Iron In Egyptian Relics Came From Space 119
ananyo writes "Researchers have found that a 5,000-year-old Egyptian trinket is made from a meteorite (abstract). The result explains how ancient Egyptians obtained iron millennia before the earliest evidence of iron smelting in the region, solving an enduring mystery. It also hints that they regarded meteorites highly as they began to develop their religion. The tube-shaped bead is one of nine found in 1911 in a cemetery at Gerzeh, around 70 kilometers south of Cairo. The cache dates from about 3,300 BC, making the beads the oldest known iron artifacts from Egypt. But the first evidence for iron smelting in ancient Egypt only appears in the archaeological record in the sixth century BC. Using scanning electron microscopy and computed tomography to analyze one of the beads, researchers found that the nickel content of this original metal was high — as much as 30% — suggesting that it did indeed come from a meteorite. Backing up this result, the team observed that the metal had a distinctive crystalline structure called a Widmanstätten pattern. This structure is found only in iron meteorites that cooled extremely slowly inside their parent asteroids as the Solar System was forming."
lies! (Score:3)
It was the lizard men!
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It was the lizard men!
The Tritonian Ring!
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Wait for it... (Score:4, Funny)
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Just a theory... (Score:2)
So you're saying they had televisions with time travel built in?
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"But he points out that later on, during the time of the pharaohs, the gods were believed to have bones made of iron."
Just like Wolverine!
Please turn in your geek card.
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"But he points out that later on, during the time of the pharaohs, the gods were believed to have bones made of iron."
Just like Wolverine!
Please turn in your geek card.
Since Adamantium is a steel alloy [marvel.com], he's not incorrect.
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It is said... (Score:5, Funny)
That only the Egyptian women would search for and collect meteorites for such jewellery.
These "Iron Maidens" would run to the hills, locate a meteorite, perform a customary dance of death and return to their camps 2 minutes to midnight due to a widespread fear of the dark.
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Why did they have to become a Powerslave to the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son?
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Wasted years, but at least they were running free instead of wasting love back in the village.
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Yeah, but (Score:4, Funny)
...where did they get all that naquadah?
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...where did they get all that naquadah?
Through the Chapa'Eye of course.
Amazing (Score:3, Insightful)
The stone dropped from millions of miles away in the Solar System onto the land of a civilization that was relatively advanced for the time, so they developed it into jewelry that somehow survived 5,000 years before tourists arrived to deface it with grafitti.
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somehow survived 5,000 years before tourists arrived to deface it with grafitti.
Just wait another 1000 years and the graffiti will be a relic too. "Who knows Dr. Jones. In a thousand years even you may be worth something".
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Funny)
a civilization that was relatively advanced for the time
...then they undertook a huge involvement into religion...
Other cultures used meteoric iron (Score:2)
The Inuit's primary source of iron was meteors (which are relatively findable in snowy low-vegetation areas), and researchers in the Antarctic have also found them.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or perhaps you need to. One of the most disruptive periods socially and economically in ancient Egypt was the pharaoh Akhenaten's foray into monotheism (one of the first, if not the first) with Atenism. Hoards of resources were wasted on mammoth projects which were abandoned almost immediately after Akhenaten's death, and it would take generations to heal the damage of the schism which ultimately unseated the dynasty. Religion in Egypt has catalyzed both its greatest successes and failures, and it would behoove a wise student of history to study both and contrast them.
Then your argument should be that when they diverted from Polytheism to ill-fated Monotheism the great civilization sealed its fate.
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state driven monotheism is like dictatorship.
Oh for crying out loud... (Score:2)
Dammit, O'Neill, we told you not to use that damn thing during Solar Flare activities. And tell Carter that the kitschy iron-bead jewelry is NOT part of her uniform!
Obligatory Stargate Reference (Score:1)
So, when do we get to see the Stargates?
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Only one was in Egypt, the other one was in Antarctica
Doesn't everything come from space? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Egyptians already made use of glass from an impact:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHEbg2b5wYs [youtube.com]
In the grand scheme of things (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that a civilization would use a rock that fell from space to make some trinkets doesn't seem too earth shaking to me.
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Depending on the size of the rock, I would think it would actually be earth-shaking. Mostly at the time of landing.
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Of course it isn't. That they had some means of smelting iron ore so early would be though.
Showing that these particular iron items aren't in fact evidence of that is useful information gathering.
Man oh man... (Score:1)
The Ancient Alien guys are going to be insufferable now.
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*Now*?
Obligatory (Score:3)
"I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens"
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It was the giant aliens.
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No, the pyramids are the landing platforms, not the ships.
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Weren't they Peruvian?
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you can't stop crazy hair with close tags
This is just a confirmation (Score:5, Informative)
Archaeologists have been theorizing about this for ages. In 1989 for instance they were speculating on meteorites being the source of iron in this paper. [robertbauval.co.uk]
Significantly the word ‘Bja’ meaning iron in ancient Egyptian also meant the ‘material of which heaven was made'.
Re:This is just a confirmation (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't that make the paper really heavy and inflexible?
Ha ha (Score:4, Funny)
Pyramids (Score:2)
How about that iron pick they found inside one of the blocked passageways inside the Pyramids. Did they ever solve where that came from?
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If the aliens were using iron picks to build the pyramids, they must have kind of lame as space faring civilizations go. Just sayin.
this isn't news (Score:2)
The fact that meteoric iron has been used for artifacts has been known for a while:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron [wikipedia.org]
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Giorgio Tsoukalos asks... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Giorgio Tsoukalos asks... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Occam's Razor is a cheap parlor trick used by the mentally lazy to dismiss, well, everything.
If you said "billions and billions of random events occurred to create anti-entropic self-organizing entities" people would say "well, Occam's Razor says no." And yet here we are.
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(Though in truth I doubt you understand what underlies all that, since you characterize life as 'anti-entropic' which is wholly false because you probably have
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Occam's razor isn't supposed to come up with anything. It's supposed to help choose between competing explanations.
Special Relativity wins according to Occam's razor against all the alternative explanations I've heard (remember the competing explanations have to explain the observations equally well - if one better fits the data you have no need for the razor in the first place).
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If you said "billions and billions of random events occurred to create anti-entropic self-organizing entities" people would say "well, Occam's Razor says no."
If you said that in a world where we have no evidence for such self-organizing principles to occur, then that would be a crazy leap to make. But, in our world, we have abundant data for self-organizing systems developing and increasing in complexity. Specifics in a few gaps are missing, but the overall framework is certainly there for explaining the generation of life from "chance interactions" between organic precursor molecules demonstrated to form "spontaneously" under early-earthlike conditions. "Occam'
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No.
We know meteorites abundant with iron are out their floating about. We know they sometimes crash to Earth.
We don't know if there are any alien life forms out there. We don't know if they've visited Earth. We don't know if they'd have any interest in leaving bits of iron about that look like iron from meteorites.
Occam's razor - choose the simplest.
The simplest explanation does not invoke things we've never seen before to explain the phenomena. Therefore aliens go home.
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Unless you have a simpler explanation, Occams Razor says Yes.
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"billions and billions of random events occurred to create anti-entropic self-organizing entities" is the simpler explanation that "God did it". So no, Occam's Razor would side with your example out of those two reasonably commonly proposed explanation.
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The Egyptians were obviously an advanced spacefaring culture and flew up to harvest the meteorite metal themselves. Eventually they left the solar system and erased the obvious signs of their advanced technology in order to troll future generations.
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Nope (Score:2)
The simplest explanation is that "they" did not, there was no alien, jsut the locals using wh
Let's just get this out of the way... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's just get this out of the way... (Score:4, Funny)
Then explain Dick Cheney... He has to be from out space.
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Eh... probably not that either. There's no particular evidence for their existence in Egypt. Exodus using Egypt is like using the USA in the plot of your Evil Empire narrative - it works because everyone knows the players.
And before you dismiss that as ridiculous just remember that there are people out there who seriously believe that native Americans are the lost tribe of Israel.
And white.
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Also, it is likely that the Hebrews were never slaves, rather they were kings, though they were expelled from Egypt after their dynasty failed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos [wikipedia.org]
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Your statement is not sufficient to convince those who have built up an entire industry based on fleecing gullible morons.
The people who actually believe that alien-pyramid tripe are generally not the type to be reading a website related to technology, unless it's something like transmuting pig crap into gold. Any argument which relies on elements such as "facts," "logic," or "evidence" is unlikely to sway them.
well duh (Score:4, Funny)
I always thought this was common knowledge (Score:2)
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It should be, but some historians are incredibly arrogant or inflexible toward the introduction of new knowledge. Mention the water-based weathering around the Sphinx, suggesting the site is much older than originally thought, and watch the establishment cover their ears and ignore you.
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One of the arguments against the advanced age hypothesis is that there were no known civilizations with such grand structures. Since then, we've discovered GÃbekli Tepe, which is about 11,000 years old. Another argument is that the erosion is from the wind; however, wind erosion would be horizontal, whereas water erosion is vertical.
It should be noted that Zahi Hawass was booted from his position due to his close ties to the Mubarak family. There is a very good chance that, once Egypt gets its act toge
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There are some areas that no one has been allowed to dig in. But yes, good question.
regarded meteorites highly as religion developed (Score:2)
The direct quote
hints that they regarded meteorites highly as they began to develop their religion.
The Black Stone; Although it has often been described as a meteorite, this hypothesis is now uncertain.
The Black Stone is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient stone building toward which Muslims pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca,
Saudi Arabia. It is revered by Muslims as an Islamic relic which, according to Muslim tradition, dates back to the time of Adam and Eve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone [wikipedia.org]
Re:regarded meteorites highly as religion develope (Score:4, Interesting)
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And you see what religion does to people. A single core drill would be able to resolve the issue. But no, it's supposed to be holy, not holey! We can't do that!
Um, the same thing that art does to them? Or do you think it is OK to drill holes in the Mona Lisa?
And before you start going on about how "religions are different, scientists get to take small samples of artworks, etc" go look into how the Vatican reacted to requests to take samples for dating the Shroud of Turin. Surprise! - they allowed it as long as it wasn't destructive.
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Even keeping the stuff is destructive. The only thing that would ensure no further destruction would be destroying it completely right now. Or did I miss something and they put Mona Lisa into a dark freezer to eliminate all the chemical and photochemical processes acting on its surface? Can't tourists see it anymore?
Also, it's a piece of rock, not a fine painting. Even if you completely ignore the touching, the licking, and the occasional feces smearing (if Burckhardt's story about the vengeful infidel is t
Iron (Score:1)
Two item: 1) They were smelting iron in the Lake Region of Africa (Rwanda) thousands of years ago. So it is possible that the Egyptian either knew how or they could of traded for it if they needed iron. 2) The Egyptian used iron from Meteor for sacred purpose. It was important to them that this iron came from the stars/heaven. The item was made of Meteor iron not because the Egyptian couldn't smelted iron but because it was important that the object be sacred.
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Two item: 1) They were smelting iron in the Lake Region of Africa (Rwanda) thousands of years ago. So it is possible that the Egyptian either knew how or they could of traded for it if they needed iron. 2) The Egyptian used iron from Meteor for sacred purpose. It was important to them that this iron came from the stars/heaven. The item was made of Meteor iron not because the Egyptian couldn't smelted iron but because it was important that the object be sacred.
Iron smelting in Africa dates back to somewhere in the range of 1500-1750 BC (see Google books link [google.ca] and wikipedia link on the topic [wikipedia.org]). However, per the Nature article the artifact in question dates back to about 3300 BC, over a thousand years earlier. So at the time point 1 is invalid (at least based on present evidence). Point 2 seems pretty likely, though.
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I suppose next you'll be telling me there's comic books and graphic novels as well. Will this never end?
Semens of the gods... (Score:1)
Actually, I've heard Egyptologists mention in passing that the Egyptians referred to iron as "semen of the gods" because it came from the sky. It's good when the physics provides confirmation of the translations.
Really old story (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw this in a documentary maybe 10 years ago. I couldn't tell enough from the article to know what was new besides being a study on one specific trinket.
Slightly OT, but one of the theories posited in Carl Sagan's Comet was that magic swords were historically crafted from meteorites composed of a higher grade of iron than could be smelted/mine/whatever at the time. The magic came from how much better they performed in battle and having been dropped to earth from the heavens.
Siderurgy (Score:2)
Not news (Score:1)
The sixth centure BCE? Really? (Score:3)
Then the Egyptians must have been *real* hicks....
Excerpt:
The Hittites appear to be the first to understand the production of iron from its ores and regard it highly in their society. They began to smelt iron between 1500 and 1200 BC and the practice spread to the rest of the Near East after their empire fell in 1180 BC.[37] The subsequent period is called the Iron Age. Iron smelting, and thus the Iron Age, reached Europe two hundred years later and arrived in Zimbabwe, Africa by the 8th century.
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- wikipedia, iron, history