Noric steel

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Noric steel, steel produced in ancient Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period. Noric steel was largely used for the weapons of the Roman military ("Noricus ensis," Horace, Odes, i. 16.9).

The proverbial hardness of Noric steel is expressed by Ovid, durior [...] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis ("harder than iron tempered by Noric fire [was Anaxarete towards the advances of Iphis'] ", Metamorphoses, 14.712). The iron ore was quarried at two mountains still called Erzberg "ore mountain" today, one at Hüttenberg, Carinthia (46°56′N, 14°34′E) and the other at Eisenerz, Styria (47°32′N, 14°54′E), separated by ca. 70 km.

Buchwald (2005:118) 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 legth for the period (95 cm) and carries a stamped Latin inscription (?V?TILICI?O), identified as a "fine sword of Noric steel" by Buchwald (2005:120). A center of manufacture was at Magdalensberg (Buchwald (2005:124).

[edit] References

  • Vagn Fabritius Buchwald, Iron and steel in ancient times, ch. 5: "Celtic Europe and Noric Steel" (2005), ISBN 8773043087.

[edit] See also