Persian Steel

Victoria Public Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition of Persian steel.

It's not ancient Greece (where steel had not even been discovered) but Persia 15th century onwards offers some interesting insights into an older lifestyle, which I might scavenge for ideas about the ancient world.

Here are some of the objects (many of them ornate and decorated with 'watered steel' -- where the steel is embossed with acid):

inkscoops, penholders, penboxes
armour (chainmail, armpit 'mirrors')
scissors
falcon stands
decorative padlocks (one was shaped like a bear had ruby eyes and emerald teeth)
armband boxes for tiny Qu'rans
jeweller's tools
silver mirrors
tweezers
hand-held balances (for use at bazaars)
daggers
butcher's cleavers
sugar cutters moulded to look like Englishmen naked except for top hats.

John was most excited by the multi-tool -- an early version of the Swiss army knife!

In the foyer leading to the exhibition, two other things caught my eye

1) instruments used by ancient Chinese morticians. These were two leaf-like 'eye-covers' made of jade, earplugs, noseplugs, stone batons called pigs, which were put into the corpse's hands, and an 'annular plug'. Eww.

2) a block embossed with coin moulds -- apparently the Chinese metalsmith poured molten bronze on the block, the excess flowed off and what was left was the milk-token shaped coin.