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Ibrahiim al Balooshi · 23rd February 2016, 12:06 PM

Salaams All, There is compelling evidence from all quarters in this very excellent thread for reasoned thoughts on the decline of Wootz including the invasion of central Asia thus the drop in demand..and the demographic detail illustrated graphically on the suspected demise of participants...I believe all of them. I suggest one was the trigger (drop in demand) and the other caused the specialty to vanish.(see paragraph 3 below)

On the demise of Wootz in particular I would point to the traditional aspect in craftsmanship of taking the children into a apprenticeship routine from a very young age and passing them out at about 16 years old as fully trained artesans. This means that the graph illustrated above is not so much floored but enhanced since the apprentice age factor or the point in the graph between perhaps 5 and 10 years old (at the point the Wootz making stops) breaks the traditional passing down of the technique... and destroys the apprenticeship concept. Thus as Ariel points out ..."It Withers".

How quickly can a passed down tradition vanish?... Take the Omani Weaving specialization which all but vanished and except for the intervention my one single individual it would have sunk without trace. The same could be said about silver-making in Oman when the leader of the country had to intervene by having at least one son of the silver-maker learn the apprenticeship... It is therefor very easy to lose these traditional methods very quickly since the apprentice window is very narrow and in particular when they are not written down. It would appear that Wootz blade manufacture fell under similar constraints. Without the demand and then without the apprenticeships the art was lost.

In support of the very quickly lost art of Wootz manufacturing please see http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom...even-9809.html
( also noted at #132 by Emanuel)
Quote."The smiths that produced the high-quality blades would most likely have kept the process for making these blades a closely guarded secret to be passed on only to their apprentices".Unquote.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

23rd February 2016, 12:06 PM	#147
Ibrahiim al Balooshi Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE Posts: 4,408	Salaams All, There is compelling evidence from all quarters in this very excellent thread for reasoned thoughts on the decline of Wootz including the invasion of central Asia thus the drop in demand..and the demographic detail illustrated graphically on the suspected demise of participants...I believe all of them. I suggest one was the trigger (drop in demand) and the other caused the specialty to vanish.(see paragraph 3 below) On the demise of Wootz in particular I would point to the traditional aspect in craftsmanship of taking the children into a apprenticeship routine from a very young age and passing them out at about 16 years old as fully trained artesans. This means that the graph illustrated above is not so much floored but enhanced since the apprentice age factor or the point in the graph between perhaps 5 and 10 years old (at the point the Wootz making stops) breaks the traditional passing down of the technique... and destroys the apprenticeship concept. Thus as Ariel points out ..."It Withers". How quickly can a passed down tradition vanish?... Take the Omani Weaving specialization which all but vanished and except for the intervention my one single individual it would have sunk without trace. The same could be said about silver-making in Oman when the leader of the country had to intervene by having at least one son of the silver-maker learn the apprenticeship... It is therefor very easy to lose these traditional methods very quickly since the apprentice window is very narrow and in particular when they are not written down. It would appear that Wootz blade manufacture fell under similar constraints. Without the demand and then without the apprenticeships the art was lost. In support of the very quickly lost art of Wootz manufacturing please see http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom...even-9809.html ( also noted at #132 by Emanuel) Quote."The smiths that produced the high-quality blades would most likely have kept the process for making these blades a closely guarded secret to be passed on only to their apprentices".Unquote. Regards, Ibrahiim al Balooshi. Last edited by Ibrahiim al Balooshi; 23rd February 2016 at 12:31 PM.