When speaking about damascus blades we have to understand that there is many kind of damascus. First there is handmade and factory made. For example swedish company Damassteel makes damascus steel as long round and flat bars. Handmade damascus normaly will make blade by blade. Most handmade blades are solid damascus but occasionally there is carbon steed piece "baked" between two damascus plate as beeing a cutting edge.

As you soon said, damascus pattern comes out with etching. Figures could be quite deep if maker has used both hard and mild steel together. When making blade with "baked edge" they could even use steels which do not harden.

Take some good fotos of yours blade and let us to look, maybe it is possible to determine if they are real damascus or not....