>A dagger entombed with King Tutankhamun was made with iron from a meteorite, a new analysis on the metal composition shows.
>In 1925, archaeologist Howard Carter found two daggers, one iron and one with a blade of gold, within the wrapping of the teenage king, who was mummified more than 3,300 years ago. The iron blade, which had a gold handle, rock crystal pommel and lily and jackal-decorated sheath, has puzzled researchers in the decades since Carter’s discovery: ironwork was rare in ancient Egypt, and the dagger’s metal had not rusted.
>Italian and Egyptian researchers analyzed the metal with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”. They compared the composition to known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite.
>That meteorite, named Kharga, was found 150 miles west of Alexandria, at the seaport city of Mersa Matruh, which in the age of Alexander the Great – the fourth century BC – was known as Amunia.
Blades made of meteoric iron are far from unheard of
Liam Scott
Neat
Julian Rogers
/thread
Jackson Morris
This.
It was the most common before people knew how to smelt the iron themselves.
Aiden Gonzalez
pretty sure we already knew it was meteoric iron for decades
Mason Rivera
As others have said, this was how it had always been during that period. In fact, In Greece Iron was considered to be a heavenly metal because they actually knew that it had fallen from the sky, and when they found it it glowed from within the earth. It also barely rusted due to its high nickel content, giving further evidence to the idea that it was miraculous. Obviously, people who fought with iron also had a huge advantage against those who didn't.
Jackson Russell
Hephaestus may have actually been a mythologization of this event.
American art piece firearms make me simultaneously think "cool" and "ugh"
Kayden Richardson
It's also probably why you have so many legends of magic swords or spears falling from the sky.
Easton Nelson
This is totally rad
Colton Phillips
Haven't they known that ever since they first found it?
Parker Evans
Yes. But they made a test.
Nicholas Butler
>yfw you realize von Daniken was right all along
Leo Taylor
This is so fucking interesting
Ethan Watson
WE
Blake Peterson
In Tutank's time (~1300BC) at the height of the BRONZE age, iron was a rare and jealously guarded commodity. Very few regions in the near east had deposits of iron AND the knowledge to smelt it but the ones that did were at a serious military advantage (see the Hittites). These iron pioneers were unwilling to trade it and for this reason iron did not freely circulate in trade until after the Bronze age collapse (
Christian Perez
So in other words, it's fucking nothing.
Aaron Barnes
I don't understand the amazement. We've known for decades that bronze age cultures would use iron from meteorites to make expensive weapons and objects. It was the only way to get iron before the iron age.
Jose Cook
>It also barely rusted due to its high nickel content, giving further evidence to the idea that it was miraculous Well thats bullshit, considering this was the bronze age, therefore they didn't have regular iron, and bronze doesn't rust, so they didn't know what rusting was. >Obviously, people who fought with iron also had a huge advantage against those who didn't. Nice meme
Lincoln Clark
Finding a small clump of ion in a sea of sand is probably harder than digging it out of the ground..
Jaxon Foster
Not really
Jaxson Watson
Meoerites that land in desert tend to turn the surrounding sand into a type of glass. It's very specific, and so it wouldn't be too terribly hard to dig the meteor out once the "crater" is found.
Connor Lee
Obviously, but Egypt has no natural iron deposits and that fact just adds to the luxury of the object. It is not as if every peasant was using this iron to plow their fields, it was the King's own specially crafted dagger.
Anyway we already now already know meteorites were used for iron in Egypt, and the process is hardly different from prospecting for jade or other precious minerals.
Jordan Davis
>check the BBC Africa article for this >the top comments are all talking about how the Egyptians had contact with aliens and built spaceships I thought it was just memes, Veeky Forums
