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+--- Thread: Spartan Steel??!!!! (/showthread.php?tid=22012)
Spartan Steel??!!!! - hoplite14gr - 02-07-2013
Officially steel was produced in the 13th or 14th century AD
Here is an article in NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/12/nyregion/lyle-borst-89-nuclear-physicist-who-worked-on-a-bomb-project.html
Does anyone know if Dr. Lyle B. Borst;s theory has been disproved?
If not then can we assume that ancient Greeks knew of steel and were able to produce it?
Kind regards
Spartan Steel??!!!! - Lyceum - 02-07-2013
Generally safely ignored as not enough data and some weird unsubstantiated conclusions. Odd thread, had it been proved it would have been mentioned in every introduction to the Spartans or Greek metal working (on the later there is a very good work, replete with ethnographic data from Africa as an interesting counterpoint).
As for steel, 13/14th century A.D is much too late, see for example wootz/cruicible steel in India It would have been relatively easy to produce steel 5/6th century BC (well not for the Greeks) but it certainly wouldn't have given a large advantage and one would expect drastically different sword profiles to develop. India, for example, saw the development of not only longer blades but hand guards and what not to function in new sword based warfare. One would expect not only changes in length but also a new blade profile which would allow one to sword fight.
Otherwise this is up there with that odd Homer from the Balkans theory.
Spartan Steel??!!!! - Dan Howard - 02-07-2013
Steel is just carburised iron. It comes naturally from the iron making process. Greeks were making weapons from it since at least the end of the Bronze Age if not earlier. If you are talking about a specific type of steel then you need to rephrase your question.
Spartan Steel??!!!! - Sean Manning - 02-08-2013
The only reference I can find in a ten-minute search is a May 1961 Popular Science article (link). I would guess that the obituary is a third-hand summary of something which seemed very exciting in the 1950s when much less was known about the history of metallurgy than is known today. If you want to learn about archaic Greek metallurgy, read modern academic articles about it!
Spartan Steel??!!!! - RJ Stewart - 02-10-2013
Here is a copy of an original article that touches on this.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19610420&id=99hGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xvMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1033,5360659