Historical metallurgy is one of the most interesting topics of archaeometry but, in order to achieve a good level of characterization of the artefacts studied by traditional analytical methods, a destructive approach is often necessary. One procedure which engenders great interest in historical metallurgy is steel making and the methods by which it was forged to produce tools and weapons. Indian swords before the 19th century represent a really outstanding example in this field and hence are one of the most interesting classes of artefacts to be studied in the evolution of metallurgy. We propose to measure a sword blade with a curved single edge (called a shamshir) provided by staff of the Wallace Collection in London. It is a high quality blade of the 17th century exhibiting a very high carbon content.