Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Indian Crucible Steel vs. Pattern Welding

AJ1356 · 24th October 2015, 03:14 AM

So historically in the Persian and Arabic world, what I think might have been early forms of wootz swords were called shamshir e Hindi or saif e Hindi, meaning Indian sword or sword from India. This term is used in Shahnamah about 1000 ago and in early Islamic books earlier than that. The word for steel in both Arabic and Farsi is FolAd, also spelled as PolAd in Farsi since Arabic lacks a (P) in the their alphabet. It is likely that the term had gone to the Arab world from Farsi (also called Parsi, again the lack of P in Arabic); and quite possibly it originated in India, or maybe not, besides the point. Now I am not sure where the word (wootz) comes from and frankly don't care, since I take it at the face value for it being the word describing crucible steel. Now the word Jawhar,(not jAw) or the different variants of its spelling, means gem, JawAher is the plural form. Jawhar also means essence, and the Farsi the word (dAr) means with, the owners of, containing and so on, combined creating the word jawhardAr, which could mean with essence. So What I am saying is folAd e jawhardAr should mean steel with essence, the essence being the crystalline formations in the steel.

Also Damascus steel swords were and know known as Shamshir e Damishqi (Damascus)

24th October 2015, 03:14 AM	#5
AJ1356 Member Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Nashville Posts: 314	So historically in the Persian and Arabic world, what I think might have been early forms of wootz swords were called shamshir e Hindi or saif e Hindi, meaning Indian sword or sword from India. This term is used in Shahnamah about 1000 ago and in early Islamic books earlier than that. The word for steel in both Arabic and Farsi is FolAd, also spelled as PolAd in Farsi since Arabic lacks a (P) in the their alphabet. It is likely that the term had gone to the Arab world from Farsi (also called Parsi, again the lack of P in Arabic); and quite possibly it originated in India, or maybe not, besides the point. Now I am not sure where the word (wootz) comes from and frankly don't care, since I take it at the face value for it being the word describing crucible steel. Now the word Jawhar,(not jAw) or the different variants of its spelling, means gem, JawAher is the plural form. Jawhar also means essence, and the Farsi the word (dAr) means with, the owners of, containing and so on, combined creating the word jawhardAr, which could mean with essence. So What I am saying is folAd e jawhardAr should mean steel with essence, the essence being the crystalline formations in the steel. Also Damascus steel swords were and know known as Shamshir e Damishqi (Damascus)