doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Damascus explained

I think to look for Arabic in the patterns would not result in a typical barrel or blade. To look at a culture's sense of art and decoration as it was carried from one media to another makes a lot of sense. "We" have been decorating hunting weapons for thousands of years. The British engraving of the 1800's was flowing from the Victorian "culture". It is what appealed to them. In the same way, the blades and barrels of the Ottoman empire were decorated in a manner that flowed from their culture.

I remember Oscar once referenced Leo S. Figiel, "On Damascus Steel". So at the time, I purchased a copy. I read through it and put it away. I recently picked it up again. Figiel spends the majority of the book dealing with blades. Only the last chapter really digs into barrel making. A lot of the examples are styles of mechanical damascus that were never copied in western Europe. ( I do wish I had written down all the sources Oscar mentioned.... )

Put succinctly, neither crucible nor mechanical damascus were a European invention. The technology did not suddenly appear and then just disappear. There is a lot of history and cultural intercourse occurring to produce even simple damascus shotgun barrels.

In understanding how it all came about, the contribution of each culture along the way and how it eventually ended, we learn.

Some people are only interested to know where those damascus barrels on their what ever shotgun came from. That is fine. A subset of all this has been to identify Belgian makers and understand the commerce that occurred. As tariffs were raised in the US, the Belgians responded with product that met the need and the price. The flip of this seems to be that some English firms went out of business because they could not compete with the Belgian labor rates (still working this piece).

A bit of trivia...Liege was under siege in the 1300's. It eventually fell. It is the 1st known use of hand canons during a siege. Liege was important because of it's long tradition as a center for bladed weapons.

I know how often I have dismissed the damascus blade as a dead end when researching damascus barrels. But I think, in a small way, I am beginning to understand why Oscar considered Figiel important. The blade evolved from crucible (or bloom) to mechanical damascus. The damascus blade was a necessary step to the damascus barrel.

Pete

So you philistines are not impressed with the possible calligraphy connection
HOW ABOUT ORIENTAL RUGS??
Infro on common patterns found here
http://www.oldcarpet.com/rug_glossary.htm

This from http://www.pandiths.com/designs.htm and is an Ispahan pattern



Somewhat like an open pattern 'Stars and Stripes' or 'American Flag Bunting' courtesy of Ross Berck



This symmetrical circular pattern is from Konya, Turkey
http://mathforum.org/geometry/rugs/gallery/10.html



Two Iron "Boston"



Could the damascus pattern have started simply as ornamentaion/artistic design and (surprise!) was found to have superior metallurgical properties??

Pete M directed me to the Oriental Arms site
http://www.oriental-arms.com/index.php

Here is an excellent example of Wootz steel (which is NOT pattern welded and discussed way back in this thread)
Asadullah Blade, Persian Safavid Period



This Persian Jambiya dagger has a 'Horse-shoe' design on the scabbard



Anybody out there buying this?

I'm buying exactly this much of it. If steel is difficult to make in large quantities you combine it with something more readily available. Quite common for even late 19th C. plane irons to be a laminate of steel and soft iron--the iron for the body, the steel for the edge keeping. Also, there are dozens of traditional constuction techniques that rely on the repetitive iteration of weaving, lacing, cross-battening. Planked boats and stick-built houses, baskets, wattle fences, cane weaving, crochet, macrame, all follow this model. You may be able to spill bore a barrel but it's easier if there's already a piercing from the mandrel it's struck on. Big machine tools indulge the modern urge to hog everything out of the solid. Surface appearance is probably incidental initially but is made into a "trademark" art. Wow, look at what we get when we twist it this way with this many elements. I imagine the barrel makers understood hoop strength and how to attain it. If their product had a distinctive look that tied it to their manufactory, so much the better.

jack

Drew-

Allow me to be among your first customers, I am sold. In fact I would be surprised if there was no connection between damascus and the Indo Persian and/or Islamic Arab cultures.

It would surprise many to learn that Western culture owes a great and long unacknowledged debt to the Indo Persian culture and the later Islamic Arab culture. Without Arab scholars and libraries much of the ancient Greek and Roman knowledge which now forms the basis for many of our laws and much of culture would have been lost forever had we not "re-discovered it".

It would also surprise many to learn that English is an Indo European language or to learn that "Arian" as a regional designation, is in fact "Iran." The similarity in the two words is not co-incidental. Speaking of words; in Farsi the word for father is "padar", mother "madar", brother "baridar", and the word for right "rost" to mention only a few. Familial and common words tend to evolve less over time.

People, ideas and technology moved around back then, only more slowly. As I am sure you will note, one only has to look to the Bible to see how Paul and the early church managed to move around.

While on the subject of common ground, Jews, Christians and Moslems all worship the God of Abraham. That Catholics and Protestants have killed each other for years over real and imagined difference "worth dying over", it really should come as no surprise to anyone that greater differences (those between these three major religions) have proven fuel enough for senseless killing. Passions are high this day and age, but it should not blind the pursuit of truth in any forum.

Doug

Revdocdrew:

I'll subscribe and purchase a bushel. Nice link and even more food for thought.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

yOu can have my bushel...

Joe doesn't mind the Arabic numerals. And I don't mind the concept of predecessors, influences, borrowings. I'm sure it was Money See, Monkey Buy, Monkey Copy on all the trade routes. So long as you don't attribute a strong consciousness of the historic lineage to the rank and file, I don't see a problem. So some Templar Knight liked his booty so much he got somebody to copy it and it stuck as the fashion. I'm not too happy looking for specific carpet patterns which suggest specific barrel patterns. Most people take the ball and run with it. If they slavishly copy, they're usually copying the ball that Dad ran with. Clearly the survival of the name Damascus is a pointer to the geographical origins of ferric composites.

jack

Then again maybe Jack is right
Since "God hath made all men of one blood", all people groups likely have a shared creative/artistic nature, which will manifest itself with shared images and patterns within a unique cultural context. The swastika is widely used in Eastern religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, AND by the Navajo Nation.
Sure is fun to think about though!
BTW: as Doug said, western Europe was in the middle of the 'Dark Ages' when the Indo Persians figured out how to make steel. And the Philistines gave iron to the Hebrew people about 1000 BC.

Damascus steel and oriental rugs! Where's Larry Barnes when you need him? Larry, who has passed, was an early writer for the DGJ, whose passion was damascus doubles and oriental rugs. I'm sure he would have had something to say on this aspect.