Constructing swords from meteorites

[Ken-Hawaii]

Aloha, all:

 

I've been off the forum for a few months due to family issues, but had an interesting discussion at yesterday's Japanese Sword Society meeting. We were talking about how modern swords just don't have at all the same surface structure & appearance as do the Nihonto of the Muromachi & earlier eras, & it was brought up that swordsmiths 'way back then created their tamahagane from meteorites as well as black sand. I haven't been able to find any information on whether meteorites played any part in Nihonto construction, but I'm betting that someone on this forum has heard or read something.

 

Related to that is the question of whether a high-nickel & -chromium source like meteoritic steel would have a big effect on the appearance of Nihonto. Any comments or ideas?

[Nobody]

Ryusei-To (æµæ˜Ÿåˆ€): Swords made from meteorite (but Gendai-To)

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=505&p=6290&hilit=ryusei#p6290

[Ken-Hawaii]

Sure wish I could read that link document, Kenkaku, but it's a start to my research. Arigato!

[Nobody]

The description about Ryusei-To appears only on pp. 1-2 of the document, and there is no technical feature on the swords except the composition of the meteorite.

[Brian]

Ken,

 

The lack of replies in this case pretty much indicates that it is probably just a wild myth about old swords using meteorites. It simply isn't backed up by research. There are a very few modern swords that were made using meteoric iron, but that's about it imho.

 

Brian

[Stephen]

remember a old really cheesy samurai movie where the sword was forged from a meteorite

and quenched with BLOOD It was very laughable, I did on the other hand talk to Howard Clark about such a blade, and he was in the process of looking at a meteor that was for sale at that gun show. Dont know if it came to being or not.

[Ford Hallam]

The Indonesian Kris was traditionally made with significant inclusion or iron/nickel meteorite ( sidderites ) and archaeological evidence does indicate that this source of metal was not uncommon at the start of the iron age in various cultures. We could speculate that prototype Nihonto may have included some of this material. I would be surprised if it wasn't at least experimented with in ancient times. The source would always have been seen as highly auspicious too.

 

We had a little discussion about this subject on the ironbrush forum that might be of interest to you, Ken. Here's the link.

 

cheers, Ford

[Lee Bray]

I'm not so sure it's traditional for the Kris but it certainly happened. From what I've read, weapons(kris) forged with meteorite ore were considered magical or talismanic.

There is a meteor known as the Prambanan meteor in Surakarta to this day which is considered Holy. It is recorded that it fell close to Surakarta in approximately 1757 and a chunk of it eventually made its way to the palace in 1784 where it was forged into various kris, some of which are still in existence in museums today.

The main body of the meteor was brought to the palace in 1797 where it now resides.

 

This is loosely copied from 'The Kris - Mystic weapon of the Malay world' by Edward Frey.

If anyone's interested, I can scan the pages and a couple of pics and add it here.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks for some very interesting leads. I figure that if Koto smiths had to resort to black sand (iron filings) to make their tamahagane, using a meteorite would be a pretty natural thing. It probably would have led to some quasi-religious mummery associated with the blade, but have found very little to support that theory.

 

I know the Chinese were using lodestone (magnetite) several thousand years ago for compasses, & as that's also a chunk of iron, I wonder if anyone has seen or heard of this usage.

[John A Stuart]

Ken, I have no access to my books right now, but, I have an old monograph (20's I think) dealing with a Chinese sword that had an edge forged from meteoric iron that was placed into a traditional bronze sword. It is the only published source I could find that dealt with an object that was still extant. I see a lot of Indonesian weapons for sale that mention their having been made from this source, but, I suspect that it is to facilitate higher prices. If they were all meteoric in origin Indonesia must have had tons of these types make it to ground and then actually be found. Anyway, they make a special impact on the market. John

[kaien]

taken from http://ca.geocities.com/spacephysicsisu/meteoroid.html#composition

 

Meteorites are generally divided into three classes according to their composition:

 

Iron: This is the most regularly encountered meteorite. The most common material (90%) is iron, with a smaller amount of nickel mixed in. An example of the meteorites that were irons were the ones that fell at Barringer, Arizona, and Wolf Creek, Australia.

 

Stony meteorites: This type of meteorites are the most common type to fall. On the other hand, because they are very comparable in composition to the rocks on Earth, they are tricky to spot. Some stony meteorites contain small glassy spheres called CHONDRULES, and objects with these spheres are known as CHONDRITES. Stony meteorites without the spheres are called ACHONDRITES.

 

Stony Irons: These are the final major class of meteorite. They contain small pieces of stone fixed in a body of iron.

 

 

It seems a meteor would contain the proper material for forging a blade, and even to an educated modern day person the idea of having a blade forged from a meteor is intriguing to say the least. If I was a very wealthy person I would love to have a blade forged from a meteor, as a way to set it apart as wel as conversation if nothing else. To a person living centuries ago it would surely be a priceless treasure to have a blade forged from the very material of the heavens. It's this reason stories like excalibur have captured our imaginations for generations. While perhaps not commonplace, and perhaps not even in Japan, I am sure this type of thing took place. I think it would require immense wealth to have such a blade forged, and that type of wealth was not something a typical Daimyo or at times even the emperor had.

 

The only thing I am not sure of is just how easy it would be to remove impurities from this type of Iron. After enduring the conditions of frozen space then going through extreme temperature of the earths atmosphere what type of chemical changes took place and did the impurities bond in some way to the iron? This is just speculation, I know nothing of metallurgy or geology, or of sword forging for that matter. I just found this an interesting topic.

[Ken-Hawaii]

John, I would be very interested to read that monograph on the Chinese sword. It would get me at least one step closer to finding Nihonto with meteoric content. I'm planning to write a paper to present at one of our Japanese Sword Society meetings when I've gathered enough useful content. Thanks in advance.

 

Kaien, I've worked with metallurgy as an engineer for over 40 years, & am quite familiar with meteorites, as well. My wife & I have over a dozen in our collection, including one 24-pounder, & I've gone so far as to run analyses of just what elements are present. In short, my iron meteorites average between 92-97% iron, 2-5% nickel, & a bunch of other trace elements like iridium, chromium, selenium, & carbon. None of these elements would cause any problem in sword forging, & in fact would likely make the blade a whole lot harder & more durable than those made purely from black-sand tamahagane. As meteorites fall everywhere on earth - I've found them with my metal detector in the deserts of Arizona & Wyoming, a small hilltop just outside San Antonio, & in several places in California - I'm fairly certain that there are at least a few Japanese swordsmiths who came upon them in the course of business or trade. As they were metal experts, I see no reason why they wouldn't at least attempt to use meteorites to make special Nihonto for Daimyo or local lords. There is no chemical change to meteorites as or after they hit the earth, by the way, other than oxidation (i.e., rusting). There is usually about 1/4-inch of ablated (melted) material from atmospheric friction (think of it as really-accelerated rusting :D ), but the chemical composition stays the same. What does change is the crystalline structure of the metallic content, but that shouldn't make any real difference in sword forging.

 

As far as exorbitant costs, I disagree. The purity of the iron in meteorites would make the smith's job a lot easier than starting with iron filings from a stream-bed, & it is very likely that the smith would become known for his superior blades. That would bring welcome attention from local lords & Daimyo, especially back in the Heian & Koto periods. I think the problem lies in how the smiths would identify such Nihonto, because there is no easy way to explain how the "iron rock fell from the sky," assuming that anyone even saw it fall. Like John, I've seen a lot of blades from Indonesia & India that claim to be made from meteoritic material, but I have no way to check their validity; telling a meteoric blade from one made via the Damascus/pattern-welding process is beyond me! I've read estimates of 37-78 thousand TONS of material of all sizes hitting the earth each year, so there's likely no huge problem in finding significant quantities, except for the fact that they can be found literally anywhere. It turns out that Antarctica is one of the best locations, as dark meteorites show up really well on ice & snow. But Japan & Okinawa certainly have their shares.

 

Anyway, back to the estimated cost to create such a blade, I find it hard to think that a swordsmith would put such a high value on a meteorite that he wouldn't be willing to create a masterpiece blade that would be "affordable." What else could he do with it??

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ken, I will scan and send you the paper. I won't be able to do it for a month at least. Ice still preventing us from leaving for a bit, but, will do my best. John

[Stephen]

howard@mvforge.com if you want to email Howard.

 

his link

 

http://www.mvforge.com/

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks, John; no huge rush on the scan. Guess there's a wee bit of difference between your home & mine - ice isn't much of a problem in Hawaii...! And we go swimming right across the street in the Pacific on Christmas & New Year, too. :D Have you found any meteorites on the snow & ice fields like they do in the Antarctic?

 

Thanks for Howard's e-mail, Stephen. I had already asked him if he has any info, but haven't heard back as yet.

 

I just heard back from a friend who owns Arizona Skies Meteorites (http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com - check out his Nihonto!!), & he told me that he had a customer from Japan who bought over 20 kilograms of Chinga iron meteorites a year or so ago. When John asked why he was buying so many, he was told that the buyer was having a custom sword made. I'm checking into that, but it does show that somebody else is interested in meteoritic swords.

[John A Stuart]

Hi Ken, Big winds now and I'm hoping it will break up the ice a bit. I can see 2 miles of open water now. Although it sounds cold here the snow is almost gone except for some drifts in big basaltic crevices, which means ,I think, these meteorites would only be found, as in the Antarctic, in perpetual snow fields. Maybe way north of here. Good question. I'll have to ask some Inuit if some relatives in the high arctic have seen such. John

[SSt]

Hi Ken

I researched this subject some time ago for a short story, which unfortunately remains unfinished.

I seem to remember googling "use of meteoric iron"

The most interesting tidbit I found was at

 

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0307-3114(1941)71:1/2%3C55:TUOMI%3E2.0.CO;2-8

 

T. A. Rickard (1941). "The Use of Meteoric Iron". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

 

Hope its of interest.

[Ken-Hawaii]

A very useful find, Steve - thanks!! It's interesting that this particular search term identifies meteoritic iron usage by the Incas, Aztecs, Egyptians, & even the Inuit, but not a single mention of Japan or China. I'm going to have to rethink how to do a more thorough search using other terms. There has to be a ton of relevant info hidden somewhere!

[SSt]

Hi Ken

Sorry I may have given you a bad/misleading link, try this

 

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2844401

 

The Use of Meteoric Iron

T. A. Rickard

The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 71, No. 1/2 (1941), pp. 55-66

(article consists of 14 pages)

Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

 

The image I posted is only the 1st page (?) of what is a 14 page article.

Perhaps Japan and China are mentioned on other pages?

 

Thanks.

[Ken-Hawaii]

I was able to figure out the right URL, Steve, so no problem. Except that unless you belong to JSTOR, you can't access the rest of the article.... I'm looking for the same info in another venue.

[SSt]

Hi Ken

Unfortunately JSTOR is for academics only. It would seem that knowledge is not to be shared with the hoi poloi.

How did it ever come to this? Don't get me started!

Apologies, I digress.

 

There is a very interesting volume on the origins of alchemy, in which there are listed many sources (including T. A. Rickard (1941). "The Use of Meteoric Iron") on meteoric iron and its uses by various early civilizations.

 

The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy By Mircea Eliade, Stephen Corrin.

You should be able to read some excerpts here.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=yydiffu ... Q#PPA29,M1

 

And it is currently in print and avalable here.

The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy (Paperback)

by Mircea Eliade (Author) "IT WAS inevitable that meteorites should inspire awe ..."

http://www.amazon.com/Forge-Crucible-Or ... 510&sr=8-1

 

Happy Hunting.

[John A Stuart]

JSTOR drives me nuts. Unless a millionaire or within an academic institution you can't access infomation on things that relate to Japanese history, metallurgy and the like. Other caches allow purchase of individual articles at a price (high), but, JSTOR is expensive. I have had friends provide articles before. It is tiresome to always be holding out the hat. John

[Ken-Hawaii]

What's not particularly humorous, John, is that I'm adjunct professor for two local universities & four community colleges, but none of them consider JSTOR to be worth the price of admission....

 

I checked out the annual fee schedule yesterday, & am astonished that it's more than doubled in the past five years. But I guess someone is paying those high fees or JSTOR wouldn't still be here.

[bluboxer]

Hello Ken,pm me if you want a copy via e-mail attachment.It's only 1MB.

 

Alan

[Jeff Pringle]

V. F. Buchwald (the guy who literally wrote The Book on Iron meteorites) has a chapter on man & meteoric iron (starts on page 13 of “Iron and Steel in Ancient Timesâ€) -

http://books.google.com/books?id=c947L8YJerUC

Nothing from Japan, but does mention the meteoric-bladed China items, the alleged keris meteorite and lots more. The citation for the Chinese artifacts is:

Gettens, R. J., Clarke, R. S. & Chase, W. T. 1971: “Two Early Chinese Bronze Weapons with Meteoric Iron Blades†Freer Gallery of Art, Occasional Papers 4, No. 1: 1-77

 

Searching for meteorite or meteoric iron with various sword terms in English and in Kanji results in zilch (except ‘Simple Search ( 隕石 é› )’ results in

‘ç«å±± 体験ã§é›ãˆã‚‰ã‚Œã‚‹è¤‡é›‘ç³»ç½å®³--有ç å™´ç«ã«æ€ã†â€™ - not sword-, but disaster-related?) here:

http://ci.nii.ac.jp/en?

 

Black sand = Magnetite, an iron oxide, plentiful wherever granite mountains are eroding away, high return on the mineral-to-metal equation, well-understood, predictable and controllable in smelting. Much preferable (I would think) for forging high-stress objects like swords; a sword smith might think twice about using random lump of strange metal that cropped up under someone’s plow (the un-romantic way most meteorites are found ) for such a critical item.

Meteoric iron usually contains 5-20 % nickel, that and the 4-8% cobalt would render all but the extreme low end of the alloy percentages very annoying to work compared to charcoal-smelted ore. Fortunately, many of the high-mass meteorites are on the low-nickel end, it makes acquiring & forging meteoric iron possible these days despite the incredible rarity of the material; back before fast and easy world travel and ebay it is highly unlikely that more than a handful of people were exposed to the material on any one continent (except for them Greenland Inuit who lucked out) – and why turn such a great anvil into a questionable sword, I wonder? :?

There are lots of meteorites hitting the atmosphere, but not so many irons – 4% of falls are iron, but they are so obvious to inquisitive humans they represent 40% of the recorded meteorite finds, the other types look an awful lot like the rocks they are. And of the tons that hit the atmosphere, virtually none are findable/recoverable/sizeable enough to do anything with if recovered. For instance, in the last decade, professional teams of scientists as well as professional meteorite poachers have searched the plateaus of Oman for meteorites (second only to Antarctica for ideal meteorite recovery conditions), and recovered one eight-kilo iron – out of many thousands of other meteorites of all types recovered. 12 meteorites from the planet Mars totaling 12 + kilos, one lousy iron. The proto-Omani used up the meteoric iron supply a few thousand years ago. A random mediaeval swordsmith hoping to use meteoric iron, searching in a temperate, forested clime like Japan would certainly die of old age before running across one big enough to stub his toe on, let alone big enough to make a sword with! Iron sand is a much safer bet, unless the meteorite is already in your back yard (being used as an anvil :D ).

Of all Iron meteorites found in Japan (in recent history, there may have been others but early metalworkers probably used them up long ago like in Oman), only one was big enough to get more than a couple swords out of, Tanokami Mountain. Looks like Chubu got hit with another largeish one (in fragments) at some point, you might want to focus your search to those regions, see if you can find a tang inscription – if they noted the use of imported iron on nakago, you’d think meteoric would also get written down, no?

However I suspect there would have been a more recent article written if something as obvious as an inscription were extant.

Check the shrines, they might have something hidden away.

 

All Japanese Iron Meteorites in the Meteoritical Society database:

Fukue 1849 Kyushu, Japan Iron 7.3 g

Komagome 1926 Kanto, Japan Iron 238 g

Kuga 1950 or 1938 Chugoku, Japan IIIAB 5.6 kg

Okano 1904 Kinki, Japan IIAB 4.74 kg

Sakauchi 1913 Chubu, Japan Iron 4.18 kg

Saotome 1892 Chubu, Japan IVA 10.88 kg

Shirahagi 1890 Chubu, Japan IVA 22.7 kg

Suwa 1915 Chubu, Japan Iron 203 g

Tanokami Mountain 1885 Kinki, Japan IIIE 174 kg

Tendo 1910 Tohoku, Japan IIIAB 10.1 kg

Link for above list:

http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/metbull.p ... dr=&page=0

 

If you visit the database, be sure to look up Black Rock 001, the first meteorite I recovered & managed to get written up – good name for a meteorite!

 

Jeff

Swordsmith

[Brian]

Jeff,

 

 

Brian

[Bugyotsuji]

Just read this thread for the first time, and well worth the read. The original title put me off, but having finally read it, I have had to expand my perceptions of the history of iron usage. Thanks guys.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Many thanks for all those leads, Jeff.

 

I had found the database, but - like you - hadn't find any listings for meteorites in Japan prior to 1849 (& at 7.3 grams, that wouldn't have done much for a blade... ). I wonder why there are so few listed for Japan when other locations have them going back much further? Even the U.S. Has them back to 1808, & I have to think that Japanese scribes kept better "notes" than we did over here! If I can easily locate info on a Shinto blade, there must be more information available somewhere on as memorable an occasion as a meteorite hitting nearby!

 

I'm in the process of discussing a project with Dan Fronefield (http://meteorforge.net) to build a katana using either his or my iron meteorites. Dan has already built some killer knives from them, & we're now trying to puzzle out why the generally higher nickel content has precluded him from creating a hamon. Do you have any idea on why this happens, Jeff? We're looking at the eutectics of pearlite/bainite, but haven't gotten very far.

 

By the way, I fully agree that a Japanese swordsmith would likely prefer to use black sand for his tamahagane, but I was assigned the research on whether meteoritic material had also been used to create Nihonto, & to write a paper for our local Japanese Sword Society (which I'll also publish here if I can acquire enough data). So I definitely appreciate all of the talent & knowledge represented by this forum's members, especially those like you who choose to help!!

[Brian]

Ken,

 

I think you might find the simple answer to all that is "no"

If we can't find proof, no matter how much research we do...then sometimes the simple answer is that they didn't.

Even if you find one example somewhere down the line that show a single sword using meteoric iron, it isn't going to change much.

Let's face it..it smiths were using this iron and knew what it was, there would be a nakago inscription mentioning it. And with all the ancient Japanese books published, the lack of an oshigata today probably means it didn't happen.

I hope I am wrong, but I do think this will be a dead end. We only have the records of modern smiths experimenting with it, and nothing at all to back up the fact that it was used in ancient times except for the theory that "if it could have been done, surely it must have been done?"

I just don't see it being something that was experimented with. They had good iron sand, and knew the results, so the lack of any swords with inscriptions about iron from the sky indicates to me that even if someone tried it, it wasn't an improvement or success, and wasn't pursued further.

Just my take on it.

 

Brian

[Jeff Pringle]

why there are so few listed for Japan when other locations have them going back much further?

 

That list is only iron meteorites – there are 66 meteorites total, including 12 “unapprovedâ€, which are probably not meteorites but were mentioned as such in scientific or other literature in the past. Most meteorites are stones (not forgeable), and most iron meteorites are found on the ground, not seen falling – less spectacular, not as noteworthy – but three of the 10 irons are listed as falls, that’s more than I expected.

Japan’s long history of good note-taking is represented in meteorites by Nogata, the world’s first recorded meteorite fall in 861, which the Suga Shrine still has in a box – there does seem to be a bias towards enshrining rather than using, at least with witnessed falls.

 

Nickel does have the effect of increasing hardenability, so that the metal under the clay will be more inclined to harden during the quench resulting in a loss of that dramatic shift from hard to soft steel we call hamon.

Assuming you are mixing the meteorite steel with higher-carbon steel to get to a good carbon content for hamon, the nickel percentage should be low enough to control it’s effect on hardenability by over-refining the grain size prior to the quench; say through 5 or 6 nomalizing cycles – not overheating during the normalizing will be important, so use a pyrometer.

“Star Shrines†are apparently common in Japan:

http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/starshrn.htm

Japanese legends about stars/meteorites?

http://astro.ysc.go.jp/izumo/den_all_old.html

Link to all Japanese meteorites list:

http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/metbull.p ... dr=&page=1

 

Jeff

Swordsmith