Watered Steel

tech of the Iron Age

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

Eventually, three methods of hardening iron into steel came into common usage: watered or pattern-welded steel, wootz, and true damascus. - http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/articles/very_british/body_part1_damascene.html

• Some Japanese swords have upwards of 36,000 layers and it is very difficult to discern the watering with the naked eye.

• According to another legend, the common damascus blade was so flexible that a man could take the hilt in one hand and the point in the other and bend the blade in a circle around his body and when released, the blade would spring straight again.

• The pattern welded blade went out of favor rapidly in Europe with the invention of the Catalan furnace in the 1300's in Spain.