When in India "died" wootz?

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by mahratt

Many thanks!



This is a difficult question. I do not have data for the 18-19 age. But Al-Biruni wrote that in Herat produced wootz. Herat - is Persia ...

At the same time there is no doubt that the finest blades of wootz steel is made in Persia.

By Manouchehr Moshtagh Khorasani

Saturday, 23 November
I held a public lecture on "Crucible and Welded Steel Weapons on Oriental Weapons: From Persian, Ottoman and Indian Examples". This event was held at the dining room at the President's Palace in Valletta on November 23, 2013 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The event was held under the distinguished patronage of His Excellency Dr. George Abela, President of Malta. I would like to thank Dr. Abela here again for all his support for the whole event. My table of contents of my presentation included the following: a) Crucible steel, b) Forging process of crucible steel, c) Crucible steel patterns, d) Pattern-welded steel, e) Pattern-welded steel patterns, f) Indian examples, g) Ottoman examples, h) Persian examples and i) Summary.


I started the lecture by introducing how crucible steel was made and showed some picture of the process. I explained that crucible steel was called pulād-e jŏhardār (watered steel) in Persian. Then I showed different crucible steel blade patterns such as a) pulād-e jŏhardār-e mošabak (watered steel with net pattern; a type of crucible steel with woodgrain pattern), b) qaraxorāsāni(black watered steel from Xorāsān / Khorasan), c) pulād-e jŏhardār-e qerq nardebān (watered steel with ladder pattern), d) lolo (pearl pattern; rose pattern), e) pulād-e mavvāj or pulād-e mŏjdār(a type of crucible steel with wavy pattern) and f) pulād-e jŏhardār-e xati (lined watered steel; a type of crucible steel with lined pattern).


In the next step, I moved to the process of how patttern-welded steel was made in Persia. Although pattern-welded steel was used to a limited extent for making blades, it was mostly used for making gun barrels in Persia. The pattern-welded steel is called pulād-e masnu’i (artificial steel; pattern welded steel) that is divided into a) pulād-e motabbaq (layered steel) that is further divided into pulād-e motabbaq-e montazam (layered and ordered steel) and pulād-e motabbaq-e rangi (colored and layered steel) and b) pulād-e piči (twisted steel) that is further divided into pulād-e piči-ye montazam (twisted and ordered steel) and pulād-e piči-ye rangi (twisted and colored steel). Then I showed examples from Indian, Ottoman and Persian edged weapons. The presentation was a huge success and many people really liked it and talked to me after the presentation about these types of steel.