STEEL

This is Greek/Latin goddess of wisdom, strategy, technology, navy and warfare Athena/Minerva Pallas. The "Pallas" epithet is mispronounced in Western tradition, in Russia she's called Pallada, which is correct, since her statues were called palladion (παλλάδιον). Why would somebody mispronounce a name of such a popular goddess? Probably because pallada would sound too familiar to anybody who knows Persian, where polad (فولاد) is steel. After Greeks broke up with Persian Empire some rebranding became necessary. The rebranding is still necessary because she's believed to be a "pagan" goddess of a Bronze Age. Steel would be a very inconvenient truth for historians today.

Yet in 1410 Christine de Pizan writes following piece in her Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry (page 13): O Minerva! Goddess of arms and of chivalry, who, by understanding beyond that of other women, did find and initiate among the other noble arts and sciences the custom of forging iron and steel armaments ... helmets, shields, and protective covering having come first from you ... - as you can see "pagan" goddess was doing just fine in 1400+ Europe which allows us to date the Turkish statue on the picture as late as 1400+ Byzantium. If quality of art matches Renaissance - why shouldn't we date it accordingly?

The name of legendary Paladin knights now makes much more sense: ... 13th century, words referring specifically to Charlemagne's peers began appearing in European languages; the earliest is the Italian paladino ... By extension, paladin has come to refer to any chivalrous hero ... - of course the official etymology derives it from palace, not from steel (also, why would anybody invent a word for Charlemagne's peers in XIII century, 400+ years after his death?). This is another example of intentional obfuscation of obvious fact and an evidence of the actual century the knight armor appears in Europe and also of the place of its origin.

The full metal plate body armor of the 1500+ knights is not exactly the armor they had in 1300+. That was probably a scale armor, kind of like the one on Athena above, or chain mail of these German knights of 1350-1375:

After you see this actual German picture from 1300+ century vs representation of same period (Battle of Crecy, 1346) below from a book made in 1470 (+/- century later) you start to understand why public is very confused about what things really looked like in different periods of History and what was the actual speed of progress in those times:

E.g. the very fact that "English" bowmen were so effective in that war can only be explained by lack of armor and shields(?!) in "French" army (nationalities quoted since they didn't exist yet). The steel, being elastic, also allowed creation of a powerful steel crossbow, the one used by Genovese crossbowman above. This crossbow was available to only one side in that battle, and only via special mercenary unit from Italy, which tells us that it was a brand new invention.

The 6-7 feet long two-handed (Zweihänder) swords become a hit of 1500+. They are derived from 4-4.5 feet longswords that appear in 1300+ century. The better quality of steel allows thinner/lighter/longer blades. With iron you could only make short swords, which explains the "antique" short ones (e.g. 2 feet long Roman gladius).

Steel also makes saws and sawmills possible, which results in better/cheaper woodboard and bigger ships, with decks and multiple masts, that could sail into the Ocean without a risk of being destroyed by the very first storm they encounter. That's why Americas were discovered only in 1492 and not earlier. Earlier ships were fragile, due to low quality of woodwork, and only swam along the coast, just in case the weather gets bad. I don't doubt some may have made it to Americas, and maybe even back, before 1492, but those were risky voyages nobody would consider to perform on a regular basis.