Off Topic Persian Steel

The Muslim world in the late middle ages was vastly ahead of anywhere else in the world for steel production.

Wootz/ Bulat/ Damascus steel was produced via a crucible method from the Muslim regions of western India to the persian centers of Modern day Iran. Most of the steel reached the west in the form of swords forged in the Abbasid caliphate in the major centers of Damascus in Syria, thus the naming of damascus steel. Its very unlikely that any crucible steel was ever produced there.

As for the presence of more complex alloying elements, I am of the camp that believes it was probably not 100% intentional, more that the iron ore sources they were working with had other metals mixed together, and while samples not containing enough alloying elements weathered away, the higher chromium steels survived better
 
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