Damascus sword quenching practice (canonical)
Appears in 1 lecture.
Appearances across the corpus
Brief historical aside about quenching practice in medieval Damascus sword production — quenching in a live slave for "power against the enemies."
Anybody know about the Damascus swords? They had nice little patterns on them that they etched on the surface. They felt that the best swords were not just quenched in water, they were quenched in a slave. And not a dead slave but a live slave. That gave them power against the enemies, to kill one of your slaves to quench your sword. I'm glad I wasn't a slave back then.