Damascus Steel

[Robert]

@XorX That's strange ... I just tried and it took me right there. Something with your settings?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Thanks XorX, I believe he was saying that what is produced now in the east as Damascene is nowhere near the quality of the original material that the name originates from, IIRC.

[Alanus]

Nearly no historian or archeologist is able to determine the differences between welded steels (pattern welded or welded blade constructions where the pattern is secondary)and the family of the asian crucible steels

I just finished reading the Master's Thesis link posted above, the author stating that, "While pattern welded swords have been around since the late iron age, they did not become popular until the second century [AD]."

First, I don't find any difference in terminalogy between "late iron age" and the 2nd century AD, the definition is nebulous. Second, I agree with XorX from his quote above. We all know where I stand: that it's odd that the incidence of welded swords diametrically increases with the time-frame of the Migration period (as noted in the Master's Thesis). :dizzy:

It certainly appears that the technology seems to spread from East to West. Folded steel blades start showing up during the Warring States Period in China. That's prior to 220 BC. The Type 1 Sarmatian sword has its root in China. (see 2 sources, Truesdale and Simonenko) By the 1st century AD, we find the Chinese forging sanmai blades, three layers of folded material, two of very mild steel on the outside (even iron) with a central layer of folded high-carbon steel. For more on Chinese blades, you can Google the subject Chinese Sword History, Thomas Chen.

What I'm getting at is the more than distinct probability that pattern-welded or folded steel technology appears to reach Europe-- the Romans, the Saxons, etc.-- from the migration waves which coincidentally (or not) brought the Sarmatians and Goths into the Western European sphere. This also follows tha same route and time-frame as "Migration Art," all those gem stones that came in from India and the Orient.

All I'm saying is that folded steel technology seems to follow a historically known route, and that the root was Asian.

Am I totally wrong? And if I am, where along that 5,000 mile route am I wrong? :whistle:

[Robert]

As I stated in an earlier post in this thread, a pattern welded blade has different types of iron combined and twisted/intertwined to create the pattern. Damascus is what is the result of this way of combining different irons, the difference made visable by etching the blade, so bringing out the pattern.
Folding and welding different types of iron, mostly of different carbon content, was done in Roman times, as it was before. However, there was no twisting or intertwining to obtain a pattern, one sought to combine the properties of different kinds of iron (flexible and soft, ridgid and hard) in a blade. The cutting edge would have been the higher carbon iron/steel, the core the softer, more resilliant iron. This combined the best of both worlds. If such a blade were to be etched, just two lines running the length of the blade would be visible, namely there were the softer iron core and the steel edge met.

[Alanus]

Hi, Robert

I don't get it. :dizzy:

If "damascus" steel is the result of "combining different irons... so bringing out the pattern," as you say, and the Chinese were doing the same exact thing in the 3rd century (or 4th century) BC, then why are these Asian blades not "damascus" steel. They just called it "sanmei" instead of a city in Syria. They even clay-tempered blades to get nice wavy edges.

The only difference is the Chinese thought etching steel was crass. Instead they polished the crap out of it... and evidently the Western Europeans did the same. That leaves us with damascus steel made in Damascus only. I collect faithful reproductions of ancient Chinese and Sarmatian swords, and all of them have the wavy, wormlike, or serpentlike, pattern of "damascus." (Sometimes you need a spot-light, but it's visable.)

In Asian blades, the pattern was/is secondary but that doesn't mean it's not there. Nor should it mean that the blade is not "damascus" in the sense of how it was constructed.

What's the difference beyond the name and geography? :-(

[Robert]

Damascus is just a name for a pattern welded iron/steel combination. Sorry I used it in a generic manner, I was hoping to do otherwise, namely implying what we now all call Damascus was around way before anyone ever called it that. I have no knowledge of when this type was first produced in Damascus, I was just trying to point out pattern welding and other types of forgewelding are different things. Pattern welding is no more (or less) then a type of forge welding. Unfortunaltly, pattern welding has become known under the name "Damast" or in German "Damaszierung" and is met with near hero-worship in blademaking, but other types of forgewelded blades could in use well be supperior. It is a decorative technique.


I suppose the best way to explain is by posting a table from Christian Miks,Studien zur römischen Schwertbewaffnung in der Kaiserzeit, volume 1, page 53:



[attachment=6905]TableMiks.jpg[/attachment]





As you can see, there are many ways of forge welding a Roman blade !! Many would have been just mono-iron or mono-steel.

[XorX]

Damascus steel or "Damast" in German is jaust a modern word for an old thing. In spanish "damascinado" means what we know as "Tauschierung": inlaying precious metals into iron to create patterns.
So the word "Damascus" might stand for the pattern, not the city. We have no real evidence for a blade-making "industry" in the city of Damascus. Not in roman time, not in the middle ages.

It might be that in the times of the crusades there was a trading route ending in Damascus on which blades from central asia made of wootz reached syria and came in sight of the western warriors fighting there. For these, the blades came "from Damascus" and had a pattern that was (in this time) unknown in the west (european swords were constructed in other ways in that time, creating no special pattern).

It`s just a theory, but this might have led to the confusion we now have: patterned steel which is NOT pattern-welded (wootz) traded in a famous city (Damascus) comes in sight of europeans who do (at this point of history) not know about pattern-welded/otherwise patterned blades and call them "damascene blades".

The rest is just iron-technology.
As Robert has stated, forge-welding of blades exists in europe from the time when iron was first used for blades because it is a technical MUST! There is no other way to create any iron/steel thing out of bloomery iron.
The only thing we do not know exactly is the time when smiths recognised that there are differences in steels which can be used for making better tools/blades/whatever, when they began to combine different steels and when they discovered that there are techniques (etching or polishing, none is proved in europe for sure) which make differences of steels in a blade visible. The next step in such an evolution is to create patterns intentionally.

Romans did that from the 2nd - 3rd century onwards, the patterns getting more and more complex (as we can see in some blades from Nydam, Illerup,... where even mosaic-techniques were used).
The typical western-type blades of the migration period are a direct descendant of these roman blades. The evolution of the blade types and patterns is also, as ever ;-) in Miks`book.

[Alanus]

Hello, all

From what I gather from Jurgen, it looks like "damascus" was independently developed just about worldwide. If we are talking about "pattern" (squiggly lines) and different irons or steels welded together, then such methods show up everywhere. The sanmei process was used in China by the 1st century AC, but they had already been using a "differential" heat-treating process going back to the 3rd century BC when they started folding steel.

The Chinese were late arriving to working iron blades. Their techniques were learned from the Sakas/Sarmatians... according to Truesdale. We see short bronze Chinese swords, and then all of a sudden the swords become iron and very long. Interesting, here is an akinakes/sword constructed in a very intricate manner of welding (more than one grade of iron?). It dates to the 5th to 4th century BC, found in Kurgan 1 at Fillipovka.


[attachment=6909]EarlySarmatianswords006.JPG[/attachment]


Sorry, but I don't see where the Romans were ahead of anyone else in their ironworking. It looks like the Celts, Germans, Sarmatians, and even the Chinese, were fairly well advanced by the year 0. mile:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I don't think anyone is saying they were ahead of anyone else Alanus, just that this is the Roman context which we are discussing it in. 8-)

[Alanus]

Gotcha, Byron. ;-)

I guess this is the "Roman Channel," come to think of it. I probably went off on a tangent after reading that Master's Thesis link. In it, we had Saxon and British swords; and it just seemed like everyone, everywhere, was doing the same thing at the same time. :cheer:

[Robert]

I agree with Byron. The Celts were really excellent metalworkers and high level smithing did not start nor end with the Romans, far from it. The complexity of the pre-Roman La Tene finds is fantastic. So there is I feel no claim whatsoever for Roman superiority in smithing, in fact, many, many objects are of very mundane iron or mild steel, including swords.

The question however was if Pattern Welded steel would be appropiate in a Roman sword of the first or second century and the answer to that is no, there is no evidence for pattern welded gladii or spatha. There is TONS of evidence for Roman forgewelded blades from that period, combining iron of different carboncontent, though.

[XorX]

and to complete the confusion:
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/20-roma...=15#332224

in the last pics you can see a typical pattern in the core of the blade. So, I said that in the 1st century ad, there is no pattern welding in the blades and here I produced a patterned one. The clue is: the pattern was non-intentional, I just took two different pieces of welded soft iron and combined them for the core material. I had 2 reasons to do that: 1: reducing the risk of using a material with welding faults in it and unproper for a blade core. 2: each piece alone would not have had the mass of material I needed for the core.
I think that such experiences led to the intentional use of different iron types to CREATE patterns

[Robert]

Yes, and your reason 2 would have sparked this at a moment when iron production fell off due to social turmoil and unrest and there was more re-use of material.

I still love the looks of that spatha, really makes me wish I had a larger smithy equipted to weld :-)

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I did wonder about that aspect of the sword!

[XorX]

Yes, and your reason 2 would have sparked this at a moment when iron production fell off due to social turmoil and unrest and there was more re-use of material.

So you mean the 3rd century?

@Byron: me too
but the pattern will be more subtle in the finished blade