Swords Cankered with Rust...How Exactly do Wooden Swords Rust?

[JarMan]

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Steel and bones are not made of the same materials, and it seems obvious that they may react differently to the same conditions. If you believe that steel and bones must decay at the same rate in a given environment, perhaps you could research the problem and find scientific authorities that would agree with you.  And then you could beat us over the head with it!  Wouldn't that be more fun than refusing to accept scientific information that others provide to you?  Just because you don't want it to be true, because it doesn't support your prejudices?

Or, you could do some experiments!  Take a cow femur and a piece of bar steel.  Bury them near each other in the same kind of conditions that are featured in Mesoamerica and wait two hundred years.  Dig them up and see how they have fared.  Or perhaps some other people have done this for you already?

I don't post much on this forum (even though I'm a long time member) so it's understandable that you don't know much about my views of the Book of Mormon. You are making assumptions about me that couldn't be more incorrect. So although I appreciate your vim in defending what you believe in the way you know how, you haven't done anything to address my question. I'm not even sure you understand the question since you've misstated my assumptions. I'm interested in all reasonable answers if you've got any. 

[JarMan]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I just had the wonderful job of taking apart the internal workings of a toilet tank that had not been touched in probably 20 years

Many of the brass parts crumbled away to nothing.  Screwdrivers were useless.  You put in in the slot and it crumbles into green dust.

If anyone thinks brass or bronze does not "rust" they are highly mistaken.

The interesting thing is that the brass and copper breastplates found were "perfectly sound."

Similarly, the scattered bones of men and beasts had survived, not in the soil, but on top of the ground. There were also ruins of buildings of every kind. As for the swords, the blades were cankered with rust but the hilts had perished. So there is really a mixed bag when it comes to the degree of degradation of a wide variety of materials. There are also a lot of unknowns such as the materials used for the sword hilts and blades, the type of buildings and the materials used to construct them, the climatic and geophysical conditions, etc. 

I was hoping to hear a hypothesis that made some scholarly assumptions about the unknowns and then some explanation of why the various decay rates we find for the various materials are reasonable or within a range that would be considered reasonable. If that hasn't been done before, fine. Maybe I'll undertake that some day if I have time. I've gotta think, though, that these questions have been addressed by scholars before. 

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, is there any evidence, anywhere, that the Olmec culture used their iron ore for anything other than mirrors? http://www.hclips.com/get_file/6/6cd8cfbe7de560a354119e368af2484d/57000/57690/57690_hq.mp4/?br=183 

..................................................................

I attempted to access that URL, but the website is offline.  No matter, I was able to access it through the notes in the body of your nice quote.  No  surprise that a chapter on Mesoamerican mirrors deals only with mirrors.

Yes there is plenty of evidence that the Olmec used iron for other purposes than mirrors.  In fact tons of iron have been found at Olmec sites in the form of drilled cubes.  In one noteworthy case, Mike Coe found a magnetite "pointer" at the Early Formative Olmec site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan (Fuson 1969:508-510, Coe in Sharer & Grove 1989:79; Lowe 1989:44 [fig 4.6 item n],53-54; Coe & Diehl 1980:244-245 figs 251, 255).  Coe told Fuson that this pointer was    

Quote

a flattened, oblong piece that is perfectly squared on all faces, and with a longitudinal groove extending along one surface.  The object was made with such great care that it appears to be machined (Fuson 1969:508).

Coe considered this as "the world's first known compass" (Coe, Snow, and Benson 1986:100)! 

Is there any evidence that iron was used for weapons?..................................................................

No.  But the potential was certainly there.

In Finland, Sweden and Germany swords made of iron and low grade steel corode but leave either small rusted blades or iron oxides (or both). Have any similar iron finds been reported anywhere in Central or South America?

The relatively recent steel swords made in Scandanavia by Vikings and others were of high quality, and those recovered did show some corrosion.  No similar swords have been found in Olmec habitat from millennia earlier.  For perspective, compare this recently discovered European battle site -- from 3200 years ago.  http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle .

 

[Stargazer]

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

I don't post much on this forum (even though I'm a long time member) so it's understandable that you don't know much about my views of the Book of Mormon. You are making assumptions about me that couldn't be more incorrect. So although I appreciate your vim in defending what you believe in the way you know how, you haven't done anything to address my question. I'm not even sure you understand the question since you've misstated my assumptions. I'm interested in all reasonable answers if you've got any. 

Sorry about that!  I'd best lurk this topic then, until I can make a more useful response.

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, JarMan said:

The interesting thing is that the brass and copper breastplates found were "perfectly sound."

Similarly, the scattered bones of men and beasts had survived, not in the soil, but on top of the ground. There were also ruins of buildings of every kind. As for the swords, the blades were cankered with rust but the hilts had perished. So there is really a mixed bag when it comes to the degree of degradation of a wide variety of materials. There are also a lot of unknowns such as the materials used for the sword hilts and blades, the type of buildings and the materials used to construct them, the climatic and geophysical conditions, etc. 

I was hoping to hear a hypothesis that made some scholarly assumptions about the unknowns and then some explanation of why the various decay rates we find for the various materials are reasonable or within a range that would be considered reasonable. If that hasn't been done before, fine. Maybe I'll undertake that some day if I have time. I've gotta think, though, that these questions have been addressed by scholars before. 

I just attended a fascinating conference in Malaysia. There were a few papers presented on iron production that might be relevant to your question.

Up until 2007 there was little to no evidence of iron production or complex civilization on the Malay Peninsula predating the 4th century AD. A Malay archaeologist had been reading early Greek, Roman and Chinese accounts that mentioned the peninsula as an ancient "iron bowl" with vast amounts of gold and tin dating as far back as the first century AD. He decided there must be something there and was commissioned to resurvey a site dating back to the 5th century AD. After reviewing aerial photography he concluded the coastline had extended over the last two millennia, so any proto-historic settlements would now be several kilometers inland. He marched up the river and sure enough, just a few feet underneath a palm oil plantation he uncovered a port with hundreds of iron furnaces, heaps of iron slag and ingots, and over two million discarded tuyeres (bellow pipes). Samples were sent off and came back with a date of 535 BC.

So here is this massive iron production site dated to the time of Nephi, sitting completely hidden from view until 9 years ago. But even with the evidence of this society being one of the largest producers of iron and plenty of textual evidence that iron swords of a very high quality were manufactured here, there are no iron implements to be found. And no human remains to tell us anything about the people. Anthropologists estimate that this region and the region just north had a capacity of 750,000 people.

Although a long way from Mesoamerica, the Malay Peninsula demonstrates how a civilization that resembles the Lehites in many ways (iron, silk, gold plates, horses, swords, walled cities, chariots, elephants etc.) can vanish, or rather can be buried just under the surface.

Edit: Here's the facebook page for the dig site in case anyone wants to see some photos.
https://www.facebook.com/AncientKedah/

Edited June 5, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Sevenbak]

On June 4, 2016 at 4:30 PM, mfbukowski said:

I just had the wonderful job of taking apart the internal workings of a toilet tank that had not been touched in probably 20 years

Many of the brass parts crumbled away to nothing.  Screwdrivers were useless.  You put in in the slot and it crumbles into green dust.

If anyone thinks brass or bronze does not "rust" they are highly mistaken.

Even so, there is no end of evidence in the form of weapons and tools of copper artifacts from that time period in the Americas.

http://copperculture.homestead.com/moreartifacts.html

 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Sevenbak said:

Even so, there is no end of evidence in the form of weapons and tools of copper artifacts from that time period in the Americas.

http://copperculture.homestead.com/moreartifacts.html

 

I suppose they were not in a toilet for 20 years.

The point is, brass "rusts" under the right conditions, and so does copper

Quote

 

Copper, a noble metal that occurs naturally in its elemental form, is almost totally impervious to corrosion from soils found worldwide. But it would be misleading to infer that copper will not corrode. This article identifies a host of possible situations in which copper pipe or tubing may be subject to external corrosion. These situations are discussed in detail, and suggestions are given on how to identify underground corrosion of copper pipe without excavating and how to mitigate existing corrosion conditions.

The belief by knowledgeable engineers, architects, and water utility personnel that copper is not adversely affected by the majority of soils worldwide is well founded. Uncommonly well-preserved copper artifacts continue to be recovered in Mesopotamia from beneath the clay deposited by the "Great Flood," which is believed to have occurred about 4000 B.C. 1 Many of the underground copper pipes used to convey water in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago are still in existence. Furthermore, copper is one of the few metals that exists as an element in its natural form. There is also the outstanding history of copper tubing as a highly corrosion-resistant material in most underground environments. There are conditions, however, that can cause copper to corrode when it is exposed to certain soils. These include:

abnormally aggressive soils,

localized and long-line-type concentration cells created by differences in soil composition,

the action of stray direct currents (DC) flowing in the ground,

faulty design and workmanship,

certain conditions created by alternating currents (AC),

thermogaivanic effects, and

galvanic action involving dissimilar materials.

 

http://www.copper.org/resources/properties/protection/underground.html

You college boys just don't have enough experience with plumbing.

The point is, if the "hilts" and the blades were made of different materials, like copper and anything ferrous, you are going to get a galvanic reaction.

Edit note:

I thought the flood reference was interesting- another proof of D&C 93:30 that plumbers are not experts in archaeology.  This is definitely an inter-discipline topic and I don't think anybody here has enough expertise in all these areas to try to figure it out from a scientific pov.

Figure it out- first of all we would have to know exactly where these alleged swords were located, have soil samples, know exactly what kind of materials were used, to figure it out scientifically

This is another reason I find BOM history irrelevant.  I think these cultures existed, but I stick to spiritual interpretations of spiritual books and scientific interpretations for scientific subjects.  Seems obvious to me, but not to others i suppose.

Edited June 6, 2016 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 6/4/2016 at 11:00 AM, JarMan said:

This doesn't really address the issue. Bones, in almost every natural environment, will decay. So the challenge is to explain what was different about this environment that allowed them to survive so long. If that's not hard enough there also needs to be an explanation of why-simultaneously in the same environment-the hilts perished and the blades rusted. 

I am no expert but one idea is that the soils in particular locations were more acidic, more basic, more this or that to affect materials differently than in other locations.

Galvanic corrosion could have been a factor, as above

[mfbukowski]

And still more from the website quoted two posts above:

Note how in fact, copper corrosion would be most pronounced in "jungle" type environments, with high moisture in the soil and much organic material.

Quote

 

Abnormally Aggressive Soils

Copper is essentially immune to corrosion. It behaves like a noble metal in most underground environments because of the naturally protective film that forms on the metal's surface. If this film, which often consists of reddish-brown cuprous oxide (Cu 20), is destroyed and cannot be repaired, copper will corrode. Fortunately, the protective film on copper remains intact or is readily repaired under most soil conditions.

Three definitive studies on the underground corrosion of copper have been conducted. 2-4 Very likely, this apparent lack of interest in the soil-side corrosion of copper is the result of the metal's known corrosion resistance in underground environments.

Analysis of the results obtained in these three independent investigations clearly establishes that the underground corrosion of copper is unusually complicated. In general, corrosion cannot be directly related to any one or even several factors, as many interrelated soil conditions are involved. The data presented in the three studies and the results of others 5,6permit some tentative conclusions regarding the corrosion of copper in underground environments. These include:

Corrosion is often associated with a combination of elevated sulfate or chloride content in the soil in conjunction with poor drainage, a soil having considerable capacity to hold moisture, and a moderate to heavy annual rainfall (usually more than 76 cm [30 in.]).

Elevated concentrations of sulfate or chloride or both in the soil are probably the primary factor in the underground corrosion process, but considerable moisture is required to support the electrochemical action. The sulfates and chlorides may not adversely affect the copper if the rainfall is slight and drainage is adequate.

Very low soil resistivity (i.e., less than 100-500 ohm-cm) generally indicates a soil that could be aggressive.

Soils containing large quantities of organic matter (particularly soils containing organic acids) can be corrosive

Moist cinder fills are generally corrosive, either because of the sulfides present or because of the galvanic action created by the carbon particles in the cinders

Construction rubble that contains considerable lime should not be particularly corrosive, provided that localized concentration cells, especially oxygen differential cells, are not created during backfilling

Soils such as clay, sand, gravel, loam, and chalk seldom possess the combination of properties that are associated with corrosion

Organic soils supporting active anaerobic bacteria (i.e., sulfate-reducing species) can produce sulfides, which are aggressive to copper

Soils containing inorganic acids can be unusually aggressive to copper

Soils containing appreciable amounts of ammonia compounds are usually corrosive to copper. The appearance of the copper surface and identification of the corrosion products generally provide insight regarding the cause of deterioration. For example, green copper corrosion products are often basic copper carbonate, basic copper sulfate, or copper oxychlorides. The existence of appreciable amounts of copper oxychlorides in the corrosion products would be expected for a copper water tube that had been buried in a low-resistivity tidal marsh environment. A heavy black layer on the copper would suggest the presence of copper sulfide and the possibility of anaerobic bacteria activity as the cause of corrosion. The presence of ammonia, in combination with sulfate compounds on the copper surface, indicates that the cause of corrosion could be lawn fertilizer.

 

 

[Jeanne]

All I know is that a lot of the descriptions of rusted metals on this thread just reminds me of my sixty year old joints..beginning to squeak I think...

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Sevenbak said:

Even so, there is no end of evidence in the form of weapons and tools of copper artifacts from that time period in the Americas.

http://copperculture.homestead.com/moreartifacts.html

 

That's pretty funny actually.  Did you perhaps notice that all those artifacts were "cankered with rust"?

What survives survives- I guess I am not seeing your point.  We don't know about what did not survive.  The point is that copper does corrode or "rust" in areas like Mesoamerica.  Some survives, some turns to dust depending on soil conditions etc

Edited June 6, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Johnnie Cake]

On ‎6‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 4:45 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

The first problem is that you didn't read carefully, Johnnie (the same problem frequently encountered when anti-Bible critics simply grab a verse and read it in English without having any idea of context).  The swords mentioned are not "Nephite" swords.  They are Jaredite.

Your second problem is that you failed to cite your source:  Who told you that these Jaredite swords were made of wood?

While it is true that the Conquistadores actually described Mesoamerican macanas or macquahuitls as "swords," even though they were made of wood with obsidian blades, it is also true that the Olmecs had large quantities of iron and used it.  Swords made of iron would have rusted the traditional way, and are rarely recovered after thousands of years.  That doesn't give us any final answers, but it does broaden our perspective on this issue.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

Source?  The Book of Mosiah of course as clearly stated in my OP...however you are correct I should have used Jaredite rather than Nephite...so how exactly does a Jaredite wooden sword rust?

 

[Robert F. Smith]

19 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Source?  The Book of Mosiah of course as clearly stated in my OP...however you are correct I should have used Jaredite rather than Nephite...so how exactly does a Jaredite wooden sword rust?

One again, Johnnie, it would help markedly if you would bother to read my comments.  What you wrote is known as a non sequitur.  In carrying on a discussion about one thing, it is inappropriate to shift the discussion to another issue which is not even a rational or coherent question  Something like the question, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

[CV75]

On 6/1/2016 at 3:18 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

"Cankered swords" is only an alternate translation to "cold swords"...

[JarMan]

The fact that the breastplates were perfectly sound and the sword hilts were cankered with rust, I think, forces us to acknowledge that the sword blades were not made of copper or brass. Iron seems the most likely candidate. 

As for the hilts, a quick search indicates that most ancient sword hilts were made of wood or bone. For obvious reasons it seems most likely the Jaredite sword hilts were made of wood rather than bone. I suppose ivory or some other material is possible, as well. 

That brings us once again to the bones which covered the land. How is it they were above the ground and not in the ground? Even if the final Jaredite battle occurred as late as 300 BC there still would have been about 180 years before Limhi's search party discovered the land. That seems like plenty of time for natural processes to fully cover the bodies (not to mention the weapons) in new soil.

And we are still left with the perplexing dichotomy wherein the (presumably) wood hilts decayed but the bones didn't. But maybe this is perplexing only because I don't know enough about decay rates for various materials under various conditions and there is a reasonable explanation. 

[mfbukowski]

On 6/1/2016 at 3:50 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually, high carbon steel was already being manufactured and used centuries before the classical biblical period.  The Philistines, for example, already had a monopoly on that kind of blacksmithing while the Israelites were still using bronze weapons.  Once King David had access to steel weapons that monopoly was gone and the Philistines began losing the war.

"4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.[a] 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels.[c] His shield bearer went ahead of him."

1 Sam 17:4

[thesometimesaint]

Pictures of wood rust.

SEE https://www.google.com/search?q=wood+rust&biw=1366&bih=659&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihxfqZ3JjNAhVP12MKHW2HB14QsAQILQ&dpr=1

[bcuzbcuz]

On 5 June 2016 at 7:01 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

 

Sorry, I didn't qualify as to why I talked about low grade iron. Yes, by the time of the Vikings the quality of steel had become quite good (although the best weapons,ie., best steel, were imported from Prussian cities on the continent.) The Iron Age for Scandinavia started around 500 BCE. And the quality of the iron was not great. The Bronze Age never really got off the ground for Scandinavia because the very poor access to tin. 

How do we know it was the iron age? Because iron rests of cast materials have been found. Everything rusts in Scandinavia. (Just buy an old Volvo to find the truth to that statement.) But despite rust, weapons and tools have been found from times long before the Vikings. 

The assumption that all iron, especially iron hammered into steel, from the Olmec, or similar cultures, has rusted away is drawing a conclusion from lack of evidence.

[jkwilliams]

On 6/1/2016 at 3:18 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Or how they are "molten" from "ore" (Ether 7:9).

[thesometimesaint]

10 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Or how they are "molten" from "ore" (Ether 7:9).

Wood cannon.

SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_cannon

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Sorry, I didn't qualify as to why I talked about low grade iron. Yes, by the time of the Vikings the quality of steel had become quite good (although the best weapons,ie., best steel, were imported from Prussian cities on the continent.) The Iron Age for Scandinavia started around 500 BCE. And the quality of the iron was not great. The Bronze Age never really got off the ground for Scandinavia because the very poor access to tin. 

How do we know it was the iron age? Because iron rests of cast materials have been found. Everything rusts in Scandinavia. (Just buy an old Volvo to find the truth to that statement.) But despite rust, weapons and tools have been found from times long before the Vikings. 

The assumption that all iron, especially iron hammered into steel, from the Olmec, or similar cultures, has rusted away is drawing a conclusion from lack of evidence.

I did not say that everything had rusted away, and pointed to very sophisticated iron artifacts (such as magnetite mirrors, compass pointer, and tons of iron cubes) which have been recovered from Olmec sites.  However, the Olmec heartland habitat in Veracruz and Tabasco was nothing like Scandanavia -- being filled with marshes and tropical rain forest.  One might want to compare the bog in that recently discovered north European battle site which I cited for you.  One needs to know the biochemical properties of the different types of soil.  Bogs for example prevent oxygen from reaching and oxidizing things, thus the great preservative qualities of some types of materials (but not of others, depending on the underlying acidic or alkaline soils).  One would also want to study the continuity at Scandanavian sites and the lack of it at the much earlier Olmec sites, along with the relative frequency of archeological excavation in each area.

The enormous difficulty and rarity of excavation of Olmec sites ought to count for something in our appraisal.  We do that elsewhere.  For example, Khirbet Qeiyafa is a great rarity in Israel, where excavation takes place all the time.  Yet it is precisely from recent excavations at Qeiyafa (a Davidic fortress opposite the Philistine Pentapolis) that we have steel swords, a holy sanctuary, and a written inscription.  That has extraordinary implications:  .  http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/khirbet-qeiyafa-and-tel-lachish-excavations-explore-early-kingdom-of-judah/ .  Once again we are reminded that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  We will need many more seasons of Olmec excavation in order to fully and accurately assess that amazing civilization -- the mother culture of all of Mesoamerica.

[Gervin]

On 6/1/2016 at 6:45 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

While it is true that the Conquistadores actually described Mesoamerican macanas or macquahuitls as "swords," even though they were made of wood with obsidian blades, it is also true that the Olmecs had large quantities of iron and used it.  Swords made of iron would have rusted the traditional way, and are rarely recovered after thousands of years.  

What does "large quantities" mean? 

[Robert F. Smith]

22 minutes ago, Gervin said:

On 6/1/2016 at 4:45 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

While it is true that the Conquistadores actually described Mesoamerican macanas or macquahuitls as "swords," even though they were made of wood with obsidian blades, it is also true that the Olmecs had large quantities of iron and used it.  Swords made of iron would have rusted the traditional way, and are rarely recovered after thousands of years.  

What does "large quantities" mean? 

Hi Gervin.  Welcome back.  Haven't heard from you in awhile.

"large quantities" means tons of drilled iron cubes.  Literally.  They also had many highly polished magnetite mirrors, in addition to which one magnetite pointer has been recovered (which Mike Coe considers the world's first compass, and it was so finely wrought that he said it appeared to have been "machined").

[Gervin]

4 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Hi Gervin.  Welcome back.  Haven't heard from you in awhile.

"large quantities" means tons of drilled iron cubes.  Literally.  They also had many highly polished magnetite mirrors, in addition to which one magnetite pointer has been recovered (which Mike Coe considers the world's first compass, and it was so finely wrought that he said it appeared to have been "machined").

I forgot my password ... 

"large" and "tons" imply some relatively known quantities.  How big are these cubes and how many have been found?

[Robert F. Smith]

23 minutes ago, Gervin said:

I forgot my password ... 

"large" and "tons" imply some relatively known quantities.  How big are these cubes and how many have been found?

They are very small, and have holes drilled in them.  I don't think that anyone counts them.  They are simply weighed in aggregate.  So thousands would be the estimate I would make.  Christopher Pool discusses the various theories about them in his Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica (Cambridge Univ Press, 2007), 105, online at https://books.google.com/books?id=hXmfpr08JPUC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=olmec+cubes&source=bl&ots=tRrAhqVZXo&sig=uedlpu_eF4v3ax5o78OCORk1oRU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZppXYv5zNAhUE6mMKHeeACGYQ6AEIODAI#v=onepage&q=olmec cubes&f=false .  He mentions there the 2,131 iron (ilmenite) objects found just at Plumajillo, and has other such references in his book.