Mystery of Delhi's Iron Pillar unraveled

Press Trust of India ^ | Sunday, July 21, 2002 | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

Nation

Monday, July 22, 2002

Mystery of Delhi's Iron Pillar unraveled

New Delhi, July 18: Experts at the Indian Instituteof Technology have resolved the mystery behind the 1,600-year-old iron pillar in Delhi, which has never corroded despite the capital's harsh weather.

Metallurgists at Kanpur IIT have discovered that a thin layer of "misawite", a compound of iron, oxygen and hydrogen, has protected the cast iron pillar from rust.

The protective film took form within three years after erection of the pillar and has been growing ever so slowly since then. After 1,600 years, the film has grown just one-twentieth of a millimeter thick, according to R. Balasubramaniam of the IIT.

In a report published in the journal Current Science Balasubramanian says, the protective film was formed catalytically by the presence of high amounts of phosphorous in the iron—as much as one per cent against less than 0.05 per cent in today's iron.

The high phosphorous content is a result of the unique iron-making process practiced by ancient Indians, who reduced iron ore into steel in one step by mixing it with charcoal.

Modern blast furnaces, on the other hand, use limestone in place of charcoal yielding molten slag and pig iron that is later converted into steel. In the modern process most phosphorous is carried away by the slag.

The pillar—over seven metres high and weighing more than six tonnes—was erected by Kumara Gupta of Gupta dynasty that ruled northern India in AD 320-540.

Stating that the pillar is "a living testimony to the skill of metallurgists of ancient India", Balasubramaniam said the "kinetic scheme" that his group developed for predicting growth of the protective film may be useful for modeling long-term corrosion behaviour of containers for nuclear storage applications.

[vannrox]

This was one of the mysteries that Erich Von Daniken used to explain his theories.

[parsifal]

Old Erich. Whatta fella. That Easter Island mytery would have been solved if he had only read Kon Tiki. parsy.

[AM2000]

What theories? (excuse my ignorance)

[chaosagent]

OK, now I'm confused. Iron, oxygen, and hydrogen.

Isn't this RUST anyway?

[Clara Lou]

Why didn't they put a picture with the article?!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[AM2000]

A google search on the term 'misawite' yields only two hits - both referencing this very article. So, either the term 'misawite' is a fiction concocted by Indocentric scientists looking to extol the imaginary achievements of ancient India - or, it is simply a typo.

[...about one minute later...]

Actually, something very strange just happened.. I was about to paste the contents of my google search, so I did the same search again - and this time, no hits for misawite at all. I have no idea what happened. It's like the term just vanished. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.. maybe this thread doesn't really exist, either.

[AM2000]

In case you're wondering, the pillar really does exist. My parents took me there as a child. I even have a picture with my arms around it.

Here's a page with some more info on the pillar - link.

If you don't care to read about it, here's a pic :)

[Clara Lou]

Thank you very much for posting the pic! How interesting that you've seen it firsthand!

[palmer]

Maybe they used Fanto-rox

[JimSEA]

Thanks for the link.

several investigators have stressed the importance of the material of construction as the primary cause for the pillar's corrosion resistance. The ideas proposed in this regard are the relatively pure composition of the iron used, presence of Phosphorus (P) and absence of Sulphur/Magnesium in the iron, its slag-enveloped metal grain structure, and passivity enhancement in the presence of slag particles.

This generally supports the posted article and has some interesting implications for current metallurgical practice.

[Consort]

Things were built better back then

and

The quality of oxygen isn't as good as it used to be.

[laredo44]

Von Daniken wrote a book (it was also made into a movie or TV show) called Chariots of the Gods in which he argued that aliens settled or somehow influenced life on earth. He used various "mysteries" from around the globe to support his thesis. This iron pole being one, as well as the heads on Easter Island. Other stuff included:

1. Inca walls of irregular stone blocks weighing tons each that were fitted together with with such precision, a knife blade couldn't be slipped between them. (One wonders why the aliens came all this way to build things out of stone).
2. Aztec paintings of men in unusual costumes and headgear that he claimed were space suits.
3. Long lines etched into fields of South America that he asserted were landing strips for alien craft (even we didn't use airliner technology on our crude -- by interstellar standards -- forays to the moon).
4. Gigantic etchings, spiders, birds, etc., on the surface that could only be discerned from an aircraft. Von Daniken called them navigation markers for alien craft (they came here from another star but needed ground markings to figure out where they were?).

[Bernard Marx]

I immediately did the same search you did and keep getting the same hits.

None of my mineralogy books list "misawite." Any metallurgists out there? I think this may be "silly science."

[blam]

Bump

[blam]

"The pillar—over seven metres high and weighing more than six tonnes—was erected by Kumara Gupta of Gupta dynasty that ruled northern India in AD 320-540. "

540 AD is the date of the cataclismic start of the worldwide Dark Ages. (I wonder if they are related?)

[gcruse]

I used Copernic run about a dozen search engines, and the only references (there were 2) to mesawite cited the
ExpressIndia article.

[JudyB1938]

Check this out and see if there's anything pertinent. I don't know if "MULTIPURPOSE THIN FILM DEPOSITION UNIT BASED ON ELECTRON BEAM EVAPORATION" or any of the other projects relates or not, since I don't know anything about any of that stuff: TESTING PROJECT 1999-2000 http://www.iitk.ac.in/dord/

Then, here is a book Balasubramaniam wrote on the subject:
http://www.vedamsbooks.com/no25609.htm

[blam]

"MULTIPURPOSE THIN FILM DEPOSITION UNIT BASED ON ELECTRON BEAM EVAPORATION"

I used to use this in my work years ago. That's not it. lol.

[Bernard Marx]

The book looks interesting; it appears to be an objective scientific examination. No time to dig into it now, nor do I have the metallurgical expertise to evaluate it. All I can say is there's no "malawite" to be found in my mineralogical sources.