There's a Sassanian sword (third century AD) in the BM that's made of
crucible steel (wootz) - analysed by Janet Lang and published in the Journal
of Historical Metallurgy fairly recently. There was also a short paper by
Beno Rothenburg and someone else addressing this sort of question and
drawing on Talmudic sources referring to the use of Indian 'steel' by
Sassanian armourers - presumably for swords rather than armour though?
Then, of course, there's the discovery of crucible steel production in ninth
century contexts at Merv in Turkmenistan...................
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