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

First, can you attach names or types to the pics posted for Homeless?

Back to Bell - "Manufacture of Iron and Steel"-1884 - Bell describes where the coal, coke & ore veins are located in each country. This post is mostly for France & Belgium. Bell describes furnaces 55 1/4 feet high at the Department of the Meurthe between Pont a Mousson and in the Nancy district. Coke was brought in from the Ruhr - Saarbruck(62 miles), Anzin(277 miles) and Ruhrort(215 miles). At St. Dizier, "an old seat of the French iron trade" a constructed canal allowed the transport of Prussian coke. There were works at Fourchambault and St. Etienne which used ore from La Voulte on the Rhone and Barcelona(Spanish connection?) and were "dependent on that sic(ore) from Mokta in Africa" as well as Elba(Napoleon - able was I ere I saw Elba).

In Belguim in 1882 only 1/6 of the ore used was native at the Liege furnaces. By 1878 the furnaces were totally dependent on ore from Luxemburt for pig iron. Also in 1878, Spanish(mines of Bilbao) and African ores were imported to process for Bessemer iron. So there had to be a long standing relationship between the mines within Spain & some of the African countries. This connection could have been established early on by a transfer in technology, i.e. the "Damascus Road"??

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

The road still ends in England.

Sorry Raimey-I edited that post.

Finest damascus tubes from Nessonvaux were on that 'road to England' headed for Birmingham and London jOe.

Who said that is what happened?

Pete

Nobody, but I wonder if some of those brls didn't make their way east to Russia. There may eventually have been a 'damascus road' from Russia to Prussia to England?
BTW: For some interesting history of steel development world wide see
http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf
They report that Russian blacksmiths were making Wootz/Bulat in the 1500s. Maj. Gen. Pavel Anossoff (or Anasoff?) reproduced Bulat again in 1841.

BTW: on p. 37 of the Winter DGJ are excellent pics of a Rigby under-lever which clearly has Six Iron Crolle. The pattern is more apparent related to the acid etching.

The relationship and knowledge goes back very far. The Viking's had established trade with Byzantium centuries earlier. They were importing wootz for their swords as early as 900 AD. During this time they also controled the Rus. Who later became the Russians. Much of this is documented in:
Blöndal, Sigfús. The Varangians of Byzantium. London: Cambridge. 1978
Ellis-Davidson, Hilda Roderick. The Viking Road to Byzantium. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1976

Look for the armor and sword making centers. Every time you find one, there is evidence of wootz. Many of these centers grow and evolve into making firearms. The perret was a blade making tool that was adopted to make damascus barrels. Daryl and I had chatted about the Viking connection some months back in email. I guess I never posted any of that information here. I will have to dig it up again...


Pete

PeteM:

Complicating the topic with armour: as recorded by Philip de Comines and cited in "Engines of War:..." where when the Italian knights were unhorsed and couldn't rise due to the weight of their armour and were chopped-up like cord wood with axes, were
there any suits of Damascus armour, decorative or not?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Raimey,

I have not looked at a lot of armour. It is a complete topic unto itself, so I tread very lightly. We have a couple of collections here in the Chicago area. The pieces I have seen show no resemblance to Wootz. At the same time that fully armoured knights were riding around, gun powder was beginning to come into it's own. The closest I have seen were damascene swords. These have nothing to do with wootz or damascus. It is a term used to describe highly decorated pieces, such as swords.

Remember the whole Crusader myth about the damascus swords that could cut a piece of falling silk. No talk of damascus armour. As for the axes that did the cutting of fallen knights, a good chance they were wootz.




Pete

Drew,

I keep coming back to the Fall of Vienna. Here is a good example of why. This miquelet is Albanian / Greek in origin. The lock dates to the late 1600's. The barrel has heavy damascene and the stock is in the Ottoman style. Take a good look at the damascus barrel. It is not Wootz, but pattern welded. They were not able to produce a discernable pattern, but all the elements are there. The only question is the barrel's origin. Who was producing pattern welded damascus this early? It was not coming from Liege or St. Etienne or Eibar. Perhaps Hungary? The silver leaf hides some of the detail.







Pete