The Ottoman sword - a cut and slash weapon

[-SINAN-]

“The sword is a weapon used in personal combat for cutting or thrusting, one of the most ancient and highly esteemed of all weapons,” as one definition puts it. Although axes and spears / arrows seem to have been the earliest weapons, no sooner was the art of working metals discovered than the sword made its appearance. The earliest records come to us from the Middle East where initially the swords used were made of bronze. Tempering metal was first discovered in Galilee around the 13th or 12th centuries B.C. although it was not used to make swords initially. By the time of the Romans, tempered steel was the material of choice. The swords were straight, short and double-edged.

So how did it come about that Turkish swords were curved? Evidence so far points to the Turks using a curved sword as far back as the Xiongnu period in Central Asia (approximately from the third century BC to the second century AD). Some authorities believe that the Xiongnu were actually the Huns that invaded western Europe and that the Turks were a subgroup of the Xiongnu. The sword they developed was one-handed with a single steel blade and moderately curved. Another term for it was the saber. The Turkish word for sword is kılıç, possibly derived from the verb kir “to strike or kill” and inc is a suffix that gives the meaning of “instrument.” The letters ‘r’ and ‘l’ are interchangeable and the ‘n’ drops out to become the word kılıç.

When the Turks subsequently entered the Middle East, it was this curved sword that they brought with them and its use spread throughout the countries there. The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates had Turks serving in their armies and Turkish slaves who were bought to serve in the Mamluke army in Egypt brought their curved swords with them. The successful advance of the Seljuk Turks into the Middle East in the tenth and eleventh centuries ensured the popularity of the curved blade as the favorite weapon of war replacing the straight blades previously favored.

Turkish kılıç

The Turkish kılıç which usually measured around 90 to 95 cm. has three parts, plus a scabbard, the blade, the cross-guard and the hilt. The blade was made of steel, curving to some extent from the hilt and curving more and widening over the last 30 percent or so towards the point. This distinguishes it from the swords used by European soldiers.

The Turkish cross guard which is located between the blade and the hilt was designed to prevent the wielder’s hand from slipping down along the blade. It never developed into the type of cross guard that in European swords helped protect the hand from being struck.

The hilt was curved in the opposite direction to the curve in the blade to prevent the sword from slipping out of the wielder’s hand. The hilt was often the most decorated part of the sword and was made from a variety of materials. Ahmet Ayhan in his book on the arms collection at Topkapi Palace Museum notes, “They were leather-wrapped wood, horn, ivory, fish teeth or similar materials, made from gold, silver or iron, and decorated with jade or other precious gems. Since wooden grips tended to decay over time, they were usually replaced. Therefore, discordance is often visible between the blade and hilt of most old swords.”

The scabbard is the sheath in which the sword is kept. Early scabbards were made of wood and covered with leather or velvet. Later metal became more popular because it did a better job of protecting the sharpness of the blade and offered a larger surface that could be decorated. At the top where the sword entered the scabbard there would be a loop or two from which a tie could be strung to ensure it didn’t fall when the sword was removed. Generally speaking, the Turkish sword was meant to be worn horizontally in a sash around the waist rather than hanging down from the waist. The kılıç has only one sharp edge and was used primarily for cutting and slashing rather than thrusting. It was made from two to three kilograms of iron. After it had been forged, it had to be tempered by quenching it in a special preparation whose secret was often jealously guarded. Thus the steel blade would be hard enough to cut armor to pieces. One recipe called for ingredients such as wild onion juice and burnt lime among other things. The mixture would be distilled and one oka (0.75 liters) would be enough for one sword.

Decorations

Decorations on the sword were done by etching. These usually consisted of praises to God and the Prophet Mohammed. Depending on the owner of the sword, his pedigree might be praised as is the case of the sword that belonged to Fatih Sultan Mehmed. In addition an aphorism might be included such as, “Forgiveness corrupts the treacherous and rehabilitates the virtuous.” Most of the inscriptions would be written in Arabic and were confined to the blade itself.As was often the case with Ottoman decorations elsewhere, floral and geometric patterns were among the most popular. While some of these might be on the blade, they were more typically placed on the cross guard, hilt and scabbard. Delicate leaves and flowers entwine to make unending bands that were often studded with precious or semi-precious stones.

During the height of the Ottoman Empire, the best of these swords were made in Bursa and Damascus and, while the Derbent region is mentioned, it is unclear whether this meant Konya or the Derbent located in today’s Dağıstan. The swords were exported. Nurhan Atasoy and Lale Uluc in their book, “Impressions of Ottoman Culture in Europe: 1453-1699” write that a seventeenth century prince of Transylvania asked his representative in Istanbul to purchase ornamented arms.

Often the most decorated would be among gifts presented to foreign rulers such as the sword that belonged to Russian Tsar Ivan Alekseevich. “The hilt and scabbard are decorated in the traditional Turkish style with golden studs with diamonds and rubies, but the blade has a gold inlaid image of the Virgin and Child and a four-pointed cross in a floral frame.” [From Treasures of the Moscow Kremlin at the Topkapı Palace] Such gifts didn’t necessarily have to be from ruler to ruler but might come from wealthy merchants trying to obtain trading concessions.

 

[xenon54 out]

It looks like a katana which is the best sword in the world for me.

 

[animelive]

It looks like a katana which is the best sword in the world for me.

its like a fusion of western and Japanese swords

 

[atatwolf]

It looks like a katana which is the best sword in the world for me.

Turanics/Altaics make best swords in the world imho.

 

[Srinivas]

Wootz sword made by ancient Indians is a lethal weapon. later this technology went to middle east, even alexander took some swords from India.

Ancient Indians are masters of metallurgy.

 

[-SINAN-]

It looks like a katana which is the best sword in the world for me.

Actually i own a katana.

Not a original Japanese but beautiful

its like a fusion of western and Japanese swords

Hmm... that would not be a accurate assumption because there were literally tens (maybe hundreds) of different type and class of Turkish swords. Each one of them can resemble another nations sword.

Turanics/Altaics make best swords in the world imho.

I think Japanese katana would take the top... It was long but not heavy sword. You could either use it for slashing or piercing.

It's metallurgy was highly advanced, the amount of the folding of the hot steel, the method for quenching and 15 different types of stones they used for sharping the sword is simply amazing.

Wootz sword made by ancient Indians is a lethal weapon. later this technology went to middle east, even alexander took some swords from India.

Ancient Indians are masters of metallurgy.

We were using sword even before we came to middle-east. When we first came into middle-east and clashed with the Byzantium. They were using bronze swords while we were using steel swords.

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Some nice program about Turkish Swords and Bow.

 

[Juice]

Katanas are far from the best sword....merely the best in the tactical situation in Japan using the steel available. I have always liked middle-Eastern and Turk swords. The heavy tip lends itself to chopping....my preferred style. (old Roman etc. were best used at thrusting....took more training and needed a formation to be very effective. A chopping sword will do grave damage without the training....and more effective when in small, unsupported units) Even the European powers of the time realized the potential, as the cavalry sabre owes much to these swords. (ps....all nations folded their steel....just been studying on the fact Katanas were fold more because of poor steel)

 

[-SINAN-]

Katanas are far from the best sword....merely the best in the tactical situation in Japan using the steel available. I have always liked middle-Eastern and Turk swords. The heavy tip lends itself to chopping....my preferred style. (old Roman etc. were best used at thrusting....took more training and needed a formation to be very effective. A chopping sword will do grave damage without the training....and more effective when in small, unsupported units) Even the European powers of the time realized the potential, as the cavalry sabre owes much to these swords. (ps....all nations folded their steel....just been studying on the fact Katanas were fold more because of poor steel)

Mate, you are talking about the use of swords in formations. Curved swords have its advantage in very close combat. Katana's more like designed for one on one fightings. A type of sword have advantage over another on different aspects.

What amazes me is the production methods they used.Let me give you an example. (I can give more, if you want)

1- Japanese folded their swords 8 - 16 times where others folded less . Folding the sword creates layers within the sword which enhances the swords strength against lateral blows. Overall toughness of the sword would be increased.

While i was taking my Metallurgy class in second grade. I learned how to calculate the steel's crystal structure ( body-centered tetragonal, face-centered cubic, etc..).

Now, we know:
- the number of the layers = 2^16
- Thickness of a japanese sword.
- And the total length of the crystal structure.

When you input all these data into equation you will see that the amount of the layers are just perfect. If you folded the steel, a few times more. Total number of the layers will increase and the length of the crystal structure stays the same and it won't fit in to the predefined thickness of the sword. That would cause layers to mix and it would make the whole folding process meaningless.

And they knew it before the electron-microscope. Simply unbelievable.

 

[atatwolf]

Wootz sword made by ancient Indians is a lethal weapon. later this technology went to middle east, even alexander took some swords from India.

Ancient Indians are masters of metallurgy.

How is it ancient Indian? Haha, even on the sword there is Turkish moon and cresent. That is not Indian sword but Moghul sword who were Turkic rulers of India. Best period of Indian history was during Turkic rule.

 

[Surenas]

And that Indian guy is right by the way. Indians were the masters of metallurgy. The Achaemenids Persians used Indian steel.

 

[-SINAN-]

Lol, you idiot. Turkish moon and crescent? You mean original Sumerian/Babylonian symbols the Turks 'stole'?

And ancient India proceeds Turkish presence in Central-Asia, Einstein.

Surenas , even GökTürks were using moon and crescent in their coins while we were still in central-asia.

Please don't rape another one of our threads.
@Neptune can you keep an eye of our friend here ?

And that Indian guy is right by the way. Indians were the masters of metallurgy. The Achaemenids Persians used Indian steel.

Okay, we believed your word. Go away now.

 

[Neptune]

Please don't rape another one of our threads.
@Neptune can you keep an eye of our friend here ?

that'd be a pleasure dear. thanks for the call

 

[Srinivas]

Wootz steal is a legendary Indian steal making technique, the sword made with this steal is so good that it can pierce through the armour of knights.

This technique went from India to Middle east, where they used it against crusader knights.

Alexander also impressed with this sword and greeks brought these swords to europe in B.C.

The swords are also called Damascus swords.

The pic I posted is a Damascus sword which is made using Indian technique.. Indians are good metallurgists.

How is it ancient Indian? Haha, even on the sword there is Turkish moon and cresent. That is not Indian sword but Moghul sword who were Turkic rulers of India. Best period of Indian history was during Turkic rule.

Historical Information about Wootz

Until recently, wootz was largely a part of history, a mysterious metal with legendary properties. First produced in the India early in the first millennium AD, the art of making wootz and forging it into blades was refined and continued until the 1700’s. The center of production was in India, although some was produced in other areas of the Central Asia, and the most famous of the wootz blades were forged in Persia. It seems that the wootz ingots were mostly produced in India, but that the forging of the ingots was done by smiths throughout a much wider region.

The art eventually died out, possibly as a result of changes in iron ore sources. Various attempts were made, mostly in Russia and Europe, to revive the process. These were in some cases successful in yielding steel with the characteristics of wootz, but none of these attempts yielded a process that was consistently repeatable. Thus the mystery of what made wootz tick went on…until near the end of the 20th century. It was during this time that several individuals and teams around the world were successful in deciphering the wootz mystery once and for all. Perhaps the best known of these was the team of Pendray and Verhoeven, a bladesmith and a metallurgist, both from the USA. It was through reading their work and that of others, along with nearly a year of experimentation of my own, that I developed my own technique for making wootz. It is essentially identical to the methods used for centuries in India, but has been adapted to the tools and techniques that are available to the modern smith. Unlike some smiths who advertise that they sell wootz or “technowootz” (typically just standard bar stock that has been heat treated to bring out its inherent alloy banding), my material is made by melting down carefully selected ingredients in individual crucibles, then slow cooling the resulting ingot to produce the necessary segregation in the steel. Finally, the ingot is carefully forged out to produce a bar of wootz, ready to dazzle the world.


Suddenly I have realized that I came this far without describing the ancient techniques or gone into the details of what creates both the visible pattern and particular characteristics of wootz. In the ancient world, iron was most readily available in two forms: wrought iron and cast iron.

Wrought iron was produced by heating iron ore (iron oxide) in a charcoal fire under somewhat oxygen-starved conditions. The oxygen from the ore was stolen to assist with combustion, leaving behind nearly pure iron with mostly silica as an impurity. The end result of the process was a spongy “bloom” of wrought iron, which could be consolidated through heating and hammering until it became solid and usable. At no point in the process did the iron become molten, meaning that it was “reduced” from its ore, rather than “smelted” from it. Wrought iron is practically devoid of carbon, has a melting temperature of around 2800F, and is actually softer than hammer-hardened bronze. This means that iron and bronze actually competed rather equally for many years…equal that is, until the discovery of steel.

Cast iron, despite how the name makes it sound, is hardly what a metallurgist would call iron. It is more like steel that has gone way off the deep end and cracked…which is exactly what it does if you try to forge it. Actually, this rather sums things up, in a way. Cast iron is produced by smelting iron ore at a sufficiently high temperature and in a sufficiently high-carbon environment to produce liquid metal. It is an odd thing about iron that the more carbon you add (up to a point), the lower the melting temperature becomes. Cast iron actually begins to melt around 2200F, which is substantially lower than the nearly 3000F that is required to melt pure iron. This made cast iron quite easy to produce in quantity, since that temperature was easily attainable in the charcoal furnaces in use way back when. The problem is that cast iron is horribly brittle when cold, and crumbles if you try to forge it hot. These together meant that it was unsuitable for weapons or tools, so an alternative needed to be found, something with the hardness of cast iron, but the toughness of wrought iron.


In different parts of the world, different solutions were found to this problem. Most iron working cultures eventually developed some form of laminating, first as a way to refine the poor quality materials, and then later developed further for the aesthetic value. Persia and India were just like everywhere else in this sense, but entirely different in that they also found a second solution. Wootz was probably accidental at first, but soon was developed into a booming industry that sold material throughout the Middle East. Here is the technique that they discovered.

It starts with a crucible made from fireclay, able to withstand the scorching temperatures found inside the blacksmith’s forge. The crucible is loaded first with specially selected and cleaned wrought iron bits. Next are added dry twigs or charcoal along with a few green leaves. On top of this were layered crushed seashells, and then the top of the crucible was sealed with more fireclay. Each of the ingredients had a specific purpose, although it is hard to know to what degree the ancient smiths understood those purposes. I will skip the wrought iron for the moment, since its purpose is fairly obvious. The dry twigs were there as a source of carbon, while some theorize that the green leaves were there as a source of hydrogen. Hydrogen helps carbon absorption, but I imagine that the leaves were more symbolic than anything else…maybe they were something of a garnish. We will never be entirely sure, since the ancient smiths were rather secretive. The seashells were there as a slag layer, which helped to purify the materials and also helped exclude oxygen. The final step of sealing the crucible was also aimed at excluding oxygen, but my own experiments have shown that this seal almost invariably.

Once the crucible was filled, it was placed in a charcoal furnace, generally along with several other crucibles. In the early days of wootz production, the furnace was not hot enough to actually melt the metal. Instead the process, which at that point took nearly a day, would yield a spongy cake of super-carburized iron, which would later be forged out into a solid bar and eventually a weapon. As the years passed, the furnaces improved and the iron actually melted while at the same time requiring a firing time of only a few hours. It was important in both cases that the crucibles be allowed to cool quite slowly in the furnace to allow the wootz to “mature”. I am not knowledgeable about the structure of the early wootz, but the later wootz depended on the slow cooling to develop large dendrites…these are the same idea as the large ice crystals that form on glass in the winter, except in steel. In either case the forging was a drawn out and arduous process, since the material was of such high carbon content that it was very brittle and hard when hot. Repeated heating and forging reduced the carbon content somewhat, and more importantly broke down the large internal crystals to make the material more malleable. Forging proceeded until a blade was formed. Unlike steel, which is heated and quenched in oil (or sometimes water) after it is shaped, some accounts indicate wootz was heated to a dull red and then cooled in a swift jet of air. This supposedly left the material very tough, but the carbides.


Unlike steel, which relies on its heat-treatment to yield a hard crystalline structure, wootz depends on bands of carbides for its hardness and edge-holding ability. But how do the bands of carbides get in there? These bands are what cause the visible pattern in a wootz blade, and for centuries they provided the Persian weapons with superior properties. Then, mysteriously, wootz manufacture began to disappear, and there are two basic theories to explain this phenomenon.

The first and most widely told is that something happened to the material itself. Blades forged from newly made wootz cakes no longer formed carbide bands. Smiths throughout the Middle East probably invented an entire new language of curses during this period, and rightly so. Even though the patternless wootz blades still performed exceedingly well, without the visible banding customers were unwilling to buy wootz weapons. The pattern and the performance were thought to go hand in hand, and no one knew enough of the secrets of wootz to say otherwise. Also, the weaponsmiths probably doubted their own swords after this point.

The first theory revolves around mines and iron ore. Each deposit of iron ore has particular impurities, and the mines used by the Indian smiths must have had a specific impurity (more on this later) that promoted the banding. Thus, without even intending it, the Indian smelters and Persian smiths were able to create a material that would become legendary around the world. But then, when the iron ore from those mines ran out and iron ore that lacked the key ingredients replaced it, the banding disappeared. Within decades the methods of producing wootz were lost, and the legendary material almost became simply mythical.

The second theory is that wootz, which had been the superior material for many centuries, was simply overtaken by the improved steels being produced by the 1700’s. Warfare was also turning away from sword on sword combat and moving towards gunpowder, so the sword itself was becoming a less important item year by year. In this environment the wootz industry simply “melted” away or atrophied like the human appendix. Soon it was forgotten and the secret of making wootz was gone.


Having delved slightly into the history, it is time to tackle some of the technical aspects of wootz. Carbon is the main ingredient that makes steel hardenable. I do not know the specifics well enough to explain them, but basically the addition of sufficient carbon to iron allows the steel to be “trapped” in a new crystalline state through heating and quenching. Steel has many different crystalline states that depend mostly upon temperature and carbon content. Hardened steel is referred to as martensite. All steels become austenite above their “critical” temperature, and most steels exist as pearlite in their cool, unhardened state. Needless to say, there is more to go into here than most of you are interested in…if you are interested, drop me an email and I’ll do the best I can to help you out.

Steels with less than about .8% carbon by weight exist as a mixture of ferrite (pure iron), and pearlite -a mixture of ferrite and cementite (iron carbide). At about .8% carbon by weight, a cool, unhardened piece of steel is entirely pearlite, while above .8% you have a mixture of pearlite and cementite. Basically, carbon in unhardened, cool steel exists only as iron carbide, but how the iron carbide is distributed changes as the carbon content changes. Once you pass the “eutectoid” point (.8%carbon) you begin to get free carbides rather than iron carbide distributed relatively evenly as in pearlite. This is a key aspect of what makes wootz different. With carbon contents ranging from 1.1%-1.8%, wootz has the potential for a very large number of free carbides. Having the potential is not the same as actually having them, though, which brings us to the next part of our little metallurgy lesson.

Carbon travels relatively freely through iron, as can be seen easily in the case of pattern-welded steel. If you use simple carbon steels, one high carbon and one low carbon, within a few welding heats the carbon content of the billet as a whole will even out. The reason that this is of interest is that carbon by itself will not remain segregated in the wootz ingot. It actually does start out somewhat segregated, but quickly diffuses throughout the ingot. So what makes the carbides segregate into bands if the carbon by itself will not? The obvious answer, but one which took centuries of research to discover, is that there must be another alloying element. This element needs to be one that will segregate during solidification, along with being one that will promote the growth of carbides. Verhoeven and Pendray discovered that this element, at least in the ancient blades, was generally vanadium. Vanadium is a strong carbide former, plus it segregates well during the cooling process. Even a small amount of vanadium will allow a wootz ingot to develop carbide bands if properly treated.


Today, through modern metallurgy, we know what causes the banding in wootz and can at least partially recreate the process of producing it. It is interesting to me, though, that so far there is no modern wootz on the market that looks as good as the original. It is as though we are still missing one piece of the puzzle, one secret ingredient or process, and it is something that we will only discover through a great deal of experimentation. Even with modern science being what it is, it is good to know that there are still a few secrets left to unlock.

If you are interested in further information about wootz, you can find a few web sites and articles online, or you can buy Figiel’s book, On Damascus, through Amazon.com or some specialty book dealers. The information on modern wootz in Figiel’s book is somewhat out of date, but his historical information is incredible. Beyond the information, the photographs are simply stunning.

http://www.dragonsbreathforge.com/historialwootz.html

 

[RAMPAGE]

My choice would be Longswords and European plate armor for heavy cavalry and Gladius along with Lorica hamata or Lorica segmentata for Infantry !!!

@Alpha1 @jaibi

You're choice guys ????

 

[jaibi]

My choice would be Longswords and European plate armor for heavy cavalry and Gladius along with Lorica hamata or Lorica segmentata for Infantry !!!

@Alpha1 @jaibi

You're choice guys ????

I will be shredding people with my bare hands!