Ancient Egyptians Made Iron Jewelry From Pieces of Meteorite, Archaeologists Say 47
fangmcgee writes "Researchers at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London have found that a collection of ancient jewelry is out of this world. The 5,000-year-old Egyptian beads, previously thought to be made from iron from Earth have been found to be made from hammered pieces of meteorite. Strung together with gold, gemstones, and other minerals, the beads pre-date iron smelting, showcasing the metalworking mastery of fourth millennium B.C. Egyptians."
Inuit also used iron meteorites (Score:5, Interesting)
"The meteorite collided with Earth nearly 10,000 years ago. The iron masses were known to Inuit as Ahnighito (the Tent), weighing 31 metric tons (31 long tons; 34 short tons); the Woman, weighing 3 metric tons (3.0 long tons; 3.3 short tons); and the Dog, weighing 400 kilograms (880 lb). For centuries, Inuit living near the meteorites used them as a source of metal for tools and harpoons. The Inuit would work the metal using cold forging--that is by stamping and hammering it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_York_meteorite
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Dinner.
Re:Inuit also used iron meteorites (Score:5, Funny)
Dinner.
So, you're saying he was sealed inside?
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Dinner.
So, you're saying he was sealed inside?
One became the utensil, the other...
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Many also used iron meteorites (Score:5, Interesting)
Meteoric iron has been used by 'stone age' peoples all around the world. Identifying these Egyptian beads is neat but hardly a surprise.
Stone age-bronze age-iron age was never intended to imply exclusivity, only what the dominant method of getting the work done was in a given time and place. The iron age is taken to arrive when the technology for extracting telluric iron is well understood and used, the former may have happened long before the latter in areas where a high bronze age culture had developed, and of course meteoric iron doesnt rely on that technology at all so it's completely independent of it. It wouldnt really be a surprise to see meteoric iron objects MUCH earlier than this, except that it's unlikely to be preserved for so long outside of quite rare contexts.
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Stone age-bronze age-iron age was never intended to imply exclusivity
Are you sure? [youtube.com].
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The Inuit would work the metal using cold forging
You don't say.
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18-8 stainless (Score:2)
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Bling from the heavens (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of a story from some time ago- some colored glass in Tutankhamun's jewelry may have been from meteor strikes. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5196362.stm
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I have read elsewhere that some ancient cultures knew of iron primarily from meteorites.
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It's bordering nitpick, but iron != steel.
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What they are not telling you is that it was a meteor strike on Mars and that the meteor pieces were a bribe by alien builders to get the pyramid contract.
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Yes, 'cause one part of the population wants to stick to idiotic pre-medieval religious rules invented by a pedophile and force others to comply to them, while the other ones wants to leave 2000 years behind.
I think if you did some research you'd find that this is not entirely the case. Furthermore insulting peoples beliefs achieves very little, putting religious differences aside is an important part of achieving a secular society.
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yet the american-backed military junta was shooting protesters while the biggest robbery of ancient artefacts was going down last week!
end foreign expenditure, stop supporting the criminal juntas like egypt and israel!
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The age-old competition (Score:4, Funny)
Context??? (Score:2)
Is this an example of the latest we used meteoritic iron before learning to smelt it, the earliest example of melting a rock down for something better than copper, or just something in between?
I told you so! (Score:4, Funny)
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Metal working mastery ... (Score:5, Informative)
Making the metal from ore require mastery, making non load bearing artifacts out of metal requires just muscle.
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The metal working mastery consisted of basically heating the damn thing and beating the hell out of it with a hammer.
That's called "smithing".
Once you have the metal, beating it into shape is no big deal.
Obviously you have never been at a forge before. I took a blacksmithing workshop in college and it's not quite as simple as you portray it. It's more than heating and beating, you have to get it the right shade of red, know when to put it back in the fire, know how to make coke out of coal (actually that pa
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On the oth
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I take it then you've never actually done any cold forging?
hmmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Ancient Aliens (Score:2)
Of course they did (Score:2)