[meteorite-list] Turkish Scientists in Search for 14th CenturyMeteorite

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:45:32 -0600
Message-ID: <002c01c722f6$3a9c27c0$a925e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

    We have two sub-categories in this title:

1. "Oldest Conserved Meteorite (or positively
identified meteorite with historical provenance).

2. "Oldest Almost-Certainly-Meteorite Conserved
Object" (but not now available or known to have
survived).

    We have the Black Stone in the corner of the
Ka'bah in Mecca, which structure pre-dates Islam
as a place of worship and said to have "fallen from
the sky" long before the days of the Prophet.

    Such stones were also found in a number of
north Arabian Pre-Islamic shrines thought to be
the residence of a god, hence the term applied to
them by Byzantine Christian writers of the fifth
and sixth centuries: "baetyl," from bet'el, "the
house of god."

    There are the meteoritic iron beads (a worked
meteorite) recovered from Dickinson Mound in
Illinois. A Hopewell site, it has to date to before
400 AD. There are numerous other meteorites in
a "conserved" context in the Americas, most
notably the massive Casas Grandes. You can
still go visit it, just not in its original location,
nor receiving its former reverence.

    And naturally, you have to include the great
Greenland irons, both respected and mined by the
natives, and the Willamette iron, despite their recent
change of residence. The USA is not the only country
to bring great meteorites to its capitols; the Romans
did it, too.

    In the Classical world, there were many deities
known to have been associated with "black stones."
Thise include the shrine of Aphrodite at Paphos,
of Cybele at Pessinus and later at Rome, of Astarte
at Byblos and the famous Artemis/Diana of Ephesus.
The latter's most ancient sculpture was, it is said,
carved from a black meteorite.

    Of course, there is argument over which "black
stones" were meteorites and which were just black
stones. None of these ancient stones, meteorites
or not, has survived the zeal of early Christians, of
course. Cybele's stone was certainly a meteorite.
Like many of the early sacred stones, it was said
to be "conical." We probably lost some big oriented
beauties in the loss of these stones.

    The stone associated with Cybele's worship was,
originally, probably at Pessinus but perhaps at
Pergamum or on Mount Ida. What is certain is that
in 204 BC it was taken to Rome, where Cybele
became "Mother" to the Romans. Her ecstatic
rites of worship made the Roman streets very lively
during the annual procession of the goddess's statue.
Alongside Isis, Cybele retained prominence in the
heart of the Empire until the fifth century AD; the
stone was then "lost."

    It has been described very fully by Arnobius (about
300 AD). He states that it was a small stone which
could be easily and lightly carried in the hand; it was
of a black hue and of rough surface, and had many
irregular projecting angles. Regmaglypts? Some authors
have interpreted that it could be "lightly carried in the
hand" as meaning it was of low density and hence,
not a meteorite. Did everybody just want to claim that
THEIR stone "fell from the sky"? But why make the
claim unless some of them really did?

    Oddly enough... I keep saying that, but history
IS odd. The Pessinian stone may have been housed
in the temple of Cybele called the Phrygianum, whose
ruins are UNDER St. Peter's, so perhaps the Vatican
has a meteorite in its foundations just as Islam has in
the Ka'bah. I think that qualifies as "odd."

    In 220 AD, the Syrian Roman Emperor Elagabalus
brought the "black stone" of Emessa, an undoubted
meteorite, from its old home in the temple of Ba'al to
Rome, hoping to establish a new State religion (which
he would run, of course). Didn't work out, but the
temple (and the stone) remained there.

    The home temple of Aphrodite was at Paphos
on Cyprus and very old. The tapering black stone
which was the object of verneration at this Temple
still survives, even if it now placed inside the site
musuem. It doesn't seem to be a meteorite, which
is odd because it was said to be, in ancient times.
Perhaps it never was a meteorite, or the present
stone may be a replacement for a lost original.

    Oddly enough, also on Cyprus is another highly
venerated Islamic site -- the third most important
after Mecca and Medina -- the Hala Sultan Tekke.
This, too, has a black rock, said to have fallen as
a meteorite as part of the tritholon over the shrine.
The shrine is to a woman - the aunt and foster
mother of the Prophet Mohammed. Maybe that's
the original Paphan meteorite?

    The most famous Classical site with a meteoritic
sacred stone is the great Oracle of Delphi in Greece,
dating in its foundation to more than 1000 BC, which
was built around a meteoritic shrine. The original stone,
now lost, was a large meteorite fallen from the sky in
deepest antiquity, it's said, before the shrine itself was
built.

    Anaxagoras (in the 5th century BC) witnessed a
wagon-sized meteorite strike the earth. Because of its
fiery nature, he assumed that it had broken off from
the Sun. Since the meteorite was iron, he deduced that
the Sun must be a huge ball of burning hot iron 35
miles in diameter about 4000 miles away. Yeah, yeah,
but where did the "wagon-sized" meteorite get to?

    Well, it seems that "in 405 B.C., Lysander won his
great victory over the Althenian fleet at Aegospotami
in Thrace, and Plutarch writes, in his life of Lysander,
that a stone which fell from the heavens a short time
before the battle was regarded by many as a portent
predicting the dreadful slaughter that was to ensue.
At the time Plutarch wrote (circa 150 A.D.) this stone
could still be seen at Aegospotami, where it was
regarded with great veneration by the Chersonites.
[The Greek philosopher Anaxagorus is said to have
predicted the fall of this meteorite, but as Anaxagorus
died in 428 B.C., his prediction must have long
antedated the fall of the meteorite. And indeed, it
seems the predictor was not Anaxagorus]:

    "A detail given in one of the early recitals might possibly
have constituted the basis of a prediction by some
contemporary physicist. In the latter part of his account
of the phenomenon, Plutarch quotes from a Treatise on
Religion, by a certain Daimachus, to the effect that, for
seventy-five days before the fall of the meteorite, a vast
fiery body was seen in the heavens, in appearance 'like a
flaming cloud.' This well describes the appearance of a
great comet, and might be regarded as significant... Of
this meteoric mass said to have fallen at Aegospotami,
Pliny states that it was as large as a wagon and of a
dusky hue, adding that a brilliant comet was visible
at the time of its fall... A portion of the stone was
preserved as a venerated relic in the town of Potidaea."

    If so, it's gone now. Aristotle, who had written that
this stuff about rocks falling from the heavens was just
supertitious nonsense and that if rocks DID fall from
the sky, they had merely been picked up by a strong
wind and tossed there, was severely embarassed by
the Aegospotami fall, since it was a big as wagon and
much, much heavier! Why, then, don't wagons fall out
of the sky on a regular basis? There is such a thing as
too much common sense...

    "The site of the city of Seleucia is said to have been
determined by the fall of an aerolite, and this stone is
figured on some of the coins of the Seleucidae, a
thunderbolt appearing in its stead on other coins.
    In the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, there was a stone
partly fashioned into the conventional form of the Ephesian
Diana. This, it was asserted, had fallen down from the
Heavens. The stone is mentioned in the Acts of the
Apostles (xix. 35), where we read that the city of the
Ephesians was a worshipper of the great goddess
Diana, ... the image of which fell down from Jupiter.
In this text the word 'image' has been supplied by the
translators, a more literal rendering being 'that which
fell down from the sky.' This clearly shows that the
stone only faintly indicated the human form.
    Tacitus says of the stone sacred to the Astarte
(or Aphrodite) of Paphos, that it was a symbol of
the goddess, not a human effigy, since it was an
obscurely formed cone. In his life of Apollonius
of Tyana, Philostratus, also, mentions this stone
and tells us that when Apollonius visited Paphos,
he admired there 'the famous symbolic figure of
Aphrodite.' These 'living stones' were often
covered with ornaments and vestments, and it
has been conjectured that these adornments were,
in some cases, changed so as to accrod with the
garments appropriate to certain special festivals
of the respective gods.
    The colossal emerald of the temple of Melkarth
at Tyre is designated in the fragments of Sanchoniathon
as a 'star fallen from heaven.' It was said to have been
raised up by Astarte, and this last myth is represented
on the silver coins of Marium in Cyprus."

    Could that "emerald" been green olivine?

    Every ancient culture seems to have had one.
The now-lost Star Stone that marked the meeting
corner of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and
Lincolnshire in the UK was supposed to a meteorite,
also a vanished stone at Grimston, Leicestershire,
was also said to have such an origin. They're
everywhere, it seems.

    If a nearby supernova sterilized the Earth, no
doubt alien "anthropologists" would uncover many
"meteorite shrines" in the homes of our List members,
harder to explain than the "meteorite shrines" in
our museums...


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 1:06 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Turkish Scientists in Search for 14th
CenturyMeteorite


> Hello Ron and List,
>
> "Batuta recalls in his memoir an Anatolian feudal lord speaking to the
> author about "a rock that fell from the sky", a black- colored meteorite
> weighing about 80 kg, and witnesses' accounts about the body."
>
> Well, this is probably the Aidin stone (said to have fallen in the year
> 1340)
> but the evidence is not conclusive!
>
> "the oldest recorded celestial body that ever hit the Earth"
>
> Hmm! And what about Nogata which fell in 861 A.D. after detonations
> and a brilliant flash. The following morning, a single stone was recovered
> from a hole in the ground. The stone has since been preserved in a Shinto
> shrine.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bernd
>
Received on Mon 18 Dec 2006 05:45:32 PM PST