Noreia

The ore needed to be rich in manganese (an element which remains essential in modern steelmaking processes), but also to contain very little, or preferably zero, phosphorus, whose presence would compromise the steel's hardness.

[3] The Celtic peoples of Noricum (predominantly the Taurisci tribe) empirically discovered that their ore made superior steel around 500 BC and established a major steel-making industry around it.

In response to a desperate appeal by the Norici, the Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo rushed an army over the Alps and attacked the Germans near Noreia (although, in the event, he was heavily defeated).

Upon excavations in Sankt Margarethen near Mühlen in Styria, the residents in 1930 even changed the name of the village to Noreia, though further research showed that the finds are the remains of a medieval settlement.

As the handed-down distance from Aquileia – 1,200 stadia – more likely indicate a place in present-day Carinthia, several scholars assume that Noreia can be identified with excavated Celtic-Roman settlements on the Magdalensberg or in the nearby Zollfeld plain.

Other theories assume a location in the Carinthian Glan valley at a sanctuary of the local mother goddess Noreia near Liebenfels, erected in the 2nd century AD.