Who discovered iron?

Iron is an ancient element that has no specific date of discovery and no scientist to credit with its detection. The use of iron dates back to the Egyptians, who used it prior to 3400 B.C. The Bible mentions iron several times.

Pliny the Elder, a historian who wrote in the first century A.D., noted that iron was used in houses and weapons of that era. Iron mixed with other materials makes it stronger than it is in a pure form, which is difficult to isolate from impurities. A group of researchers, Claude Louis Berthollet, Gaspard Monge and C.A. Vandermonde, discovered in 1786 that iron mixed with carbon produces steel.