St. Petersburg Mining University (St. Petersburg, Russia):

K. V. Tumanova, Cand. Eng., Senior Researcher of Mining museum, E-mail: karinadam@mail.ru
V. Yu. Bazhin, Dr. Eng., Prof., Head of Dept. of Metallurgical Processes and Production, E-mail: bazhin-alfoil@mail.ru
O. A. Dubovikov, Dr. Eng., Prof., Dept. of Chemical Technologies and Processing of Energy Carriers, E-mail: dubovikov_oa@mail.ru
A. V. Sundurov, Post-graduate, Dept. of Metallurgy, E-mail: sav.66@bk.ru

The modern sensor base and tooling allow to evaluate and consider principally in the new way solving of any tasks and problems, connected with the technology of manufacture of unique materials that have been fabricated several centuries ago. Examination of such historical artifacts as damask steel products makes it possible to understand the features of the technological process of their fabrication and to make an adequate evaluation of the typical parameters of these unique steel products. The researches were conducted with damask weapons from the collection of the Mining museum in St. Petersburg Mining University. These weapons have been fabricated in Tiflis in 1830–1832 and at Zlatoust armoury during XIX century. In general, this collection of cold arms includes 192 pieces. 24 damask blades were selected from it without handle forming, what allowed to take samples of material from a tang without damage of the blade surface and its decorated part. Analytical investigation of chemical composition of damask blades was conducted based on the Center of Collective Usage (CCU) at the Mining university in the laboratory of analytical researches (LAR) using running X-ray photoelectron spectrometer XRF-1800 of Shimadzu production. Practically all examined samples were characterized by multi-component chemical composition, excluding the dagger fabricated by N. N. Anosov in 1836. The obtained results formed the common database that allows to determine belonging of a damask blade to the concrete place and date of manufacture, based on its chemical composition, region and time period.

The authors express their gratitude to Dr. Chem. Vladimir G. Povarov, head of the laboratory of analytical researches (LAR) in the Center of Collective Usage (CCU).

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