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Re: Tutankhamun and meteoritic iron - Part 1 of 2

Thanks Bernd for the wonderful material on ancient iron. Here in the states
it has been impossible for me to find Reiter's Die Netalle im Alten Orient
which was the only reference I had till your posts. I would not have been
able to read the work myself but could have had it translated by friends.

I have answered several messages the last couple days in which it is
mentioned that the material would be revered for having fallen from the
sky. I think it is possible that this is the case, but as your posts
discuss the ancients may not have made that connection. I would think it
very possible as happened here in North America that it may have simple
been a periodic trade item of great value collected as found and used when
available. They may even have worked the strewnfield without knowing the
cosmic origin. Wide spread trading was common in North America, as in
Africa and most everywhere else, and the artifacts have always betrayed
their source after examination. For example, the large mica sheets that
were carved here in the US have basically a single source. Perhaps, careful
chemical analysis of the iron artifact will tell more than just that they
are meteoritic, they may in fact reveal the specific meteorite.

I would guess it would depend on if it was cold worked or heated. If heated
too much I would also guess there could be a loss of some of the low
temperature trace metals (gallium, germanium, etc.) Gibeon is however, very
ductile and works cold very well. There would undoubtedly, be some
hesitation to test the artifacts by any method except those we now have
which are non-destructive. They were not available until the last few
years, this might explain the lack of complete analysis on some of the
delicate pieces from Tut's tomb found in the 1920's. 

Maybe someone could be stimulated to do more analysis today.

Just the thoughts of a non practicing archeologist. (been out of the field
for 20 years)
Thanks again, I really enjoyed the posts.

Jim Tobin
The Meteorite Exchange
www.meteorite.com
P.O.7000-455, Redondo Beach, CA 90277 USA
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> From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli@lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
> To: James Tobin <jimmypaul@earthlink.net>
> Cc: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: Tutankhamun and meteoritic iron - Part 1 of 2
> Date: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 2:23 PM
> 
> James Tobin schrieb:
> 
> > I think it may be too bold to say that the Egyptians did not know how
> > to work iron. I might agree that smelting it from ore was not known.
> > If they had it I think they used it, having iron in metallic form was
> > the trick, and Carter said nothing about the implements being of
> > meteoritic origin, a question I have always wanted an answer to.
> > Perhaps someone else has the answer for these specific artifacts if
> > they are from meteorite iron.
> 
> Hello Jeanne, Jim, and List,
> 
> Thank you Jim. Of course, you are right; the Egyptians did in fact know
> how to work iron though they did not know how to smelt it from iron ore
> (of which there was plenty in the Eastern Desert according to Howard
> Carter).
> 
> Now here is part 1 of what I found in Burke's "Cosmic Debris":
> 
> BURKE J.G. (1986) Cosmic Debris, Meteorites in History, pp. 229-231:
> 
> Uses of Meteorites
> 
> Archaeologists have found objects determined or thought to have been
> fashioned from meteoritic iron in less than a dozen Near Eastern
> localities that date from before the first millenium B.C. (Table 4).
> This is not surprising because iron implements, if unprotected, would in
> the interim have corroded into a pile of rust. It is difficult, in fact,
> for archaeologists to identify with certainty the intended use or
> function of many of the objects listed in table 4, because of the degree
> of corrosion they have undergone. It is unfortunate, however, that
> experienced meteorite scientists have carefully examined and analyzed
> relatively few of these objects. For example, there has been no
> published analysis of any of the eighteen items found in the tomb of
> Tutankhamen which are presumed to be meteoritic iron, although these
> appear to be in good condition. Nor does anyone seem to have examined
> critically the alleged 20-lb meteorite fragment found in Crete at Hagia
> Triada. Those archaeologists who are interested in meteoritic iron
> objects agree that some analyses have been less than satisfactory and
> that a number of other pieces have not been analyzed at all.
> In 1884 Andrée cited an Egyptologist, Franz von Lauth, as proposing that
> the first iron that was worked into tools by the Egyptians was of
> meteoritic origin. By association to the Coptic word banipe (ferrum), in
> which the first component is the old Egyptian ba, von Lauth in 1868
> tried to demonstrate that ba meant "iron." Further, Andrée wrote, von
> Lauth found the word ba with the supplement ne-pe, meaning "of heaven,"
> and from this combination, ba ne-pe, concluded that it referred to
> "metal of heaven," or meteoritic iron. Andrée did not quarrel with von
> Lauth's etymological analysis, but he did object to what he considered
> was an unwarranted extension from the fact that primitive societies had
> used meteoritic iron to the assumption that its use resulted in the
> development of iron metallurgy. Other peoples, such as the Greenland
> Eskimos visited by Ross and Sabine, Andrée insisted, had fashioned
> meteoritic iron into tools without thereby having been led to the
> smelting of iron. Von Lauth, of course, had not found or seen any
> meteoritic iron artifacts; his hypothesis was based on his studies of
> the meaning and origin of certain words. Nevertheless, the idea
> attracted some metallurgists, as a means of explaining the transition
> from copper and bronze to iron metallurgy in the Near East, a phenomenon
> that archaeologists were just beginning to explore in the late
> nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
> 
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Bernd
> 
> 

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