Damascus Steel

[Titus Manlius Verus]

As I've been browsing reenactment gear, I keep coming across spathas and gladii that are made from Damascan Steel. I have some questions about it.

1. What is Damascus Steel?
2. What purpose does Damascus steel have concerning reenactment swords?
3. How historically accurate is it?

I greatly appreciate everyone's help.

[caiusbeerquitius]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladius
http://www.templ.net/english/
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/17-roma...lades.html

[Marja]

"Damascus Steel" and "Damascene" can refer to:

In the western steel-making tradition:

- blades which are pattern-welded all the way through.

- blades which have pattern-welding on the surface.

In the South Asian steel-making tradition:

- blades made of Wootz, also known as crucible steel

In any tradition:

- certain inlay techniques

It drives me nuts. Either people should refer to pattern welding, or crucible steel, or something equally specific.

[jvrjenivs]

I think Roman gladii and spathae are part of the 'western' tradition. Thereby pattern welded blades are meant most of the time, to combine the best properties of two different steel-types in one single blade.

[Robert]

There is, I believe, a distiction between Damascus type blades and forge welded blades where strips of iron of different carbon content have been forged together to create a blade with a hard cutting edge (steel) and a softer core (low carbon iron). Wrought iron in its pure form is notably "stringy", it shows long strands of iron, certainly when (even slightly) corroded. The structure of the blade is very distinct. This could be confused with Damascus or pattern welded!
Matt Lukes has produced blades from wrought iron. He assures me it must be worked very hot to prevent the iron "stings" coming apart through cracking. The stringy structure is caused by silica inclosures in the iron.
Damascus type blades seem to have been formed initialy from making swords of different smaller lumps of iron, as was available to the bladesmith. It could, as I do, be seen as a regression in blademaking, rather then a step forward, caused by a lessened availability of larger iron stock. This may be traced back to the collapse of industrial society at the end of the Roman empire, when entering into the Migration era. Once things had settled down and the more industrial society was re-established at the onset of the middle ages, what we have come to call Damascus steel dropped from sight. Nowadays, Damascus steel is much liked for its artistic properties and bladesmiths have a LOT more methods available to make it.
I would really welcome views on this issue, this may become a very informative thread mile:

[Titus Manlius Verus]

So, Robert, what you're saying, is that Damascas steel is historically acceptible for Roman reenactment?

[Marja]

In later periods, pattern welding was moderately common. In earlier periods, it was uncommon but not completely unknown. There's one early example, without the surface featuring, from Chichester [mentioned in Bishop and Coulston and in Feugere], and another, with the surface featuring, from Amay.

Try to find Sim and Ridge, Iron for the Eagles and Vanden Berghe, "Some Roman Military Equipment of the First Three Centuries A.D. in Belgian Museums" in JRMES 7.

[Robert]

There is certainly evidence for forgewelding of different types of iron as strips. To get a pattern, you woiuld have to twist and fold the iron. The latter was not done for Roman swords, as far as I know. So IMHO Damascus would be totaly unsuitable for Roman re-enanctment.

[Alanus]

I agree with Robert.
Roman swords were not pattern welded to my knowledge. The Filippovka sword was pattern welded, and the akinakes found in the same kurgan was welded with fancy gryphon heads along a central theme; but this was not Roman or even close. It was Sarmatian I or II. The akinakes found with the Golden Man/Woman of Issyk Kul was similar to the Filippovka akinakes.

I don't know the content of the Aorsi/Roxolani swords that were Chinese influenced, but we might think they were at least pattern welded, if not made from differential steel/iron which shows up in China about 100 years earlier than these migration-era swords. My personal Roxolani reenactment sword is pattern welded (folded), but not layered in the differential manner. Nor is it clay tempered, although the technique was used in the Orient.

It's been said that an analysis of Viking pattern welded swords has shown the steel to have arrived from Afganistan. We see blades of pattern steel in the Ospray books, in reference to Germanic craftsmen, but has an early Germanic pattern welded sword been found?

There is no indication that Roman army swords carried sophisticated steel. They were more like "brown shoes." ;-)

[Medicus matt]

It's been said that an analysis of Viking pattern welded swords has shown the steel to have arrived from Afganistan. We see blades of pattern steel in the Ospray books, in reference to Germanic craftsmen, but has an early Germanic pattern welded sword been found?

There is no indication that Roman army swords carried sophisticated steel. They were more like "brown shoes." ;-)

Studies carried out on the Nydam blades has shown that some were made by piling and some by pattern welding (both single and double chevron patterns)
Whether these are of Northern Germanic/Scandinavian origin or latin origin has yet to be established.
Similar studies have been carried out in blades from Illerup (which are generally thought to be of Roman manufacture); piling and complex pattern welding can also be seen in these blades as can welded cutting edges.

Anyone interested in the subject should read Alan Williams' "The Sword and the Crucible: A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords"


What might be clouding the issue addressed by the original question is that the meaning of the term 'damascus steel' has changed.
Originally it referred to a specific type of steel from medieval Asia which, as I understand it was made by a technique that has yet to be fully replicated.
Today it's used to refer to any steel which mimics the appearence of the original 'Damascus' steel, however it is produced.

[jackmcauliffe]

Roman swords were absolutely patterned (and pattern welded). It becomes much more prevalent in the later periods but was common as a purposeful technique since contact with the celts who pattern welded their blades. There are many examples of both, Im sorry I am not on my personal computer with pictures but I can show you another time.

I say purposeful as well because Roman Iron was typically made from bloom steel, if not crucible steel (as described by aristotle) which once finished has a "random pattern" effect. The formation of the steel has deposits of low(er) and high(er) carbon depending on the amount of exposure to carbon based fuel. This process allows some blooms to be purposefully higher in carbon content than others. Which at first on their own would produce pattern with corrosion and later would be combined together to make purposeful patterns that we commonly see in later germanic swords.

[Alanus]

To Jack and Matt,

I'm wrong, then-- unless these Roman pattern-welded swords were made quite late, when the forgemen may have been influenced by "barbarian" blades. I am working on the notion that the original definition of "steel" was "chalybis," in other words "forged by the Chalybes" (a tribe on the south-east Black Sea), and from Pliny who mentions that the best iron came from the east on "camel trains." :unsure:

The Filippovka sword and akinakes I mentioned above, both sophisticated and welded, were made in the 4th-3rd century BC. This was centuries prior to Pliny. Chinese influenced swords arrive in the 1st century BC, also on the steppe where the Aorsi/Alans had control of camel trains that arrived from both China and India. The route went up the back side of the Black Sea, to Olbia, and then down to the Danube.

The Issyk Kul akinakes, same age and workmanship as the Filippovka examples, is again early and from a craftsman in what is now Kyrgyzstan. Pliny also mentioned that "good" iron was produced in Raetia which, I think, would have been Celtic. What we don't know is what Pliny was referring to: raw iron or steel blanks. I would think the latter, especially with his reference to "camel trains." Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of moving and my volumes of Pliny are in self-storage. :dizzy:

[Alanus]

Perhaps to answer Tyler's original question: :-)

The term "Damascus" has become generic, the original damascin process lost. Wootz steel was supposedly even more refined, a product of India. I have a repro Wootz blade made by Paul Chen, quite thin, not applicable for "cutting," and not impressive despite its exorbitant price (yet officially blessed by the Shaolin monks, if that's any consolation.) :dizzy:

Today, Damascus steel seems to be folded steel with a heavy pattern, in other words not well-polished. Some blades are even acid-etched to define the random pattern even more. I have two welded blades, the center being higher Rockwell hardness, while the top and lower layers are from iron or steel with a lesser hardness. Despite the layering (and folding), both blades show very little pattern due to extremely high polishing, the pride of Chinese swordsmiths. These blades can be used for cutting soaked bamboo mats. I have an additional blade that was finished by clay tempering at night, producing a "hamon" which (I think) was never employed on a European sword. Some folded steel blades have been recently made in India, and there are "prestiege" swordsmiths in Europe and America now making them. None of them are inexpensive; and for highest quality of finish, the Chinese blades rank best.

I realize that "none of the above" answer the "Roman" question. :whistle:

Oh! And by the way, The Sword and the Crucible is selling for $196 per copy on Amazon.com. I can almost buy a Damascus sword for that price. :woot:

[Dan Howard]

Oh! And by the way, The Sword and the Crucible is selling for $196 per copy on Amazon.com. I can almost buy a Damascus sword for that price. :woot:

That's cheap; try finding a copy of his "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" It took up six months of my book budget and was worth every cent.

[Alanus]

Thanks, Dan

It's a shame how out-of-print books jump to high prices. My own classic tackle book went out of print about six years ago and now sells from $200 to $900 in the hardback version. Too bad: there aren't enough books on swords in the first place; and in the second place... :dizzy: