Damascus Steel

[Dan Howard]

It's been said that an analysis of Viking pattern welded swords has shown the steel to have arrived from Afganistan. We see blades of pattern steel in the Ospray books, in reference to Germanic craftsmen, but has an early Germanic pattern welded sword been found?

This needs updating with more recent data. The swords in question were found to be made of hypereutectoid steel. At the time they thought that crucible steel was the only way to get hypereutectoid steel and crucible steel came from India and Afghanistan during the time in question. However, we now know that hypereutectoid steel can also be produced in a regular bloomery smelter so they all could have been made locally in Europe. One of these swords (an Ulfbehrt blade) was recently analysed by the Institute for Inorganic Chemistry at Hannover and they produced the following results.

1. The high level of manganese in the steel points to a European source and not an Indian or Middle Eastern one.
2. The level of arsenic indicates that the ore came from Germany and not Scandinavia or anywhere else in Europe.
3. The handle was made of a lead-tin alloy. The lead isotope in that alloy only exists in what was known as the Taunus region, an area between the Rhine, Hahn, and Wetterau.