Well said Doug,
Not that I know anything about identifying American Indian artifacts, but don't ethnic anthropologists identify (say) a fragment of pottery or a rug, as being Navaho (or some other tribe), by the similarities of patterns that appear on their handmade objects? The manufacture of pottery and techniques of rug weaving are even more different than weaving rugs is to weaving damascus.
It likely that Rev's observation is appealing to my notion that at least SOME mass produced damascus was done with WOVEN and rolled wires, rather than stacked bars and straps. I'm convinced that rolled damascus was far cheaper to produce than the hand hammered older brother, and for that reason dominated the market. When somebody claims to have a hand hammered double (I call it a samurai gun) I figure it had better be percussion or earlier. except in rare cases like the Schilling that John Mann posted a photo of recently. One thing for sure, it's not beyond the realm of possibility to think that someone might carry their concept of ornamentation or weaving from one handmade object to a different medium of handmade objects. In fact it's quite plausable...(and without psychedelic drugs)
One question to ask is...does Mohammed's Ladder appear on any rugs of middle eastern origin? Personaly, I don't think the Persian or Indian blade patterns look much like the (woven) damascus crolle barrels that we are comparing them to...but the similarities between the writing and the rugs...makes me think that he's onto something worth examining.
