Quote Originally Posted by Spiryt View Post
Anyway, I don't think there's much base in saying that Ancient techniques got "lost" in any way - this was pretty much constant way of making majority of blades until furnaces didn't really kick in.
It's less that the ancient techniques got lost, perhaps, and more that certain things that made one or another forging process unique got left out in the process. For example, while phosphorus can be problematic to steel, making it more brittle, trace amounts might have had an effect on the forging process. Any forge that used bone in the smelting process would end up with certain of those properties. So regional and cultural differences could have had a whole heap to do with the properties of different forges.