Damascus Steel

Now this is cetainly intriguing. Swords made from the legendary "Damascus steel" apparently have extremely modern features - like carbon nanotubes encasing nanowires that increased the strength of the blades while still allowing flexibility. Carbon nanotubes are an extremely strong and flexible material supposedly a recent 20th century invention.

"Peter Paufler, a crystallographer at Technical University in Dresden, Germany, and his colleagues had previously found tiny nanowires and nanotubes when they used an electron microscope to examine samples from a Damascus blade made in the 17th century.

Today in the journal Nature, the teams reports that it has also discovered carbon nanotubes in the sword—the first nanotubes ever found in steel, Paufler says. The nanotubes, which are remarkably strong, run through the blade's softer steel, likely making it more resilient."

The blades were made from iron ingots, prepared with just the right amount of carbon, apparently originating from India. When properly crafted, nanotube bundles of hard nanowires surrounded by carbon nanotubes would form near the swords edge parallel to the surface. The alternating hard and soft layers would form a fine edge, enhanced by the swordsmith's use of acid to form fine etchings on the surface of the blade. The carbon nanotubes would protect the hard wires from the acid, leaving a microscopic saw-toothed edge that gave the swords their legendary sharpness.