DAMASK is a technical term applied to several distinct manufactures or manufacturing operations, from the fact that such products or operations were intimately connected with Damascus when that city was a great manufacturing centre. The principal application of the term is to variegated textile manufactures; and at the present day it generally indicates a twilled linen texture richly figured in the weaving with flowers, fruits, or ornamental scrolls, or with large designs of any description. The texture to which the name, however, was originally applied was of silk, with patterns elaborately woven in colours aud sometimes in gold thread.

“China, no doubt,” says Dr Rock (Catalogue of Textile Fabrics, South Kensington Museum), “was the first country to ornament its silken webs with a pattern. India, Persia, and Syria, then Byzantine Greece followed, but at long intervals between, in China’s footsteps. Stuffs so figured brought with them to the West the name ‘ diaspron ’ or diaper, bestowed upon them at Constantinople. But about the twelfth century the city of Damascus, even then long celebrated for its looms, so far outstripped all other places for beauty of design, that her silken textiles were in demand everywhere; and thus, as often happens, traders fastened the name of Damascen or Damask upon every silken fabric richly wrought and curiously designed, no matter whether it came or not from Damascus.”...

DAMASK STEEL, or Damascus Steel, has a peculiar •watered or streaked appearance, as seen in the blades of fine swords and other weapons of Oriental manufacture. Several methods of producing the damask grain may be pursued successfully, one of which is described under Cutlery. The art of producing damask steel has been generally practised in Oriental countries from a remote period, the most famous blades having come from Ispahan, Khorasan, and Shiraz in Persia. With great brightness and ductility the metal combines peculiar elasticity, and a capacity for taking and retaining a very fine edge.

DAMASKEENING, or Damascening, is the art of incrusting wire of gold (and sometimes of silver) on the surface of iron, steel, or bronze. The surface upon which the pattern is to be traced is finely undercut with a sharp instrument, and the gold thread by hammering is forced into and securely held by the minute furrows of the cut surface. This system of ornamentation is peculiarly Oriental, having been much practised by the early goldsmiths of Damascus. It is still eminently characteristic of Persian metal work.