Abstract
Recent new evidence emerged from the crucible steel production site of Konasamudram, Telangana, India. A hoard of 60 crucible steel ingots from this site offers a unique opportunity to study details of the early large-scale production of this fabled material, beginning with a detailed documentation of the weights and sizes of 45 of them. Historically, Konasamudram has been an important pre-modern crucible steel manufacturing and trading centre in India, as reported by Persian and European travelogues, and may have been the source of many of the early ingots studied during the past 200 years. The aim of this work is to present a dimensional analysis of these ingots and interpret the data in the context of earlier studies, to address questions of consistency in manufacturing, standardization of weights and other physical attributes. The newly-discovered ingots show considerable uniformity in shape, size and weights, indicative of a single production event during the heydays of crucible steel making, while the ingots previously reported in the literature vary much more widely.
Highlights
As a material, wootz steel was legendary for its outstanding toughness, flexibility and resistance, while its exotic origin made it even more mysterious (Verhoeven, 2001)
Two broad types of ingots appear, namely flat cakes and taller cones, potentially linked to different production regions within southern India. Another noteworthy point is the trade of these ingots to Persia
In the mid-17th century, Tavernier confirms an existing trade in wootz ingots between the Kingdom of Golconda and Persia, which was persisting in 1820s as ascertained by Vosey‘s report of the repeated presence of Haji Hoysn from Isfahan in Konasamudram to buy up wootz ingots
Summary
Wootz steel was legendary for its outstanding toughness, flexibility and resistance, while its exotic origin made it even more mysterious (Verhoeven, 2001). Southern India is a well-documented large crucible steel production ecosystem with several micro and macro production ecosystems within, which dominated global wootz production throughout at least the second half of the 2nd millennium. This vast region is understated in its culturally and technically varied modes of production. Prakash 1990, Juleff 1998, Srinivasan 1997, Anantharamu et al 1999, Jaikishan 2007, etc) have shown its wide distribution in space and time (Fig. 1) Waste products such as technical ceramics and slag are frequently encountered at such sites and form the basis for most studies of these operations, including production sites across Telangana (Lowe 1989-1991, Jaikishan 2007, Srinivasan 1994, Juleff et al 2011). We present this unique collection, referred to here as a hoard, with its geometrical and morphological characteristics and place it within the historical framework of crucible steel production in Telangana, in order to facilitate a renewed discussion of the wider aspects of this indigenous Indian industry
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