Why were the ingots mostly round? - Page 2

Jens Nordlunde · 12th April 2006, 04:29 PM

Thank you Jeff, you are very good at explaning things

.
In the book ‘Persian Steel, The Tanavoli Collection’ by James Allan and Brian Gilmour I have found some interesting things. On page 114 James Allan quotes Tavernier, “This steel is sold in pieces as large as our one-sou loaves and in order to know that it is good and that there is no fraud involved, they cut it in two, each fragment being enough for one sabre”.

Appendix four is an extract from the account by Second Captain Massaliski published in Annuaire du Journal des Mines de Russie, 1841, pp 297-308 (in this book page 539). “Armourers frequently use the remains of old damascened sabres to make new ones which they sell at great profit. Through being repeatedly sharpened the blade eventually become worn, become too narrow and thus lose three quarters of their value. It is these old sabres which skilled armourers make use of. To do this they heat them and draw them out into a thin blade having the width of a good sabre and the length of two. They then prepare a blade of ordinary iron, cover it precisely with the blade of Damascus, and weld the whole together. A good armourer performs this operation very skilfully. However close examination will almost always reveal where the steel blades have been welded to the iron blade.”

B.I · 12th April 2006, 05:56 PM

ahem!
i did say i was away from my notes, and so reliant on memory, which is always a dangerous thing

however, i am not quite as wrong as jens and james allen would have me believe (at least in memory).
i realised a while back that if you find a scrap of historically important information, you cannot rely on the translation and must always look to source and let your study start from there. it seems this is a good example.
jens quotes from allen -

“This steel is sold in pieces as large as our one-sou loaves and in order to know that it is good and that there is no fraud involved, they cut it in two, each fragment being enough for one sabre”.

in his bibliography, james allen mentions voyages en perse (tavernier reprinted 1970).
the original was written in 1676, and i wonder if allens version was a reprint of the original, or a redressed version (of which there have been many).
the reason i make a point of this, is because i found my notes on it and this was what i have -

'' the steel susceptible od being damasked comes from the kingdom of golconda; it is met with in commerce in lumps about the size of a half-penny cake: they are cut in two, in order to see whether they are of good quality, and each makes half the blade of a sabre,''

so jens' version says a blade is made from half a cake, and mine says its made from the two halves.
unfortunately, my source doesnt cite its original reference, but was written in 1832 so it uses a much earlier version of taverniers text.
either could be right, or both could be wrong. it does, however, make me question even more any translated sources. maybe both are worng, if the original is translated again (maybe we'll fing it was 3-4 halves, like i originally remembered, but i think i may have been a fisherman in a previous life and so prone to slight exaggeration!!)

here's another account of wootz from 1837, which mentions the weight.

''in the examination of various specimens of wootz, i found one large cake of about 2.5 pounds weight, from cutch, which on cutting and working, 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 into a bar; i also found that this bar could be doubled down on itself four times whilst red hot, and then welded perfectly together. several specimens from salem, weighing about one pound each, gave only slight indications of a pattern, the crystals being very small, and the stell inferior in quality.''

Jens Nordlunde · 12th April 2006, 09:42 PM

B.I you are trying to pull my leg. Well anyway, the thing is like this, there were many forms of ingots, although most were likely to be of the round kind, and they were found in many weights. From what I have seen in the books, the weights were from a few hundred grams to several kg. It also seems as if the form had to do with, if the ingots were transported over land or by boat.

B.I · 13th April 2006, 09:23 AM

hi jens,
actually, i wasnt pulling your leg (for change), but i suppose i was diverting away from your original question.
my point was not to do with the weight (which varies of course), as such, but was in response to ricks mention of one-sided wootz. hence, the mentioning of tavernier's 'halves'.
by quoting my translation and yours, i tried to make a further point (completely unrelated) about trusting translations of early texts.
this, no matter how important i feel it is, has nothing to do with round ingots

my apologies.

Jens Nordlunde · 13th April 2006, 02:38 PM

Hi Brian,

It is true that translations can vary quite a lot from translation to translation, you can get an idea of how much, when reading ‘The Travels of Ibn Battuta’ commented by H.A.R.Gibb, as he comments on it, when he find texts translated wrongly.I also find the subject on, how the blades were forged together both important and interesting, but to give the subject its full right, I think it should have had a thread of its own, and not be ‘hidden’ under another headline. Such a subject deserves full day light

.

12th April 2006, 04:29 PM	#31
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,713	Thank you Jeff, you are very good at explaning things. In the book ‘Persian Steel, The Tanavoli Collection’ by James Allan and Brian Gilmour I have found some interesting things. On page 114 James Allan quotes Tavernier, “This steel is sold in pieces as large as our one-sou loaves and in order to know that it is good and that there is no fraud involved, they cut it in two, each fragment being enough for one sabre”. Appendix four is an extract from the account by Second Captain Massaliski published in Annuaire du Journal des Mines de Russie, 1841, pp 297-308 (in this book page 539). “Armourers frequently use the remains of old damascened sabres to make new ones which they sell at great profit. Through being repeatedly sharpened the blade eventually become worn, become too narrow and thus lose three quarters of their value. It is these old sabres which skilled armourers make use of. To do this they heat them and draw them out into a thin blade having the width of a good sabre and the length of two. They then prepare a blade of ordinary iron, cover it precisely with the blade of Damascus, and weld the whole together. A good armourer performs this operation very skilfully. However close examination will almost always reveal where the steel blades have been welded to the iron blade.”

13th April 2006, 02:38 PM	#35
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,713	Hi Brian, It is true that translations can vary quite a lot from translation to translation, you can get an idea of how much, when reading ‘The Travels of Ibn Battuta’ commented by H.A.R.Gibb, as he comments on it, when he find texts translated wrongly.I also find the subject on, how the blades were forged together both important and interesting, but to give the subject its full right, I think it should have had a thread of its own, and not be ‘hidden’ under another headline. Such a subject deserves full day light.

12th April 2006, 05:56 PM	#32
B.I Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 485	ahem! i did say i was away from my notes, and so reliant on memory, which is always a dangerous thing however, i am not quite as wrong as jens and james allen would have me believe (at least in memory). i realised a while back that if you find a scrap of historically important information, you cannot rely on the translation and must always look to source and let your study start from there. it seems this is a good example. jens quotes from allen - “This steel is sold in pieces as large as our one-sou loaves and in order to know that it is good and that there is no fraud involved, they cut it in two, each fragment being enough for one sabre”. in his bibliography, james allen mentions voyages en perse (tavernier reprinted 1970). the original was written in 1676, and i wonder if allens version was a reprint of the original, or a redressed version (of which there have been many). the reason i make a point of this, is because i found my notes on it and this was what i have - '' the steel susceptible od being damasked comes from the kingdom of golconda; it is met with in commerce in lumps about the size of a half-penny cake: they are cut in two, in order to see whether they are of good quality, and each makes half the blade of a sabre,'' so jens' version says a blade is made from half a cake, and mine says its made from the two halves. unfortunately, my source doesnt cite its original reference, but was written in 1832 so it uses a much earlier version of taverniers text. either could be right, or both could be wrong. it does, however, make me question even more any translated sources. maybe both are worng, if the original is translated again (maybe we'll fing it was 3-4 halves, like i originally remembered, but i think i may have been a fisherman in a previous life and so prone to slight exaggeration!!) here's another account of wootz from 1837, which mentions the weight. ''in the examination of various specimens of wootz, i found one large cake of about 2.5 pounds weight, from cutch, which on cutting and working, 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 into a bar; i also found that this bar could be doubled down on itself four times whilst red hot, and then welded perfectly together. several specimens from salem, weighing about one pound each, gave only slight indications of a pattern, the crystals being very small, and the stell inferior in quality.''

12th April 2006, 09:42 PM	#33
Jens Nordlunde Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Europe Posts: 2,713	B.I you are trying to pull my leg. Well anyway, the thing is like this, there were many forms of ingots, although most were likely to be of the round kind, and they were found in many weights. From what I have seen in the books, the weights were from a few hundred grams to several kg. It also seems as if the form had to do with, if the ingots were transported over land or by boat.

13th April 2006, 09:23 AM	#34
B.I Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 485	hi jens, actually, i wasnt pulling your leg (for change), but i suppose i was diverting away from your original question. my point was not to do with the weight (which varies of course), as such, but was in response to ricks mention of one-sided wootz. hence, the mentioning of tavernier's 'halves'. by quoting my translation and yours, i tried to make a further point (completely unrelated) about trusting translations of early texts. this, no matter how important i feel it is, has nothing to do with round ingots my apologies.