Wootz: Persian or Indian?

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.

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.