Not true. We know how pattern-welded steel was made. Wootz has also been made continuously in different parts of the world, and as long as twenty years ago there were some excellent papers in the metallurgy literature on exactly what refractory compounds must have been used, identification of the special leaves mentioned in early texts, so on and so forth. Georgian smiths still make their “black” steel, and smiths all over the Islamic world can easily recreate “Mohammed’s ladder” and similar effects.
That’s also assuming there was an “original Damascus steel”, a contention which you would have a very hard time proving.
