Indigenous Nanotechnology

Several phenomena important to traditional knowledge systems have connections to areas of nanoscience research. These include nanotubes in ancient Damascus steel, surface nanostructure in Mayan blue pigment, surgical use of obsidian blades, and the piezoelectric effect in Lakota quartz rattles. As in the case of other “ethnoknowledges,” their epistemological status is controversial: on the one hand, we have yet to find any case in which indigenous respondents attribute these properties to the action of nanoscopic particles (which is not impossible if we recall the speculations of ancient Greek philosopher Democritus). On the other hand, all of these examples are more than just “accidental discovery,” since we have evidence that they were developed after many years of deliberate experimentation, sometimes “fine-tuning” procedures, and even exhibiting quality control over the production.

The famed “Damascus steel,” used in Middle Eastern sword making from about 1100 to 1700 C.E., owed its legendary combination of sharpness and strength to the presence of carbon nanotubes and nanowires. It was a special type of steel (wootz) from India—developed perhaps as early as 300 B.C.—that was used to forge the blades. Indian metallurgists used ores from particular mines that included alloying trace elements, such as vanadium and molybdenum. The disappearance of wootz steel in the 18th century is attributed to the diminishing supply of Indian ores with the proper trace elements. Two professors of materials science in India, Sharada Srinivasan and Srinivasa Ranganathan, conclude that several important innovations in metallurgical science—most strikingly the role of carbon in steel—have been associated with wootz research in Europe.

Mayan blue pigment is notable for its stability; a mixture of indigo and white clay (palygorskite) that maintained a brilliant blue color despite centuries of exposure to heat and moisture in a tropical climate. Miguel José-Yacamán, a materials scientist then at the University of Mexico, proposed nanosized channels in the palygorskite protected an indigo and metal combination. Recent studies at the University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP) suggests that the indigo is actually embedded in surface grooves, rather than interior channels. The UTEP group has started a company, Mayan Pigments Inc, for creating paint and dye products from this nontoxic and highly stable new form of pigment. José-Yacamán found an almost identical composition in eight paint samples, even though they came from sites dozens of kilometers apart, and concluded that there was a remarkable level of “quality control” in the paint production.

Damascus blades may have used a pattern welding technique, and some have reproduced the technique.

Anthropologist Payson Sheets of the University of Colorado in Boulder was excavating ancient obsidian glass blades in El Salvador during the early 1970s. Sheets investigated the blades' cutting properties, replicating the fracturing process used in ancient indigenous cultures of Central America. Using an electron microscope, he compared the cutting edges of the obsidian blades [Page 334]to those of modern disposable steel scalpels and to diamond scalpels, the sharpest surgical tools available. The obsidian blades turned out to be two to three times sharper than diamond scalpel blades—down to 3 nanometers across—but at 1/100th the cost, and have since gone into commercial production. One study comparing wound healing using obsidian and steel scalpels have found that the extremely thin edges of obsidian create statistically significant wound healing advantages.

...