interesting to have one and begin to make some inferences.
All my best
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Gonzalo, let me venture a guess:
The common knowledge is that
wootz ignots were exported from India to the Middle East. Damascus was a main arms production center in Syria, and Isfahan - in Persia. Isfahan in particular was well known to produce arms from
locally mined
iron ore, and
wootz ignots from Khorossan area in Northwest Persia were mined and shipped to Isfahan and other production centers in Persia (the Khorossan is also a name of one of the wootz patterns – “Kara Khorossan” - a darker oilish pattern.)
I do not know if Persian wootz ignots were exported elsewhere, or if there were other ore sources in other regions, but perhaps it explains why Persian wootz is considered to be superior to Indian (and I know that some people will object to this theory, but be it a myth or legend – this notion has been around for a while, so it has to be a reason behing it
