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But your point about iron being a rare commodity was certainly true for the ancient Egyptians,

Iron is not steel and was in no way rare. Steel is carbonized iron (coking process) and the technique wasn't perfected until the middle ages.

[Flag_This]

"Iron is not steel and was in no way rare."

The Hittites and Assyrians had iron weapons and the Romans had steel weapons. They even knew how to case-harden their lorica segmentata.