Note 490 — Chapter VIII · THE SWORD IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND IN MODERN AFRICA.
Reading edition
This process resembles our niello (nigellum) inlaying. The oldest composition contained most silver and no lead. Percy (Metallurgy, p. 23) gives us its history: the first treatise by Theophilus, alias Rugerus, a monk of the early eleventh century, was translated by Robert Hendrick (London, 1847).