Meteoric iron used for keris's vs. for Indian weapons

Jens Nordlunde · 14th February 2005, 10:52 AM

This is what made me start the topic:
Arms and Jewellery of the Indian Mughuls, Lahor 1947, written by Abdul Aziz.
In the book he tells about Shah Jahangir, and about a falling meteor. The meteor fell around 10 April 1621 close to a village called Jalandhar. The meteor was dug up and presented to Shah Jahangir:
I ordered Master (Ustad) Daud to make a sword, a dagger and a knife out of it, and bring them to me. He represented that it would not stand below the hammer, and fell too pieces. I told him in that case to mix it with other iron and make use of it. As I had told him, he mixed three parts of lightening-iron and one of other iron, and having made two swords, one dagger, and one knife, brought them to me. From the mixing of other iron he had brought out its quality (watering). According to the manner of the excellent swords of Yaman and [the swords of] the South, it could be bent, and became straight again. I ordered him to test it in my presence. It cut very well, equal to true swords.
What Shah Jahangir means by saying 'a true sword' I don't know, but it is clear that meteoric iron had to be mixed, at least with the knowledge they had at the time.

So fearn, here we have a problem, as it seems as if you won't find a pure meteoric blade. From you posts, like with the posts of others, I more and more got the feeling, that you knew much more about the subject than most of us.
Thank you for taking your time to explain it to us - so far in a language which most of us can follow

.
Nechesh, the above should answer your question as well.

Jens

Jim McDougall · 14th February 2005, 04:31 PM

Hi Jens,
The event you are citing from the Aziz book is descibed almost verbatum in Pant (p.218), with the combining of three parts 'lightning iron' as the meteoric material is termed and one of other iron.

In the original post you noted that meteoric iron is discussed in other references in edged weapons blades, especially the keris, but not incidents or applications from India. In Pant, (p.218) he notes.
"...no special study of weapons made of meteoric iron has been made in India so far. However a sword at present in the Alwar Museum, Alwar (Rajasthan) is said to have been made of meteoric iron".
He also notes that in one of the early dealers here in the U.S. catalog, Robert Abels (Catalog #32, p.87, #700) there is an Indian sword with 21" meteoric blade. Despite the obvious scepticism, it would be interesting to see if these swords actually did have such blades. The one in the catalog obviously is long gone, Abels was dealing in the 60's and 70's, but possibly the museum example is still there.

A note concerning aesthetics : from Stone (p.664)
"...the most brilliant watering is in Malayan blades made by piling alternate layers of mild steel and an alloy of iron and nickel containing about 3% nickel.
These are welded and twisted in various ways and then etched with a mixture of lime jiuc and arsenous acid".
"..in the old blades the nickel alloy was meteoric iron, in some of the later ones it was Krupps nickel steel".

This it seems the nickel was one key ingredient for the pamor, and if the appearance was 'meteoric'..all the better. Since nickel is an earthly element it does seem it would be difficult to differentiate between the earthly matter and extraterrestrial.
Question: are there unidentified elements or minerals found only in extraterrestrial material, such as the rocks from mars or the moon?

Best regards,
Jim

Jens Nordlunde · 14th February 2005, 04:54 PM

Hi Jim,

We have, in some of the earlier posts heard about how difficult it is to recognise meteoric iron, especially if it is mixed, so how Pant could come with a statement like that, about a blade he has never seen, I don’t know. Maybe the museum in Alwar has such a sword, but here too the metal for the blade would be mixed. Should the museum have the sword, it is a question if they would let it be tested.
I know of the Pant book you quote from, but I don’t have it, so I did not know what he wrote on the subject.

Jens

Jim McDougall · 14th February 2005, 06:48 PM

Hi Jens,
You are right, the statements and comments that Pant has presented concerning the study of meteoric iron in India are simply presented as a point of reference, not necessarily conclusive. It would be difficult for him to prove that absolutely no study of any kind has been made on this topic in India, however we would presume that such published material was limited as not readily found. Therefore, the subject of meteoric iron in India is clearly not much discussed. As for the swords he has cited, the one in the museum he is apparantly relaying the caption with the weapon in the museum. ...we could only hope the weapon has some sort of provenance or historical data that would explain the 'meteoric' label.
As for the item listed in the Abels catalog, I would hardly consider a sales catalog used for reference in an academic discussion

so again, that was simply an example cited which would just as well have been left out

it just seemed interesting to note.

Best regards,
Jim

Jim McDougall · 14th February 2005, 06:53 PM

BSM,
Thank you so much!!! Beautifully explained!!!
This stuff gets more and more fascinating!!!
All the best,
Jim

Jens Nordlunde · 14th February 2005, 07:15 PM

Hi BSMStar,

When you write 'I believe this is apart of the issue at hand.' I have to say no, this is a part of the understanding of the whole thing - so it is right on target

.

I would like to thank you and the others who participate in this discussion, for explaning the things so clearly. Since I started this thread - which get more end more interesting - I have learned a lot, knowledge I which would have taken me a long time to gather - if I ever could - thank you very much.

Jens

nechesh · 15th February 2005, 12:05 AM

Jim posted this quote from Stone: A note concerning aesthetics : from Stone (p.664)
"...the most brilliant watering is in Malayan blades made by piling alternate layers of mild steel and an alloy of iron and nickel containing about 3% nickel.
These are welded and twisted in various ways and then etched with a mixture of lime jiuc and arsenous acid".
"..in the old blades the nickel alloy was meteoric iron, in some of the later ones it was Krupps nickel steel".

With all due respect to Stone, the last part of this quote just is not correct. This is part of the problem with this subject, we can find many accounts by scholars of an earlier time that are misleading at best and just dead wrong at worst. There is just NO evidence for meteoric pamor before the 19thC. Period. Maybe Stone meant something else by the phrase "old blades", but i would say old means pre-19thC. Not only that, Prof. Paiskowski's research has proven conclusively that much of the contrasting pamor in early keris is actually created by the use of high and low phosphorous iron, NO nickel at all. This is an important point to consider in evaluating the evolution of the keris blade.
I think it is a good thing that we have the reference material that we do when studying this material. But some of this info needs to be taken with a grain of salt. On this matter i have seen various authors who seem to pick up and pass along the same misinformation on this subject in a continuous chain of reference material. We can't just accept something because it is written, as clearly, sometimes these writers are wrong.

Jeff D · 15th February 2005, 12:32 AM

Great discussion.

I am no expert but we may be taking the "meteoric iron" term too literally. Meteoric iron or steel is another term used for Nickel steel, and has nothing to do with its origins. The iron from a meteor usually has Ni at 5-15%, It is not the trace elements in it that identifies it as a meteor, rather what elements are not present ie lack of other alloying elements. Nickel steel manufactured here on terra firma usually has 3-5% Nickel. So if an e-bay seller is saying his Keris has "meteoric iron" he may not be embellishing his item, but, may be using a out of date term.

Just my 5 cents worth (pre 1964).
Jeff

nechesh · 15th February 2005, 12:55 AM

Jeff, though i like to see the best in every man, i don't think that is what eBay dealers are doing. However, i do think the majority of them are just misguided having heard the myth somewhere that ALL keris are made this way or reading about it in some reference book with outdated information. And then there are a few who tend to act knowledgable and make the claim that theirs truly is a meteorite blade, really, and if you were as smart as they are you would know it was true.

tom hyle · 17th February 2005, 12:13 PM

This is one of those threads I read the first half page of in real time, then it just "exploded" behind my back! In typical fashion, I'm responding while only 1/2 finished catching up.......I think the metal "not standing" beneath the hammer means that it cracked and crumbled when hammered upon, which wootz is also said to do if not worked properly, or perhaps if its chemistry is a little off, as with the meteor. Combining it (by hammering or melting I don't think is told?) with terrestrial metal diluted the impurity that caused the problem, allowing the metal to be worked ordinarily. The hope, I suppose, was that something about its chemistry might be bizarre and helpful. Odd pockets of terrestrial ores were known to have such properties. Skofnung and his brothers were said to have nonrusting edges. The Chinese didn't bother with iron weapons at first (until they got inexpensive, or until they improved?), because an impurity in one of the ores used in their bronze made it comparable....
Cut iron meteors display a flake-board-like pattern of angled crystals called a Windmenstatten pattern (spelling probably way off on that one), but only if cut/ground into; any hot working destroys this pattern, which could only be remade under the conditions of outer space or whatever. So, yeah, apart from burning a sample for spectroscopy, I don't think there's any way to tell the origins of a piece of forged iron. Musea and universities do it to things to follow ancient trade routes; "this dagger blade is made with copper from the Caucases...." etc. K(e)ris tangs are, AFAIK, formed by the two side plates of the blade, the cutting layer or core steel having stopped at or before the ganga, or at most within the first inch of tang. The two side plates of pamor metal are welded to each other, and then usually twisted together, too, so a tang tip actually should work, yes? I don't think I've seen any with tang extensions welded for length?

BSMStar · 17th February 2005, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom hyle

Cut iron meteors display a flake-board-like pattern of angled crystals called a Windmenstatten pattern (spelling probably way off on that one), but only if cut/ground into; any hot working destroys this pattern, which could only be remade under the conditions of outer space or whatever.

Hi Tom,

Somewhat like the Keris, a cut and polished surface of an iron meteorite (except Ataxites) will only display the Widmanstatten structure after being acid etched.

There is a range of crystal structures from fine to coarse. The theory we learned (over 30 years ago) about the cause of this range of crystal structures, there was a planet or planetoid that existed between Earth and Mars. Through some event, the planet was destroyed... scattering its debris along what we call the asteroid belt. The core of the planet was made of "iron" like our own Earth's. As this nickel-iron core cooled, it crystallized. The slower the component cooled, the coarser the crystal structure became. I hope you will fine this helpful.

BSMStar

BSMStar · 14th February 2005, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

This it seems the nickel was one key ingredient for the pamor, and if the appearance was 'meteoric'..all the better. Since nickel is an earthly element it does seem it would be difficult to differentiate between the earthly matter and extraterrestrial.
Question: are there unidentified elements or minerals found only in extraterrestrial material, such as the rocks from mars or the moon?

Best regards,
Jim

Hi Jim,

You will find there are no "unearthly" elements in meteorites. What sets them appart is the "chemical mix" in which they were formed (and the physical conditions of formation as well).

If you were to see a meteorite sitting on the ground for any time at all, you may very well pass it up as a common rock (I am including all meteorite types). As you may have noticed that all of the meteorites mentioned in this thread that were used as sword making material, were witnessed falls. The cosmic connection was made becaused of an observed event. If they had not been observed, even if some kind of crater forming event occured... I think someone would have scrached their head and not reconize the interesting stones laying there as being from above. I believe this is apart of the issue at hand. By simple observation, how do we tell if a Keris or sword contains meteoric iron.

For me, I do not need meteoric iron to make a cosmic connection, take a look around you... everything you see, the elements that make us and everything around us were forged in a star.

I have seen some of the Gibeon meteorites that had simply been hammered into shape to make a spear... and when polished and acid etched, still showed the Widmanstatten structure, meaning it had not been forged or heated to any large degree or it would have destroyed this internal crystal structure. I am not an expert... so correct me if I am wrong, it maybe that the finer crystal structural octahedrites (vs. medium and coarse) may be more malleable (Gibeon is a fine octahedrite type IVA)?

If the meteorite in India would not stand below the hammer, and fell too pieces, then it was the "luck of the fall" or is it draw?

14th February 2005, 04:31 PM	#2
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	Hi Jens, The event you are citing from the Aziz book is descibed almost verbatum in Pant (p.218), with the combining of three parts 'lightning iron' as the meteoric material is termed and one of other iron. In the original post you noted that meteoric iron is discussed in other references in edged weapons blades, especially the keris, but not incidents or applications from India. In Pant, (p.218) he notes. "...no special study of weapons made of meteoric iron has been made in India so far. However a sword at present in the Alwar Museum, Alwar (Rajasthan) is said to have been made of meteoric iron". He also notes that in one of the early dealers here in the U.S. catalog, Robert Abels (Catalog #32, p.87, #700) there is an Indian sword with 21" meteoric blade. Despite the obvious scepticism, it would be interesting to see if these swords actually did have such blades. The one in the catalog obviously is long gone, Abels was dealing in the 60's and 70's, but possibly the museum example is still there. A note concerning aesthetics : from Stone (p.664) "...the most brilliant watering is in Malayan blades made by piling alternate layers of mild steel and an alloy of iron and nickel containing about 3% nickel. These are welded and twisted in various ways and then etched with a mixture of lime jiuc and arsenous acid". "..in the old blades the nickel alloy was meteoric iron, in some of the later ones it was Krupps nickel steel". This it seems the nickel was one key ingredient for the pamor, and if the appearance was 'meteoric'..all the better. Since nickel is an earthly element it does seem it would be difficult to differentiate between the earthly matter and extraterrestrial. Question: are there unidentified elements or minerals found only in extraterrestrial material, such as the rocks from mars or the moon? Best regards, Jim Last edited by Jim McDougall; 14th February 2005 at 04:43 PM.

17th February 2005, 12:13 PM	#10
tom hyle Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Houston, TX, USA Posts: 1,254	This is one of those threads I read the first half page of in real time, then it just "exploded" behind my back! In typical fashion, I'm responding while only 1/2 finished catching up.......I think the metal "not standing" beneath the hammer means that it cracked and crumbled when hammered upon, which wootz is also said to do if not worked properly, or perhaps if its chemistry is a little off, as with the meteor. Combining it (by hammering or melting I don't think is told?) with terrestrial metal diluted the impurity that caused the problem, allowing the metal to be worked ordinarily. The hope, I suppose, was that something about its chemistry might be bizarre and helpful. Odd pockets of terrestrial ores were known to have such properties. Skofnung and his brothers were said to have nonrusting edges. The Chinese didn't bother with iron weapons at first (until they got inexpensive, or until they improved?), because an impurity in one of the ores used in their bronze made it comparable.... Cut iron meteors display a flake-board-like pattern of angled crystals called a Windmenstatten pattern (spelling probably way off on that one), but only if cut/ground into; any hot working destroys this pattern, which could only be remade under the conditions of outer space or whatever. So, yeah, apart from burning a sample for spectroscopy, I don't think there's any way to tell the origins of a piece of forged iron. Musea and universities do it to things to follow ancient trade routes; "this dagger blade is made with copper from the Caucases...." etc. K(e)ris tangs are, AFAIK, formed by the two side plates of the blade, the cutting layer or core steel having stopped at or before the ganga, or at most within the first inch of tang. The two side plates of pamor metal are welded to each other, and then usually twisted together, too, so a tang tip actually should work, yes? I don't think I've seen any with tang extensions welded for length? Last edited by tom hyle; 17th February 2005 at 12:43 PM.

14th February 2005, 10:52 AM	#1
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,718	This is what made me start the topic: Arms and Jewellery of the Indian Mughuls, Lahor 1947, written by Abdul Aziz. In the book he tells about Shah Jahangir, and about a falling meteor. The meteor fell around 10 April 1621 close to a village called Jalandhar. The meteor was dug up and presented to Shah Jahangir: I ordered Master (Ustad) Daud to make a sword, a dagger and a knife out of it, and bring them to me. He represented that it would not stand below the hammer, and fell too pieces. I told him in that case to mix it with other iron and make use of it. As I had told him, he mixed three parts of lightening-iron and one of other iron, and having made two swords, one dagger, and one knife, brought them to me. From the mixing of other iron he had brought out its quality (watering). According to the manner of the excellent swords of Yaman and [the swords of] the South, it could be bent, and became straight again. I ordered him to test it in my presence. It cut very well, equal to true swords. What Shah Jahangir means by saying 'a true sword' I don't know, but it is clear that meteoric iron had to be mixed, at least with the knowledge they had at the time. So fearn, here we have a problem, as it seems as if you won't find a pure meteoric blade. From you posts, like with the posts of others, I more and more got the feeling, that you knew much more about the subject than most of us. Thank you for taking your time to explain it to us - so far in a language which most of us can follow . Nechesh, the above should answer your question as well. Jens

14th February 2005, 04:54 PM	#3
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,718	Hi Jim, We have, in some of the earlier posts heard about how difficult it is to recognise meteoric iron, especially if it is mixed, so how Pant could come with a statement like that, about a blade he has never seen, I don’t know. Maybe the museum in Alwar has such a sword, but here too the metal for the blade would be mixed. Should the museum have the sword, it is a question if they would let it be tested. I know of the Pant book you quote from, but I don’t have it, so I did not know what he wrote on the subject. Jens

14th February 2005, 06:48 PM	#4
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	Hi Jens, You are right, the statements and comments that Pant has presented concerning the study of meteoric iron in India are simply presented as a point of reference, not necessarily conclusive. It would be difficult for him to prove that absolutely no study of any kind has been made on this topic in India, however we would presume that such published material was limited as not readily found. Therefore, the subject of meteoric iron in India is clearly not much discussed. As for the swords he has cited, the one in the museum he is apparantly relaying the caption with the weapon in the museum. ...we could only hope the weapon has some sort of provenance or historical data that would explain the 'meteoric' label. As for the item listed in the Abels catalog, I would hardly consider a sales catalog used for reference in an academic discussion so again, that was simply an example cited which would just as well have been left out it just seemed interesting to note. Best regards, Jim

14th February 2005, 06:53 PM	#5
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	BSM, Thank you so much!!! Beautifully explained!!! This stuff gets more and more fascinating!!! All the best, Jim

14th February 2005, 07:15 PM	#6
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,718	Hi BSMStar, When you write 'I believe this is apart of the issue at hand.' I have to say no, this is a part of the understanding of the whole thing - so it is right on target . I would like to thank you and the others who participate in this discussion, for explaning the things so clearly. Since I started this thread - which get more end more interesting - I have learned a lot, knowledge I which would have taken me a long time to gather - if I ever could - thank you very much. Jens

15th February 2005, 12:05 AM	#7
nechesh Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 940	Jim posted this quote from Stone: A note concerning aesthetics : from Stone (p.664) "...the most brilliant watering is in Malayan blades made by piling alternate layers of mild steel and an alloy of iron and nickel containing about 3% nickel. These are welded and twisted in various ways and then etched with a mixture of lime jiuc and arsenous acid". "..in the old blades the nickel alloy was meteoric iron, in some of the later ones it was Krupps nickel steel". With all due respect to Stone, the last part of this quote just is not correct. This is part of the problem with this subject, we can find many accounts by scholars of an earlier time that are misleading at best and just dead wrong at worst. There is just NO evidence for meteoric pamor before the 19thC. Period. Maybe Stone meant something else by the phrase "old blades", but i would say old means pre-19thC. Not only that, Prof. Paiskowski's research has proven conclusively that much of the contrasting pamor in early keris is actually created by the use of high and low phosphorous iron, NO nickel at all. This is an important point to consider in evaluating the evolution of the keris blade. I think it is a good thing that we have the reference material that we do when studying this material. But some of this info needs to be taken with a grain of salt. On this matter i have seen various authors who seem to pick up and pass along the same misinformation on this subject in a continuous chain of reference material. We can't just accept something because it is written, as clearly, sometimes these writers are wrong.

15th February 2005, 12:32 AM	#8
Jeff D Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: B.C. Canada Posts: 473	Great discussion. I am no expert but we may be taking the "meteoric iron" term too literally. Meteoric iron or steel is another term used for Nickel steel, and has nothing to do with its origins. The iron from a meteor usually has Ni at 5-15%, It is not the trace elements in it that identifies it as a meteor, rather what elements are not present ie lack of other alloying elements. Nickel steel manufactured here on terra firma usually has 3-5% Nickel. So if an e-bay seller is saying his Keris has "meteoric iron" he may not be embellishing his item, but, may be using a out of date term. Just my 5 cents worth (pre 1964). Jeff

15th February 2005, 12:55 AM	#9
nechesh Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 940	Jeff, though i like to see the best in every man, i don't think that is what eBay dealers are doing. However, i do think the majority of them are just misguided having heard the myth somewhere that ALL keris are made this way or reading about it in some reference book with outdated information. And then there are a few who tend to act knowledgable and make the claim that theirs truly is a meteorite blade, really, and if you were as smart as they are you would know it was true.