Did the Americans reveal the eternal secret of Damascus?

Damascus is not only the oldest capital in history, but also a major civilizational incubator that has left its mark on the history of mankind, and its artisans and manufacturers are famous for Damascus steel, the secret of which is still hidden.

Damascus steel is a unique type of steel that has been used to make blades for swords and daggers since the early Middle Ages.

Damascus steel, defined as a unique processing method that produces a welded bundle of steel strips with different properties, combining high hardness, long-term sharpness, ductility and side load resistance.

One of the important technical achievements of antiquity was the achievement by Damascus craftsmen of the optimal method of producing steel in the city.

The principle of Damascus blade making is that the strength of at least two metal plates welded together in a different composition is much greater than the simple sum of their respective forces. Accordingly, more panels of different properties are connected to the bundle, which increases strength and increases flexibility.

In the Middle Ages, the production of swords migrated from India and settled in Damascus, which presented its unique steel design, the secrets of which are still unknown, despite advanced modern instruments and tools capable of precise control and identification of components.

It can be said that the general purpose of steel is the manufacture of blades, and the main feature of the blades is the sharpness of its blade, while the blade of the Damascus blade can be sharpened to a very high degree of sharpness and stored for a long time.

While sharp blades made of ordinary carbon steel are covered with razor-sharp serum during sharpening and are not subject to subsequent sharpening, the Damascus sword is sharpened to razor sharpness and retains its cutting ability for a long time. This property is possible when the steel simultaneously has high hardness, toughness and elasticity, and only then the blade of the blade is capable of self-sharpening.

The novel states that the flatbread-shaped cast steel alloys were brought from India to Syria to later create a unique Damascus blade industry, with craftsmen adding skill and innovation.

In 1981, the New York Times reported on “Unraveling the Damascus Mystery”, noting that two metallurgists at Stanford University, working on the production of a “superplastic” metal, discovered the secret of Damascus steel.

Steel analyzes by Geoffrey Wadsworth and Oleg Shcherby in search of a highly ductile form revealed properties almost identical to those they then found in Damascus steel, although their ductile steels were produced using sophisticated modern methods.

In a report in the early 1980s, the newspaper pointed out that the remarkable properties of Damascus steel had been known in Europe since the Crusaders arrived in the Middle East in the early 11th century, when they discovered that swords made from the metal could cleave feathers. in the air, but for a long time retained its sharpness.

These two scientists believe, as the original scientists suspected, that the secret of Damascus steel lies in the presence of a high percentage of carbon, which, they say, should be between 1 and 2 percent compared to the low 1 percent in ordinary steel, in addition to carrying out processes heating and especially cold.

In any case, these two scientists have only provided a possible scientific view of the method of casting Damascus steel, which seems to have kept silent for centuries, keeping the secrets and talismans hidden in it by the skilled craftsmen of Damascus!

Source: RT