a complex process of "pre-heating" allowing temperatures inside a furnace to reach 1300 to 1400 °C. Wootz and Damascus Evidence of the earliest production of high carbon steel in India are found in Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, the Golconda area in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and in the Samanalawewa, Dehigaha Alakanda, areas of Sri Lanka. This came to be known as Wootz steel, produced in South India by about the sixth century BC and exported globally. The steel technology existed prior to 326 BC in the region as they are mentioned in literature of Sangam Tamil, Arabic, and Latin as the finest steel in the world exported to the Romans, Egyptian, Chinese and Arab worlds at that time – what they called Seric Iron. A 200 BC Tamil trade guild in Tissamaharama, in the South East of Sri Lanka, brought with them some of the oldest iron and steel artifacts and production processes to the island from the classical period. The Chinese and locals in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel from the Chera Dynasty Tamils of South India by the 5th century AD. In Sri Lanka, this early steel-making method employed a unique wind furnace, driven by the monsoon winds, capable of producing high-carbon steel. Since the technology was acquired from the Tamilians from South India, the origin of steel technology in India can be conservatively estimated at 400–500 BC. The manufacture of what came to be called Wootz, or Damascus steel, famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge, may have been taken by the Arabs from Persia, who took it from India. It was originally created from several different materials including various trace elements, apparently ultimately from the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great was rewarded by the defeated King Porus, not with gold or silver but with 30 pounds of steel. A recent study has speculated that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though, given the technology of that time, such qualities were produced by chance rather than by design. Natural wind was used where the soil containing iron was heated by the use of wood. The ancient Sinhalese managed to extract a ton of steel for every 2 tons of soil, a remarkable feat at the time. One such furnace was found