There are hundreds of metallurgical analysis of medieval and earlier European blades and dozens of chemical analysis...many published in various articles in "Gladius".
In general a small slice is taken from the blade (a triangle cut from edge to center not all the way across) and this is cold mounted in resin and polished then etched and photographed under the microscope. Pieces can also be spectrographed for chemistry. Neither is all that hard to do well, but there is a procedure.
Such can be done from poor examples of good provenance...many museums have such pieces which are not good enough to display and some even just sit and rust away on a shelf as conservation funds are low.
Once enough body of information is amassed one can make assumptions as to what is of a certain time and place. It makes fakes that much more difficult to pass as originals.
I suggest the work of Drs. Alan Williams and David Edge of The Wallace. As well as Drs. Janet Lang, Paul Craddock and Barry Ager of the British Museum. The Royal Armouries did some good work till they sacked the dept.
These are only a few British researchers..there have counterparts all over Europe.
Ric
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