Wootz Steel

Wootz steel is a crucible steel prized for the distinctive banded pattern that forms across its surface, produced by sheets of microscopic carbides within its tempered matrix. It was first produced in southern India during the middle of the first millennium BC, at production centers in Golconda, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, by heating magnetite ore inside a sealed clay crucible over a charcoal furnace, using bamboo and other plant matter as the carbon source; Sri Lankan smiths had adopted the technique from the Cheras of southern India by the fifth century BC. Traded as cakes of steel across the Arabian Sea, wootz became legendary in the ancient world, and sword blades forged from it were prized across pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia; a Persian expression for being cut by an Indian sword, 'to give an Indian answer,' reflects the reputation the steel earned before the same underlying technology, carried to Damascus, gave rise to what became known as Damascus steel.