steel in african weapons

Lew · 14th June 2008, 04:18 AM

[QUOTE=ausjulius]come now tell that to the dayaks... :P

or the celts, many didnt wear much atal when they fought,,,.. but they had tempering and lamination techniques equial to those used in the middle ages

it so odd that people had mastered iron productin so well but never advanced the metal craft further.

ausjulius

From what I know the Celts and middle age swords were mostly spring tempered to between 45-50 Rockwell and the laminated blades consisted of a central core which had an outer edge of harder steel welded around the core. I saw no evidence of a differential heat treat or the use of san mai or clay tempering techniques as found in Asian blades. You also must take into consideration that there was a great deal of trade going on of ideas and goods between India,Persia,Central Asia,China and North Africa which may not have reached Central Africa the Congo and South Africa. So the Bantu smiths forged blades in very primitive forges consisting of a hole in the ground a basic bellows and a stone anvil. What they produced worked just fine for their type of warfare and there was no need to fix what was not broken. There was an arms race of in Asia and MidEast and Europe that atributed to the evolution of better arms and manufacturing techniques which in the end produced superior steel bladed weapons which now we see today. As far as the use of armor is concerned the Mid East was hot and dry as was Rhajistan in India so wearing metal armor or chail mail may not have presented as much as a problem as in central Africa were you can have the same heat but with 90 percent plus humidity and the humidity would not only kill you faster via heat stroke but would cause the armor to rust faster.

Lew

14th June 2008, 04:18 AM	#8
Lew (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: East Coast USA Posts: 3,191	[QUOTE=ausjulius]come now tell that to the dayaks... :P or the celts, many didnt wear much atal when they fought,,,.. but they had tempering and lamination techniques equial to those used in the middle ages it so odd that people had mastered iron productin so well but never advanced the metal craft further. ausjulius From what I know the Celts and middle age swords were mostly spring tempered to between 45-50 Rockwell and the laminated blades consisted of a central core which had an outer edge of harder steel welded around the core. I saw no evidence of a differential heat treat or the use of san mai or clay tempering techniques as found in Asian blades. You also must take into consideration that there was a great deal of trade going on of ideas and goods between India,Persia,Central Asia,China and North Africa which may not have reached Central Africa the Congo and South Africa. So the Bantu smiths forged blades in very primitive forges consisting of a hole in the ground a basic bellows and a stone anvil. What they produced worked just fine for their type of warfare and there was no need to fix what was not broken. There was an arms race of in Asia and MidEast and Europe that atributed to the evolution of better arms and manufacturing techniques which in the end produced superior steel bladed weapons which now we see today. As far as the use of armor is concerned the Mid East was hot and dry as was Rhajistan in India so wearing metal armor or chail mail may not have presented as much as a problem as in central Africa were you can have the same heat but with 90 percent plus humidity and the humidity would not only kill you faster via heat stroke but would cause the armor to rust faster. Lew Last edited by LOUIEBLADES; 14th June 2008 at 03:18 PM.