Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ariel
Jim,
India is currently #4 producer of steel in the world. Iron ore is plentiful there.
Thus, I do not think that wootz production 200 years ago ceased because of the exhaustion of raw materials. Rather , the need in wootz and the skills in making it must have vanished. Of course, British industrial policies did not help either:-)
|
Salaams Ariel I think that is a fair comment and supported by According to Vibha Tripathi on;
http://www.ghadar.in/gjh_html/?q=con...eel-metallurgy
Quote“With industrialization and imperial designs of foreign rule a decline set in…….. The iron industry could not withstand the onslaught of the colonial forces working against its interests in a planned way. Once the blast furnaces came into existence in Britain, production started at a much cheaper rate…It could hardly compete with the cheap British pig iron being imported. ….
The laws enforcing non-felling of trees in the forest deprived the charcoal based indigenous iron industry of its very basic raw material. It made production of iron impossible.
The powerful lobby in Britain succeeded.” The colonizers succeeded in enslaving the Indian sub-continent in every sense of the word by systematically destroying the manufacturing capacity of India.
Both the authors also ascribe the decline to the reluctance of master craftsmen to document the technological secrets and to share the knowledge with others except with their favored apprentices. Hence some of the technologies could not be developed further and declined with the decline of the fortunes of the select group of families who knew the process secrets".Unquote.
see also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_furnace
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.