The ancient metalworking manuals which provide Meltan's only known attestations invariably describe it with horror. Meltan were not a cute pokemon to ancient blacksmiths, but a devastating pest that put Rattata to shame, and the only mystery about them that these blacksmiths were interested in solving was how to keep them away.

Ancient states had few domestic pokemon, so they were defended by humans wielding weapons and protected by armor. But a sword half eaten by Meltan was not a practical weapon despite a very serrated blade, and armor with large holes is all but useless. The heat of a blast furnace meant little to these already melted pokemon, and a variety of inventive stratagems, from guard Aegislash to tightly sealed rooms, appeared not to keep them out.

More than one late Neolithic archaeological site appeared to be transitioning to the Iron Age, only to return to stone tools after the appearance of partially eaten artifacts. A small number of recent historians have even suggested that the absence of Meltan was a precondition for the rise of civilization, and they are often held to be the reason why some parts of the world have preferred wood for weapons and pokemon hides for armor. In fairness, however, this preference long outlasted their disappearance.

Meltan apparently disappeared not long after writing began, and they remained gone until a sudden swarm of them created a worldwide sensation, encouraging pokemon professors around the world to hit history's oldest archives. Why Ditto presaged Meltan's reappearance by transforming into them en masse remains a mystery, nor has humanity yet learned why Meltan chose now to re-emerge. Yet metalworkers today take every anti-Meltan precaution they can think of, just in case. For just as antiquity was built on iron, modernity is built on steel.