This is different. Any example of "Damascus steel" that you can point to you can use an XRF device on to figure out the actual alloy composition. That doesn't tell you exactly how to make it, it just tells you what elements it's made out of.
How is it different? You're practically making my point for me: knowing the composition doesn't mean you understand a material in any meaningful way. If the people supposedly running these warehouses are honest, we have to assume they've done all the obvious tests and are still confused.
Just to belabor the point some more, we didn't know until recently that damascus steel contains carbon nanotubes (probably derived from plant material). Was an XRF machine ever going to pick that up? Not in any detail, I'm guessing.
What point are you trying to make here? Again, the claim of an "unidentifiable alloy" without XRF data backing it up is simply not credible. Period. Worse, the claim here is of an "unidentifiable alloy" without any evidence whatsoever. That is not credible.
The issue of being able to reproduce an alloy or material is an entirely separate one from being able to identify what it's made out of. Nobody calls Damascus steel an "unidentifiable alloy". We know what it is, a type of steel, we know what it's made out of. Whether or not we can manufacture something with identical properties is irrelevant to whether or not we can identify it.
This whole "unidentifiable alloys" thing is a lot of meaningless speculation that hinges on a throwaway phrase with zero evidence backing it up. Show me the XRF data then we'll have a discussion. Until then it's just a bunch of hot air.
