The short answer is "yes".
Known magnetic substances were lodestone, a naturally magnetised stone (an iron ore, magnetite), and iron objects with magnetism induced in them (usually by a lodestone). These were known to the ancient Greeks, Indians, and Chinese.
The earliest Indian source, the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra (AKA the Kanada sutra) states that "When the magnet moves, the needle also moves; this is due to invisible cause." Analogous motions (i.e., also due to "invisible cause" (adristam)) are grass attracted by amber (i.e., electric attraction), the upward motion of fire, the sideward motion of air, the action of the ultimate atoms at the beginning of creation.
The earliest Greek writer on magnetism we know of is Thales of Miletus; we know of his work through its description by later writers. Aristotle, in On the Soul (De Anima) says "Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron."
One Han Dynasty Chinese writer (Gaoyiu, as described in Song Desheng, Li Guodong, History of Electromagnetism: Observation and Utilization of electrical and magnetic Phenomena, (1987) Popular Press Publishers, Guang Xi, China (in Chinese)) wrote that "lodestone is the mother of iron, it can therefore attract its child" (which suggests that magnetite was known to be an iron ore).
Essentially, in the above, magnetic forces are classified as "unknown". Later Western sources continue this: Saint Augustine, in City of God, says " the magnet which by its mysterious and insensible suction attracts the iron", describing it as a marvel. Thus, here we have one pre-modern perception of magnetism: a mysterious, inexplicable force. The phenomenon is observed, but appears to be beyond explanation.
There are ancient explanations. For example, Alexander of Aphrodisias wrote
Why the Heraclean stone [i.e., lodestone] attracts iron. Empedocles says that the iron is borne towards the stone by the effluvia emanating from both and because the pores of the stone are fitted to receive the effluvium of the iron. The effluvium of the stone then expels the air from the pores of the iron. Once the air is expelled, the iron itself is carried along by the abundant flow of the effluvium. Again, when the effluvium of the iron moves towards the pores of the stone, which are fitted to receive it, the iron begins to move with it.
which is very similar to explanations in Early Modern science, e.g., by Descartes, in Principles of Philosphy. (Descartes included a drawing showing the particles.)
Explanations such as these were rejected by Newtonianism, which favoured predictive mathematical models over qualitative "explanations" which could not be verified.
Going beyond explanations, magnets (both lodestones and artificial magnets) were used in technology, most famously in the compass but also for magic tricks and toys.
The phenomenon was also discussed in broader contexts, outside scientific and technical works. Some examples:
There is an ancient Chinese report where one army lost a battle because they wore iron armour; the opposing army (wearing rhinoceros hide armour) lured them into a narrow pass where the rocks were lodestone, supposedly attracting their armour and trapping them. See Dien, A. (1981). A Study of Early Chinese Armor. Artibus Asiae, 43(1/2), 5-66.
Saint Augustine (see above) discussed magnetism as an example of a natural phenomenon that would be incredible if not seen, in his discussion of miracles (also incredible if not seen).
Plato used the induction of magnetism in iron by a lodestone as an analogy for the "induction" of poetic recitation skill in Ion by the muse (in Ion).
