Noric steel was a famously high quality steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 from Noricum

Noricum

Noricum, in ancient geography, was a Celtic kingdom stretching over the area of today's Austria and a part of Slovenia. It became a province of the Roman Empire...

 during the time of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

.

The proverbial hardness of Noric steel is expressed by Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

: "...durior [...] ferro quod noricus excoquit ignis..." and it was largely used for the weapons of the Roman military.

The iron ore was quarried at two mountains in modern Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 still called Erzberg "ore mountain" today, one at Hüttenberg

Hüttenberg, Austria

Hüttenberg is a town in the district of Sankt Veit an der Glan in Carinthia in Austria. Heinrich Harrer was born in the town and a museum is dedicated to him today.-References:...

, Carinthia

Carinthia (state)

Carinthia is the southernmost Austrian state or Land. Situated within the Eastern Alps it is chiefly noted for its mountains and lakes.The main language is German. Its regional dialects belong to the Southern Austro-Bavarian group...

 and the other at Eisenerz

Eisenerz

Eisenerz is a market place and old mining town in Styria, Austria, . N.W. of Graz by rail. Pop. 6,400. It is situated in the deep Erzbach Valley, dominated on the east by the Pfaffenstein , on the west by the Kaiserschild , and on the south by the Erzberg...

, Styria, separated by ca. 70 km.

Buchwald identifies a sword of ca. 300 BC found in Krenovica, Moravia

Moravia

Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...

 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

Zemplín

Zemplén is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is presently situated in eastern Slovakia under the name of Zemplín...

, eastern Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, 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

Magdalensberg

Magdalensberg is a municipality in the district of Klagenfurt-Land in Carinthia in Austria.The municipality comprises 40 villages and hamlets: Christofberg, Deinsdorf, Dürnfeld, Eibelhof, Eixendorf, Farchern, Freudenberg, Gammersdorf, Geiersdorf, Göriach, Gottesbichl, Großgörtschach, Gundersdorf,...

.

See also

• Iron Age Europe
• Iron Age sword
  Iron Age sword
  Swords made of iron appear from the Early Iron Age , but do not become widespread before the 8th century BC....
  
  
• La Tène culture
  La Tène culture
  The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
  
  
• History of ferrous metallurgy
  History of ferrous metallurgy
  The history of ferrous metallurgy began far back in prehistory. The earliest surviving iron artifacts, from the 5th millennium BC in Iran and 2nd millennium BC in China, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the...