Steel - At Least on the Component Surface

The transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age was of course a lengthy process. For the eastern Mediterranean countries the year 1000 bc is stated. Hundreds of years before that date, iron manufacture was improved on the Sinai Peninsula, in Wadi Arabah in Palestine, in the desert regions in eastern Egypt, among many other places. Probably the common use of iron, however, began round 1500 bc, when iron manufacture became a developed technique in the Hittite Empire in present-day Turkey. 

What was it then that happened regarding forging practice in the Hittite country Two things. 

That hardening of tools and weapons was known in Anatolia, Asia Minor, is apparent from the Greek heroic poems from ca. 700 bc. In The Iliad the Greek heroes do not have iron but they know that this metal is available in Troy. An expansive metal On their way home, described in The Odyssey, it is evident that they have seen the hardening of steel and they use this fact in the tales. It is quite clear from the description of how Odysseus twists a hot wooden pole in the sole eye of the giant Polyphemus  

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