Yes Ariel, it is fascinating reading, and the amount of ingots exported to other places in India, Persia, Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Rome and other places – not to speak about the places whey sold some of them to, must have been very, very big. Like you say, enough to make swords for hole armies, and the export went on for centuries. However, we must not forget, that when an army had lost a battle, the winner took all the arms and emptied the armouries, if possible, and brought it all home, either to enter their own armoury or to be changed into weapon types, which suited them better, so the looser would have a very big need for ‘new’ ingots to arm their soldiers.
Another thing, which I also find fascinating, is, that to keep up en export of spices, fine cotton textiles, metal ware and a lot of other things, they would have needed very big ships, and the knowledge of navigating. It is known that the first compasses used by them, was a hollow fish made of magnetic iron swimming on oil, but it takes a lot more than that to sail for days when you cant see land. No doubt the first sailors sailed close to the coast, but it must have taken a long time, and not seventy days as someone describes it at one point, when he was on a boat with a lot of horses for export to India.
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