How does one recreate master craftsmanship derived from millennia of empirical research that has been lost? At least they still make real Samurai swords.
It is this that has made these famous swords almost mystical in reputation. Here we get further hints regarding what went into such craftsmanship.
The sword has at least been replicated and that is a great step.
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A Step Closer to the Mysterious Origin of the Viking Sword Ulfberht
An Ulfberht sword displayed at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany. (Martin Kraft/Wikimedia Commons)
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1134288-a-step-closer-to-the-mysterious-origin-of-the-viking-sword-ulfberht/?utm_source=Epoch10&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7
The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current
knowledge. In "Beyond Science" Epoch Times collects stories about these
strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously
undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.
Ulfberht
was like a Medieval luxury brand for swords—but unlike your Gucci
purse, the swords were of such high quality they were almost … mystical.
Dozens of these swords—made with metal so strong and pure it’s
baffling how any sword maker of that time could have accomplished
it—have been found in Europe, along with some knock-offs. They are all
marked with the Ulfberht name and two crosses, though some of the
imitations are missing a letter here or there.
New research brings us closer to the source of the swords, to the kiln in which these legendary weapons were forged.
A previous theory held that the swords may have their origin in the
Middle East or Asia, but surprisingly it seems the materials were
sourced closer to where they were found, in Central Europe.
At the time the Ulfberht swords were forged (approximately 800–1000
A.D.), equally perplexing swords made of a substance called Damascus
steel were being produced in the Middle East out of a raw material,
known as Wootz steel, from Asia. Both Damascus steel and the Ulfbehrt’s
so-called “crucible steel” had high amounts of carbon.
Ulfberht’s Perplexing Composition
Carbon can make or break a sword; if it’s not controlled to just the
right amount, the sword will be either too soft or too brittle. But with
just the right amount, carbon greatly strengthens the blade. The
Ulfberht has a carbon content about three times higher than that of
other swords of its time. It would have been astoundingly stronger and
yet more flexible than other swords, as well as light-weight. It also
had almost no impurities, known as slag. This would have allowed for a
more even distribution of carbon.
It was thought, before Ulfberht was discovered, that the capability
to remove slag to such a degree only became possible during the
Industrial Revolution. Iron ore must be heated to 3,000 degrees
Fahrenheit to accomplish this, a feat the Ulfberht makers apparently
accomplished 800 years ahead of their time. With great effort and
precision, modern blacksmith Richard Furrer of Wisconsin forged a sword of Ulfberht quality
using technology that would have been available in the Middle Ages. He
said it was the most complicated thing he’d ever made, and he used
methods not known to have been used by people of that time.
A sword made of Damascus steel. (NearEMPTiness/Wikimedia Commons)
Damascus Steel’s Perplexing Composition
The secret of making the Middle East’s Damascus Steel has only
reemerged under the inspection of scanning electron microscopes in
modern laboratories. It was first used around 300 B.C. and the knowledge
seems to have been inexplicably lost around the mid-18th century.
Nanotechnology was involved, in the sense that materials were added
during the steel’s production to create chemical reactions at the
quantum level, explains archaeology expert K. Kris Hirst in an article written for About Education. It was a kind of alchemy.
Hirst cited a study led by Peter Paufler at the University of Dresden and published in the journal Nature
in 2006. Paufler and his team hypothesized that the natural properties
of the source material from Asia (the Wootz steel), when combined with
materials added during the production process in the Middle East, caused
a reaction: “The metal developed a microstructure called ‘carbide
nanotubes,’ extremely hard tubes of carbon that are expressed on the
surface and create the blade’s hardness,” Hirst explained.
Materials added during the production of Damascus steel included
Cassia auriculata bark, milkweed, vanadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt,
nickel, and some rare elements, traces of which presumably came from
the mines in India.
“What happened in the mid-18th century was that the chemical makeup
of the raw material altered—the minute quantities of one or more of the
minerals disappeared, perhaps because the particular lode was
exhausted,” Hirst wrote.
But, the Ulfberht had nothing to do with the mines of India or the
Wootz steel or the milkweed or the forges of the Middle East, according
to recent research.
At the Source?
Robert Lehmann, a chemist at the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Hannover, told local publication Süd Deutsche in October that the material from which the Ulfberht was forged “certainly does not come from the East.”
He studied an Ulfberht sword found in 2012 on a pile of gravel
excavated from the Weser River, which flows through Lower Saxony in
northwestern Germany. This sword’s blade has a high manganese content,
which signalled to Lehmann that it did not come from the East.
A photo taken in the Taunus region of Germany. (Chris Küm/Wikimedia Commons)
The guard was made of iron with a high arsenic content, which
suggests a European deposit. The pommel was covered with a sheet of
tin-lead alloy. Lehmann had compiled in previous studies a map of
Germany’s lead isotope sources, allowing him to determine that the
pommel plate lead had come from a site in the Taunus region, just north
of Frankfurt, Germany. The lead would not likely have been mined and
transported elsewhere for processing, since the deposit was already
largely exploited in Roman times.
This suggests that the sword was forged close to the source, bringing
researchers perhaps a step closer to the elusive Ulfberht—if that is
indeed the name of a swordmaker or other personage connected to the
sword. While some monasteries in the Taunus region are known to have
produced weapons at that time, the name of Ulfberht has not been found
in their records.
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