The travels of a very important dagger

Ann Feuerbach · 17th March 2005, 09:59 PM

Don't forget, Uzbekistan was a HUGE producer of crucible steel in antiquity and northern India (which technically is Central Asia) is not that far away.

B.I · 17th March 2005, 11:02 PM

hi ann,
i can only judge the end product, and the potential history. as for the manafucturing, i gladly bow down to your superior knowledge

when you say 'crucibles and furnaces used to create the crucible steel' do you mean from the whole of india? are there differences, as i had always assumed. surely the wootz cakes from the north may differ from the south, and the creation of the furnaces.
also, is the pattern created down to the the furnace, or the forger within?
if the wootz cakes were exported to persia and created into wonderful persian patterns, then surely it is down to the craftsmen and not the origianl furnace. the studies done in the eary 19thC could understand the process of creating the wootz cakes, but they seemed almost lost in the creation of the blades, claiming the 'secrets' to be lost or hidden from european eyes.
please excuse my ignorance, and let me down gently if i outragously blunder

i thought the main source of wootz was from salem and golconda in the south. the wootz here 'gave only a slight indication of a pattern, the crystals being small and the steel inferior in quality'. surely this is the tight chrystaline wootz that seems apparant on many indian blades, due to the amount of ore being mined from this area. in my collecting, i've noticed that wootz of this type is not as rare as we would actually think. most pieces of quality are indeed wootz, its just that the pattern is sometimes not easy to bring back.
however a wooz cake from cutch 'not only furnished excellent steel, capable of being hardened and tempered without much difficulty, but exhibited the damascus figure, both in the cake itself, and when drawn out by forging it into a bar.'

i hope that my sources are not outdated and laughable in comparison to modern research

the author watched the cakes being made, and also made an in depth study at the time, which also included giving the cakes to european smiths to attempt to replicate the maniputaion of these wootz cakes, as well as trying himself.

Ann Feuerbach · 19th March 2005, 04:43 PM

The research of crucible steel production in Central Asia is quite new. I studied the material from Merv, Turkmenistan, and Thilo Rehren and Olga Papakristu have been studing the remains from Uzbekistan. At Merv we have small scale production but in Uzbekistan they have at least 100,000 crucible, from centuries of production. I reviewed every ethnographic account of crucible steel production I could find. Yes, furnaces are different but some things appear the same...check out http://moltenmuse.home.att.net for some information on the differences and similarities. It seems the fine indian pattern is due to the fact that they tool the crucibles out when the steel was liquid, which caused fast solidification, small dendrites, which means closer dendrite spaces, and Verhoeven et al found that the cementite aligns along these dendrites. In Central Asia, the ingots solidified slowly, this produces larger dendrites, bigger spacing between them and therefore you can have thicker patterns. Of course forging also plays a part. Also, Mn was deliberatly added sometimes in Central Asia, which would make the lines darker when etched. This still needs more research but we are working on it!

Rick · 19th March 2005, 05:03 PM

Okay , now I'm getting confused (nothing new in that

) .
Pictured below is a Bokhara karud with what I consider a very tight pattern .

Using the Occam's Razor approach shouldn't this be Uzbek crucible steel simply by virtue of the proximity of Bokhara to Uzbekistan ?

Ann Feuerbach · 19th March 2005, 06:40 PM

OOO nice blade!

The coarse Central Asia, fine India theory is not full proof. Also you can make a coarse one finer, but you can not make a fine one coarser. Also, forging plays a part as well as individual craftsmen. It is just that with the little evidence we have (a few ingots and crucibles from archaeological sites in India, Sri Lanka and Central Asia), we see differences in the microstructure of the ingots due to solidification rates.

19th March 2005, 05:03 PM	#4
Rick Vikingsword Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6,336	Okay , now I'm getting confused (nothing new in that ) . Pictured below is a Bokhara karud with what I consider a very tight pattern . Using the Occam's Razor approach shouldn't this be Uzbek crucible steel simply by virtue of the proximity of Bokhara to Uzbekistan ? Attached Images

17th March 2005, 09:59 PM	#1
Ann Feuerbach Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 133	Don't forget, Uzbekistan was a HUGE producer of crucible steel in antiquity and northern India (which technically is Central Asia) is not that far away.

17th March 2005, 11:02 PM	#2
B.I Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 485	hi ann, i can only judge the end product, and the potential history. as for the manafucturing, i gladly bow down to your superior knowledge when you say 'crucibles and furnaces used to create the crucible steel' do you mean from the whole of india? are there differences, as i had always assumed. surely the wootz cakes from the north may differ from the south, and the creation of the furnaces. also, is the pattern created down to the the furnace, or the forger within? if the wootz cakes were exported to persia and created into wonderful persian patterns, then surely it is down to the craftsmen and not the origianl furnace. the studies done in the eary 19thC could understand the process of creating the wootz cakes, but they seemed almost lost in the creation of the blades, claiming the 'secrets' to be lost or hidden from european eyes. please excuse my ignorance, and let me down gently if i outragously blunder i thought the main source of wootz was from salem and golconda in the south. the wootz here 'gave only a slight indication of a pattern, the crystals being small and the steel inferior in quality'. surely this is the tight chrystaline wootz that seems apparant on many indian blades, due to the amount of ore being mined from this area. in my collecting, i've noticed that wootz of this type is not as rare as we would actually think. most pieces of quality are indeed wootz, its just that the pattern is sometimes not easy to bring back. however a wooz cake from cutch 'not only furnished excellent steel, capable of being hardened and tempered without much difficulty, but exhibited the damascus figure, both in the cake itself, and when drawn out by forging it into a bar.' i hope that my sources are not outdated and laughable in comparison to modern research the author watched the cakes being made, and also made an in depth study at the time, which also included giving the cakes to european smiths to attempt to replicate the maniputaion of these wootz cakes, as well as trying himself.

19th March 2005, 04:43 PM	#3
Ann Feuerbach Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 133	The research of crucible steel production in Central Asia is quite new. I studied the material from Merv, Turkmenistan, and Thilo Rehren and Olga Papakristu have been studing the remains from Uzbekistan. At Merv we have small scale production but in Uzbekistan they have at least 100,000 crucible, from centuries of production. I reviewed every ethnographic account of crucible steel production I could find. Yes, furnaces are different but some things appear the same...check out http://moltenmuse.home.att.net for some information on the differences and similarities. It seems the fine indian pattern is due to the fact that they tool the crucibles out when the steel was liquid, which caused fast solidification, small dendrites, which means closer dendrite spaces, and Verhoeven et al found that the cementite aligns along these dendrites. In Central Asia, the ingots solidified slowly, this produces larger dendrites, bigger spacing between them and therefore you can have thicker patterns. Of course forging also plays a part. Also, Mn was deliberatly added sometimes in Central Asia, which would make the lines darker when etched. This still needs more research but we are working on it!

19th March 2005, 06:40 PM	#5
Ann Feuerbach Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 133	OOO nice blade! The coarse Central Asia, fine India theory is not full proof. Also you can make a coarse one finer, but you can not make a fine one coarser. Also, forging plays a part as well as individual craftsmen. It is just that with the little evidence we have (a few ingots and crucibles from archaeological sites in India, Sri Lanka and Central Asia), we see differences in the microstructure of the ingots due to solidification rates.