Wootz steel

Wootz steel, also known as Seric steel, is a crucible steel characterized by a pattern of bands and high carbon content. These bands are formed by sheets of microscopic carbides within a tempered martensite or pearlite matrix in higher-carbon steel, or by ferrite and pearlite banding in lower-carbon steels. It was a pioneering steel alloy developed in southern India in the mid-1st millennium BC and exported globally.

Quotes

 * Wootz was the first high-quality steel made anywhere in the world. According to reports of travelers to the East, the Damascus swords were made by forging small cakes of steel that were manufactured in Southern India. This steel was called wootz steel. It was more than a thousand years before steel as good was made in the West.
 * -J. D. Verhoeven and A. Pendray, Muse, 1998 quoted in India's legendary wootz steel: an advanced material of the ancient world by Sharada Srinivasan and Srinivasa Ranganathan, 2004


 * Damascus steel actually consists of an extremely high-carbon cast steel, the best swords being forged in Iran from cakes of steel made in India and known as wootz.
 * -Cyril Stanley Smith (1963) ‘Four Outstanding Metallurgical Researches In Metallurgical History’ quoted in India's legendary wootz steel: an advanced material of the ancient world by Sharada Srinivasan and Srinivasa Ranganathan, 2004