<p>A team of British and Italian scientists have unearthed the mastercraftsmanship behind an ancient Indian sword.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The researchers studied a curved single-edged sword called shamsheer which was probably used in battles. The 75-centimeter-long sword from the Wallace Collection in London was made in India in the late 18th or early 19th century.<br /><br />The researchers determined that the design of the sword is of Persian origin, from where it spread across Asia and eventually gave rise to a family of similar weapons called scimitars being forged in various Southeast Asian countries.<br /><br />It was established that the steel used is quite pure. Its high carbon content of at least one percent shows it is made of wootz steel.<br /><br />This type of crucible steel was historically used in India and Central Asia to make high-quality swords and other prestige objects, the study led by Eliza Barzagli from the University of Florence in Italy, noted.<br /><br />Its band-like pattern is caused when a mixture of iron and carbon crystalises into cementite.<br />This forms when craftsmen allow cast pieces of metal (called ingots) to cool down very slowly, before being forged carefully at low temperatures.<br /><br />The craftsman of this particular sword allowed the blade to cool in the air, rather than plunging it into a liquid of some sort.<br /><br />Craftsmen often enhanced the characteristic "watered silk" pattern of wootz steel by doing micro-etching on the surface.<br /><br />Through overcleaning some of these original 'watered' surfaces have since been obscured, or removed entirely, Barzagli explained.<br /><br />Two different approaches were used to examine the shamsheer: the classical one (metallography) and a non-destructive technique (neutron diffraction).<br /><br />The study was published in the journal Applied Physics A - Materials Science & Processing.</p>
<p>A team of British and Italian scientists have unearthed the mastercraftsmanship behind an ancient Indian sword.<br /><br /></p>.<p>The researchers studied a curved single-edged sword called shamsheer which was probably used in battles. The 75-centimeter-long sword from the Wallace Collection in London was made in India in the late 18th or early 19th century.<br /><br />The researchers determined that the design of the sword is of Persian origin, from where it spread across Asia and eventually gave rise to a family of similar weapons called scimitars being forged in various Southeast Asian countries.<br /><br />It was established that the steel used is quite pure. Its high carbon content of at least one percent shows it is made of wootz steel.<br /><br />This type of crucible steel was historically used in India and Central Asia to make high-quality swords and other prestige objects, the study led by Eliza Barzagli from the University of Florence in Italy, noted.<br /><br />Its band-like pattern is caused when a mixture of iron and carbon crystalises into cementite.<br />This forms when craftsmen allow cast pieces of metal (called ingots) to cool down very slowly, before being forged carefully at low temperatures.<br /><br />The craftsman of this particular sword allowed the blade to cool in the air, rather than plunging it into a liquid of some sort.<br /><br />Craftsmen often enhanced the characteristic "watered silk" pattern of wootz steel by doing micro-etching on the surface.<br /><br />Through overcleaning some of these original 'watered' surfaces have since been obscured, or removed entirely, Barzagli explained.<br /><br />Two different approaches were used to examine the shamsheer: the classical one (metallography) and a non-destructive technique (neutron diffraction).<br /><br />The study was published in the journal Applied Physics A - Materials Science & Processing.</p>