It turns out that Egypt’s most famous boy-monarch,
King Tutankhamun,
had a dagger from outer space. Sort of.
The 14th century BCE ruler King Tutankhamun,
or King Tut as he’s often referred to in
the West, is the Egyptian royal that people
like you and me are most familiar with. That’s
because his tomb was found mostly intact in
1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter, and has
been a treasure trove of historical discovery
ever since. Egyptian royals, as you may know, were
buried with LOTS of stuff. The latest revelation related
to the artifacts in Tut tomb, published
recently in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, centers
around a dagger. This particular item was
found in the wrappings of Tut’s mummified
body, placed over his right thigh. While the
dagger has a beautifully detailed sheath of
gold, the composition of the metal blade has
been debated for decades. Now, thanks to a
joint effort from Milan Polytechnic, Pisa
University, and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,
we know what that blade is made from.
And it's meteoric iron.
That’s right, metal from space. The
research team, led by the paper’s lead writer
Daniela Comelli, used portable X-ray fluorescence
spectrometry to analyze the composition of
the dagger. The results: The metal of the
blade is almost 11 percent nickel, a very
clear indicator of meteoric iron. For comparison,
quarried iron has a roughly 4 percent nickel
composition. The scientists also found cobalt
traces, which serves as further confirmation
of its meteoric origin. Don’t get TOO excited,
or start worshipping Tut as your new alien
god just yet. While this data is incredibly
cool, and gives us insight into Egypt’s
scientific and cultural history, it’s actually
pretty common for ancient ceremonial iron
objects to be made from materials that had
extraterrestrial pedigrees. The metal workers
of Ancient Egypt likely selected the meteoric
iron because they attributed value, just financially,
or even divine significance to it due to its heavenly
origin. Comelli and her team actually used
the compositional data of the blade’s metal
to identify the very meteorite that’s the
most likely source of the dagger’s materials.
That meteorite is an octahedrite fragment
called Kharga, and it was found in 16 years
ago at the seaport of Mersa Matruh. Of the
known meteorites in a 2,000 kilometer radius
around the Red Sea, only that one has a composition
that matches the blade found buried with King
Tut.
So, if you could be buried with an item made
from meteoric iron, what would you want? A
statue of your favorite pet? A bust of Bea
Arthur? Something to signify the metal’s
spce origins? Get in touch and let us know.
And to get more stories like this one, be
sure to check out now.howstuffworks.com on
the daily.
