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posted by martyb on Friday September 25 2020, @04:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the Shiny! dept.

Ancient Persians were making "20th-century" chromium steel 900 years ago:

One manuscript in particular grabbed their attention. Titled al-Jamahir fi Marifah al-Jawahir, which translates to "A Compendium to Know the Gems", the manuscript was written in the 10th or 11th century CE by the polymath Abu-Rayhan Biruni. Crucially, it contained the only known recipe for forging steel in high-temperature crucibles. The problem is, it can be difficult to follow a thousand-year-old recipe.

"The process of identification can be quite long and complicated and this is for several reasons," says Marcos Martinon-Torres, last author of the study. "Firstly, the language and the terms used to record technological processes or materials may not be used anymore, or their meaning and attribution may be different from those used in the modern science. Additionally, writing was restricted to social elites, rather than the individual that actually carried out the craft, which may have led to errors or omissions in the text."

One ingredient, referred to as "rusakhtaj," puzzled the archaeologists. Eventually they identified it as the ore mineral chromite, which can be used to make chromium crucible steel. Importantly, this was backed up by the discovery of traces of chromite and chromium in artifacts from the Chahak site.

Mixing chromium into steel to make tool steel or stainless steel was thought to be a 19th-20th century invention.

Journal Reference:
Rahil Alipour, Thilo Rehren, Marcos Martinón-Torres. Chromium crucible steel was first made in Persia, Journal of Archaeological Science (DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2020.105224)


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 25 2020, @04:50PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 25 2020, @04:50PM (#1056810)

    My favorite bit of steel making trivia was the early discovery of tempering and how it was initially attributed to application of a red headed virgin's urine to the blade.

    http://warehamforgeblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/applied-knowledge-quenching.html [blogspot.com]

    http://redhairmyths.blogspot.com/2014/12/red-haired-urine-and-making-swords.html [blogspot.com]

    Other urine trivia:

    https://www.kickassfacts.com/25-interesting-facts-about-urine/ [kickassfacts.com]

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:46PM (#1056879)

      Sounds like something sold by Apple.

      Designed in California
      MADE IN CHINA

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by kazzie on Friday September 25 2020, @06:49PM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 25 2020, @06:49PM (#1056883)

      And there was me thinking you were taking the piss.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @04:52PM (22 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @04:52PM (#1056813)

    Think of how much further advanced we could be as a society if all of that ancient knowledge was not lost to time. We would still have the original recipe for Damascus Steel, for example. The Mayan knowledge, etc. A sad loss for mankind.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Friday September 25 2020, @05:43PM (13 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Friday September 25 2020, @05:43PM (#1056843)

      Nothing was really lost. The recipes survived and alchemists tried duplicating them here and there but since they implicitly sourced specific ores from specific mines, when those run out they became impossible to duplicate. As soon as modern chemistry came about and successfully isolated the relevant elements, it only took a few decades before all the old metals were rediscovered and improved on.

      Stainless steel is actually a great example since chromium was isolated in 1798 and by 1821 Pierre Berthier was already suggesting its usage for corrosive resistance cutlery but it took a few years before good enough chromite deposits were found so it wasn't until the 1840s when steelworks shop started working with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel#History [wikipedia.org]

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 25 2020, @06:16PM (12 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 25 2020, @06:16PM (#1056862)

        In a way, the ancient knowledge was irretrievably lost because the ancient knowledge was based on finite non-renewable resources.

        Even though are "better" with today's scientific explanations and more able to multiple source essential components, I suspect in another 1000 years the bulk of our wisdom will be similarly arcane and essentially worthless to then-modern society. COBOL, for instance, or recipes for fresh tuna, anything around the crude oil industry - like plastics, etc.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 3, Touché) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 25 2020, @07:24PM (2 children)

          by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Friday September 25 2020, @07:24PM (#1056900)

          The only part of plastics that will become arcane and worthless will be the recopies to make it from petroleum based feed stocks,

          And I wouldn't be so quick to write off COBOL :)

          --
          "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 25 2020, @08:48PM (1 child)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 25 2020, @08:48PM (#1056935)

            Oh, COBOL will still be running in 1000 years, and people will study the language, but nobody will actually understand the stack of emulators required to make it happen.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:55PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:55PM (#1056938)

              Oh you mean like AI? In biomedical research we're already there my friend. Just press go and receive your answer.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:19AM (8 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:19AM (#1057096) Journal

          It doesn't take that long. It would be impractical to build a Saturn V today due to parts and materials that are not made anymore. There's a lot of mid 20th century tech that effectively can't be restored without cheating due to parts availability.

          I know it's not quite the same since workarounds are possible, but it's also just a few decades and for things still well within living memory.

          Retro computing enthusiasts often have to resort to emulating old parts.

          Old family recipes sometimes have unfamiliar terminology that confuses people today.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:23AM (7 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:23AM (#1057100)

            Problem with my old family recipes is that nobody wants to go out and shoot, skin and clean an opossum anymore.

            In all seriousness, the resurgence of wild turkeys in Florida is largely attributed to the fact that hunters don't like to clean them and commercial processing is much more cost prohibitive than for deer, so they mostly don't shoot turkeys anymore.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:28AM (4 children)

              by sjames (2882) on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:28AM (#1057102) Journal

              One I'm genuinely wondering about, how long will it be until through oversight a region discovers it has no working black start plan after a grid failure.

              How many Die-Hards will they have to connect together to jump start a power plant?

              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:39AM (1 child)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:39AM (#1057105)

                through oversight a region discovers it has no working black start plan after a grid failure.

                Fukushima comes to mind as a small, but significant example...

                There are so many generators around, you can (and usually do) pullstart a 5kW generator, and with that 5kW of power you can manage to start a much larger genset pretty easily.

                I determined just this morning that when my boat batteries have been drawn down to 10.7V because some idiot tripped the breaker feeding my shore-power fed charger, I can still crank the diesel and get the alternator going to bring the batteries back up in 20 minutes or so... have to open the throttle wider than normal while cranking - I assume because of the heavier than normal load on the alternator, but crank it did, and thankfully our $800 bank of lead acid seems to have lived through yet another insult without getting too damaged.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
                • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:53AM

                  by sjames (2882) on Saturday September 26 2020, @03:53AM (#1057108) Journal

                  I'm sure the work-around will be better than (but not as funny as) hooking up car patteries in parallel, but I wouildn't be surprised if it involved delays while trucking in a large generator and getting it wired in.

                  According to what I read (which may or may not have been accurate considering how much sloppy reporting surrounded Fukushima) one problem was not having compatible connectors. Not sure why that wasn't solved with a fire axe, sledge hammer, and copper tubing.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:15PM (#1057247)

                > ... black start plan after a grid failure.

                We're near Niagara Falls hydroelectric. Just a guess, they might have a manual valve to open some water flow to one of the turbines, to bootstrap the rest of the valve operators (the valves are enormous)?

                It's an interesting question if you go back in history--I wonder how N. Tesla got the first Niagara Falls generators started up?

                • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 27 2020, @10:44PM

                  by sjames (2882) on Sunday September 27 2020, @10:44PM (#1057850) Journal

                  Most hydro plants are equipped for black start since it's relatively easy compared to fossil fuel plants.

            • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday September 26 2020, @07:14AM (1 child)

              by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 26 2020, @07:14AM (#1057144) Journal

              In all seriousness, the resurgence of wild turkeys in Florida is largely attributed to the fact that hunters don't like to clean them and commercial processing is much more cost prohibitive than for deer, so they mostly don't shoot turkeys anymore.

              WTF? Is there something about turkeys specifically which makes them harder to clean than any other game bird of a similar size?

              --
              Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 26 2020, @12:51PM

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 26 2020, @12:51PM (#1057225)

                No, but Southern US hunters are lazy fucks who will just buy a Butterball and make a deep fried turducken with it, rather than go through all the work of cleaning a wild turkey to get a skinny bird.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:23PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:23PM (#1056920)

      Think of how much further advanced we could be as a society if all of that ancient knowledge was not lost to time. We would still have the original recipe for Damascus Steel, for example. The Mayan knowledge, etc. A sad loss for mankind.

      And hearty thanks to Christianity for doing so. Not.

      https://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gi0_vandalism.htm [badnewsaboutchristianity.com]
      https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/28/the-darkening-age-the-christian-destruction-of-the-classical-world-by-catherine-nixey [theguardian.com]
      https://pparihar.com/2016/03/31/mayan-books-burned-by-christians/ [pparihar.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:46PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:46PM (#1056932)

        Yes but before Christianity, nobody ever thought of loving one's neighbors. Unless they're gay or eat shellfish obviously. Only if they're good people.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @10:38PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @10:38PM (#1056972)

          Yes but before Christianity, nobody ever thought of loving one's neighbors. Unless they're gay or eat shellfish obviously. Only if they're good people.

          An excellent point. Which succinctly and correctly describes Christians as not only brutal and destructive, but hypocritical as well.

          Good show!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @09:53PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @09:53PM (#1056960)

        Muslims burned the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, an irreplaceable trove and institution of Classical knowledge.
        Just a single for-instance. Today they throw gays off bridges, chop hands off, and kill their daughters after they are raped because they are whores. What are Christians doing today? Donating money and volunteering in poor countries.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @10:43PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @10:43PM (#1056975)

          Muslims burned the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, an irreplaceable trove and institution of Classical knowledge.

          That claim isn't clearly supported by the historical evidence [osu.edu]. In fact, the primary proponent of that particular story was both virulently anti-islamic and not entirely reliable.

          But don't let that get in the way of painting a billion people with the same broad brush. Treating people as individuals is hard, so why should you have to do it?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @02:04AM (#1057064)

          > Donating money and volunteering in poor countries.

          White savior complex. Let me guess, volunteering to ride the elephants in Thailand. Volunteering to teach English (their only language) to foreign morans. Volunteering to subvert abortion laws. Volunteering to bring up the baby savages in a decent Christian home.

          Don't get me wrong, Christians do good things too. But they don't have a monopoly on it like they seem to believe.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:21AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:21AM (#1057111)

          Today they throw gays off bridges,

          Yeah, good Christians like Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson [wikipedia.org] would never do anything like that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:52AM (#1057118)

      I've read that damascus steel is actually Indian steel, just like arabic numerals are actually indian numerals. There is actually a iron manument in India dating back to Moria dynasty (3c BC) that somehow was preserved, never rusted.

      But who knows?

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @05:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @05:43PM (#1056842)

    Boomers think they invented everything. Selfish narcissistic idiot Boomers are the worst generation in history.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by hendrikboom on Friday September 25 2020, @05:55PM (1 child)

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 25 2020, @05:55PM (#1056850) Homepage Journal

      Did the baby boom start in 1821?

      • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday September 25 2020, @06:50PM

        by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 25 2020, @06:50PM (#1056886)

        Nah, that was the industrial boom.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:17PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:17PM (#1056865)

    I was always under the impression that "ancient" in the archaeological context meant BC. This source [thefreedictionary.com] has a more liberal definition that includes periods before the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476), but certainly not just 900 years ago.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @06:50PM (#1056887)

      I don't think an international committee of world-reknowned experts ever got together to put an exact date on "ancient."
      Also, I am still waiting on their decision as to exactly how many constitute "several." This must be pecisely defined.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Friday September 25 2020, @07:22PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday September 25 2020, @07:22PM (#1056898) Homepage
      Yup, was going to say the same thing.

      https://iranicaonline.org/articles/chromite-fecr204-a-dark-brown-or-black-mineral-from-which-chromium-is-refined
      Seems happy to call the 1300s "modern" (and also implies that at least when that article was written there was no locally-mined chromite 900 years ago, so perhaps this research has pushed that back a coupld of hundred years).

      You've got to remember that the people who started playing with higher chromium levels in their steel weren't doing it by design, they were doing it because that's what the local ores contained. Of course, recognising its different properties requires some smarts, of course, but I wouldn't consider such advances anything like inventions, say, they're more just happenstantial discoveries.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 25 2020, @08:46PM (6 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday September 25 2020, @08:46PM (#1056931) Journal

      Yeah, my first thought was that "ancient" Persia meant Achaemenid Persia, from 550 B.C. to 330 B.C. This isn't even Sassanid Persia, the last Persian political entity which can be considered technically ancient, and which fell to the Arabs in the 600s.

      The Islamic caliphate of that time was for a while the world leader in technology. Our words "algorithm" and "algebra" come from a famous Persian mathematician who lived around that time, al-Kwarizmi, and his book "Al-jabr".

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:48PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @08:48PM (#1056934)

        Is that the same Islam that got invented in 800AD?

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Dr Spin on Friday September 25 2020, @08:55PM (1 child)

          by Dr Spin (5239) on Friday September 25 2020, @08:55PM (#1056939)

          s that the same Islam that got invented in 800AD?

          Yes. People used to live for thousands of years before Islam.

          In answer to an earlier question as to when Ancient was:

          It was before written history, which, in the UK, does mean BC. In the rest of Europe it mostly means much older than that - like 8,000BC.

          In America, it means "Before 1950" - "The Flintstones" is convincing evidence that the 1950's were the stone age - in America.

          --
          Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:30AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:30AM (#1057114)

            In answer to an earlier question as to when Ancient was:

            It was before written history, which, in the UK, does mean BC. In the rest of Europe it mostly means much older than that - like 8,000BC.

            No. Ancient history begins with *recorded history*, that is with the advent of writing [wikipedia.org]:

            Ancient history as a term refers to the aggregate of past events[1] from the beginning of writing and recorded human history and extending as far as post-classical history. The phrase may be used either to refer to the period of time or the academic discipline.

            The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script, with the oldest coherent texts from about 2600 BC.[2] Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500.

            We call the time *before* writing, prehistory [wikipedia.org]:

            Human prehistory, also known as pre-literary history[1], is the period between the use of the first stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5,300 years ago and it took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @09:00PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2020, @09:00PM (#1056941)

          Muhammad (c. 570 – 632 CE)
          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam [wikipedia.org]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:12PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:12PM (#1057296)

            Pedophile, rapist, murderer, thief, miscreant, liar, sex addict who by detailed historical accounts could not be trusted to keep his word, had no honor, and for whom more than a billion people think is the epitome of a human life well lived. Think about that for a while.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 26 2020, @04:21PM (#1057303)

          Taken over, actually.

          Islam used to have a pantheon of gods, with one called "the highest". A group of islamists threw out the rest of the gods keeping just one "al ilah". They killed anyone who disagreed. Islam used to have hundreds of gods.

          It is like when they decided which version of the written koran is " the correct one ". By burning the copies that were " incorrect " along with anyone who disagreed. Look it up.

          So, no, "islam" did not suddenly appear. It had been around for a while. The virulent takeover occurred when a rampaging liar convinced people that he could speak to an angel. Do remember this is the same person who claim that not performing a miracle is in fact a miracle.

          There's a lot to read about how this evil version of islam came about.

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