Noric steel

Noric steel was a steel from Noricum, a Celtic kingdom located in modern Austria and Slovenia.

The proverbial hardness of Noric steel is expressed by Ovid: "...durior [...] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis..." which roughly translates to "...harder than iron tempered by Noric fire [was Anaxarete towards the advances of Iphis]..." and it was widely used for the weapons of the Roman military after Noricum joined the empire in 16BC.

The iron ore was quarried at two mountains in modern Austria still called Erzberg "ore mountain" today, one at Hüttenberg, Carinthia and the other at Eisenerz, Styria, separated by ca. 70 km.

Buchwald identifies a sword of ca. 300 BC found in Krenovica, Moravia as an early example of Noric steel due to a chemical composition consistent with Erzberg ore. A more recent sword, dating to ca. 100 BC, found in Zemplin, eastern Slovakia, is of extraordinary length for the period (95 cm) and carries a stamped Latin inscription (?V?TILICI?O), identified as a "fine sword of Noric steel" by Buchwald. A center of manufacture was at Magdalensberg.

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