WEBVTT - Meteoric Metal and Alien Iron, Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.280 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:16.239 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.120 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.120 in our series on human uses of metal from the Sky. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.959 If you haven't heard the first episode yet, you should 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.600 go back and check that one out before you listen 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.000 to this. But in that episode brief recap, we focused 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.559 mostly on a specific artifact from the New Kingdom of Egypt, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.280 which was a dagger found wrapped up with the mummy 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.040 of the pharaohtutan Common, which had a blade made of iron. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.239 Now that might not sound remarkable, but this was a 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.120 blade made of iron from an era before the large 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.880 scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And the really cool 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.480 thing about this knife and many other iron artifacts from 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.560 before the regional iron age in Egypt is that they 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.360 were probably created out of iron that came from a 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:09.440 meteorite space metal. So we also discuss the history of 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.800 knowledge that meteorites come from space, including the story of 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:17.040 how European scientists came to generally agree on the cosmic 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.120 origin of meteorite rocks only around the beginning of the 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.920 nineteenth century or so. And then also some interesting evidence 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.600 that the ancient Egyptians did actually know that iron meteorites 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.200 came from space, for example, the way they referred to 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.440 iron as the iron of the sky or the metal 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.240 of the sky, and some other linguistices clues in the 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:42.319 way the glyphs of the Hieroglyphic language are put together. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.440 And then there are also some other languages like Sumerian, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:50.560 which have long had similar associations between iron or certain 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:53.520 types of iron, and the sky. And so today we're 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.000 back to talk about more examples of the use of 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:02.320 metal from space inhuman artifacts, in human technological history. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.160 That's right, And where we're going to go next, We're 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.079 going to get back into the use of iron and 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:15.400 meteoric iron in meteorites in Chinese tradition, Chinese history, and 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.639 maybe just a little dash of Chinese mythology. I want 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.800 to refer back to a write up on iron that 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.280 appears in the seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.680 by Brian and Fagan. With this particular bit by Paul T. Kratick, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:36.160 cratic sums up Chinese iron usage by pointing out that 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.560 iron production in China began around the ninth century BCE, 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.000 perhaps introduced from the West, but also just as likely 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.200 an independent invention, and that by the Han period to 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.560 go to BCE, the Chinese quote incontestably led the world 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.120 in iron technology and production. But of course, as with 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.160 these other examples we've been looking at, we do have 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:02.040 evidence of artifacts created with meteoric iron prior to this. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.080 Specifically it takes us back to the Sheng dynasty. This 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.560 would have been around fourteen hundred BCE. Now, as we 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.359 previously mentioned, there of course has been some back and 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.040 forth on the testing of various pre Iron age iron artifacts, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.600 and ultimately a lot of that is still going on, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.880 and these blades are often mentioned in some of those documents. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.440 Now in that paper that I credited in the last 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:33.160 episode from Albert Jambond twenty seventeensh Bronze age iron meteoretic 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.920 or not a chemical strategy, at least according to this source, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.040 the nickel count is low in these examples, but not 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.120 low enough to assign terrestrial origin, and that this is 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.320 definitely a case it seems like where the lower nickel 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.840 content is likely due to weathering effects. The blades themselves 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:57.880 have long been discussed as probable examples of meteoric iron, 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.000 going back at least as far as the book two 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.960 Early Chinese bronz Weapons with Meteoritic iron Blades by gettens 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.040 at All in nineteen seventy one, which details that these 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.920 blades were found in nineteen thirty one in Anyang Hanan 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.240 within a single tomb, which is also cited in Metals 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.200 in Antiquity by young at All nineteen ninety nine. Now 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.440 I have a picture here of these artifacts here for 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.520 you to look at, Joe and everyone else. You can 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.080 look these up as well online. Just look for meteoric 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.120 iron Chinese axes or Chinese broad axes and you can 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.080 likely find images of this. You can tell that these 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:44.080 were ornate, highly stylized weapons. Now, I want to note 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.640 that both of these sources here that are talking about it, 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.719 they seem to indicate less than certainty in some of 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.520 the details, saying that there seems to be a lot 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.960 of believe to have been in these references. Though, to 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.760 be clear, these weapons have long been in the Freer 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.200 collection at the Smithsonian, and there's no indication that the 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.720 dating or a larger geographic origin is particularly endowed here. 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:10.320 I just couldn't help it pick up on the fact 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.920 that this is one of those accounts where there seem 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.599 to be a little bit of ambiguity but no real 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.640 sticking points. I think in trying to understand where these 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.960 came from. These would have been Chinese broad axes, formally 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.680 inlaid and again likely largely ceremonial. These are not weapons 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.320 that would be out on the battlefield. Ah. 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.640 Yeah, and I had been assuming the same was true 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.479 of Tuton Common's iron dagger, though in fact I guess 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.040 I don't have a way of knowing that for sure, 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.039 don't have a reason to suspect to use this for 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:43.400 knife dueling or anything. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.640 Yeah, it's interesting to think about these examples in terms 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.040 of how do you use it right, because you know, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.680 we have cases where you're going to have some sort 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.440 of an iron weapon that is going to be of 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.080 exceptional quality, but you're going to have so few of them, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.719 maybe even just one. You know, what are you going 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:03.880 to do during the Bronze period with your iron weapon. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.880 It's kind of like if, as a thought experiment, you 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:08.480 were to say, okay, what if I were to take 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.239 a lightsaber back to the one hundred Years War between 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.800 England and France during the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.640 you gave it to one side or the other, you know, 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:20.800 what good is it going to do? You know, you 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.000 could make a case maybe for some sort of special 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.039 forces style use of the weapon by either party. Okay, 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.440 single combat, sure, but more likely than not, a single 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.159 lightsaber is not going to decide anything during the fourteenth 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.919 or fifteenth century in any kind of like warfare scenario. 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:40.839 It would make far more sense as a ritual object, 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.160 as a tool of propaganda, is essentially like a scepter 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.039 to show how special and or powerful you are. 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.520 And as we talked about last time, with the specific 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.200 case of iron versus the dominant medal of bronze, there's 0:06:55.240 --> 0:07:00.279 not even really a clear material superiority of early iron 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.680 weapons over say, well made bronze ones of the period. 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.000 That the advantages of iron when moving into the Iron 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.600 Age were primarily advantages in terms of economics and the 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.320 sourcing of materials, that it was easier to produce lots 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.240 of iron implements and tools and weapons at scale, rather 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.800 than it being that iron is just a much better 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:23.200 metal or something. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.679 Right right, And the other key point, as we discussed 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.560 in the last episode is the knowledge of where the 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.800 meteorc iron came from, like knowing that this weapon is 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.120 of heavenly origin or of cosmic origin and so forth, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.600 that seems to often be really important. And so I'm 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.320 going to get into that question here with Chinese examples. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.720 Turning first back to Gettings at All, the work to 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.560 early Chinese bronze weapons with iron blades from seventy one. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.360 They point out that meteorite falls were known to the 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.680 ancient Chinese and discussed in literature, often in reference to portents. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.520 So if the metal used was known to have come 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.760 from the sky, they contend, it would have added to 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.200 the auspiciousness of the weapons and the reason that the 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.960 iron was used in these cases instead of jade, which 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.960 typically occupied an elevated position of ceremonial importance for weapons 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.280 and so forth. Such usage may have also influenced known 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:31.200 Chinese meteorite fragments. Quote such a use of meteoritic iron 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.199 might also explain the fact that only one iron meteorite 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.440 find is known from China. This I is referring to, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:44.160 you know, ancient examples of meteorite, the idea being that 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.000 the iron meteorites would have been known as a source 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.000 for this sort of metal and would have been used 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.880 as such. And certainly these are not the only known 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:01.040 examples of Chinese meteoric weapons or weapons or artifacts that 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.800 are believed or it's argued, may be made of such iron. 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:10.160 There are several known artifacts of possible meteoric iron from 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.920 the late Sheng and early Western Zoo. So for examples 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.440 of some of those observations, because they mentioned, okay, the 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.920 ancient Chinese knew about meteorites. They knew they came from 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.720 the sky. For some examples of this knowledge, I turned 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.240 to the nineteen ninety four paper Meteorite Falls in China 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.719 and some Related Human Casualty Events by Yao at All, 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:39.200 published in the journal Meteoritics. They looked at accounts from 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:44.840 roughly seven hundred BCE through nineteen twenty CE, with the 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.959 earliest account cited found in the Spring and Autumn Annals, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.960 traditionally attributed to Confucius, would have historically lived around five 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.560 fifty one through four to seventy nine BCE. This work 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.280 is one of the five classics of ancient Chinese literature, 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.240 and it covers an historical period stretching from seven twenty 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.280 two to for eighty one BCE, and the work includes 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.000 coverage of a six forty five BCE event in which 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:17.240 quote in translation, of course, five stones fell in Sung 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.000 And there are various other accounts in this article that 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.840 they don't highlight all of them, but they highlights some 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:30.600 of historic. Note there is a Sey dynasty account. This 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:36.040 is from the work History of the Suy Dynasty, and 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:41.600 it refers to a six sixteen BCE meteorite, with the 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.520 account depicting a meteorite hitting a siege tower during the 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:47.959 besiegement of a walled city. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:48.760 What. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.160 Yeah, So the idea is that there's a you know, 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.080 a siege situation going on, a meteorite hits, takes out 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.840 the siege tower, causes the sea, and then either the 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.840 strike of the meteorite or the perhaps far more likely 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.840 the subsequent collapse of said siege tower results in I 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.400 believe I read possibly ten fatalities. That was their I 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.920 think the recorded number. If this is true, it might 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:20.719 stand as the earliest recorded human meteorite related fatality. These are, 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:23.559 of course rare. You're talking about situations where you know, 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.679 a meteorite hits somebody or hits the vicinity of a 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:33.640 human and in doing so results in a casualty. But 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.760 it's also not entirely clear. I've read some criticism of 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:42.760 this account saying, Okay, this is certainly possible, it would 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.480 be a very rare occurrence. It's we also have to 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.079 just acknowledge that it's possible that this siege tower was 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.679 taken out by something far more mundane, like human munitions 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.600 fired from the wall of the siege city, that sort 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.160 of thing. But it is kind of It is cataloged 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.120 in the historic records, so I've seen numerous texts acknowledge 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.520 it and say, well, perhaps this is true. 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:08.280 Yeah. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:12.959 So hundreds of accounts follow these early accounts of meteorites 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:14.880 and the Chinese records, and I'm not going to go 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.240 through all of them, or even the ones listed in 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.000 this source. But there's one more I wanted to mention 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.040 here because it does line up with what we're talking 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.760 about and the subject of meteors and iron, and that 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.280 is the non meteorite shower of thirteen forty one. It's 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.840 notable because it seems to have been a shower of 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:37.000 iron meteorites, and it was even referred to as quote 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:42.080 the iron rain, with descriptions of the resulting bore holes 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.800 in the earth, matching up with what we know of 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.679 iron meteorite impacts today now thirteen forty one, of course, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.560 is far outside the Bronze Age examples we're looking at, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.040 but you know, you conbind this with certainly these much 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.560 earlier examples, and it does seem clear that the ancient 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.679 Chinese knew that meteorites came from above, they came from 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.800 the sky, and that alone would be enough to sort 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:14.720 of factor into these myth making understandings of what a 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:19.480 weapon forged of such iron would mean. By the way, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:24.120 speaking of Chinese mythology, it's worth noting that You the Great, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.480 the character that we've talked about on the show before, 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.920 founder of the shop of the dynasty, in myth and legend, 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.880 the bringer of flood controls, is sometimes, at least at 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:42.200 least in early Chinese mythology, connected to meteorites. Oh so, 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.440 according to Mark Edward Lewis, in the Mythology of Early China, 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.640 some texts say that you was born of a stone 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.400 or in a place named for a stone, while other 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:57.040 tellings state that quote his mother was inseminated by a 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:58.880 magical stone or meteor. 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.280 Oh interesting, this is a different way of sort of 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:04.360 like parenthood by the gods. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.640 Yeah, yeah, so I had not run across this before. 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.439 I cross checked it in a couple of my go 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.599 to Chinese mythology sources Yang and in Turner's Chinese Mythology 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.200 and Burrel's work on Chinese mythology. Both of these texts, 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.120 I refer to an origin story for you by which 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.040 he's born from the belly of his father's corpse following 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:32.720 the said father's execution. And this I'm guessing this entirely 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:36.400 masculine birth as a Buryl describes it. I guess this 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.840 is the predominant origin story that comes later, and that 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.360 Lewis here is focusing primarily on early tellings before those 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:45.400 traditions emerged. 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:46.640 Oh okay, I see. 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.560 So anyway, these axes, among other artifacts, you know, another 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:57.440 example of an ancient Bronze Age culture having access to 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.040 meteoric iron using it to craft weapons that then have 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.840 an exalted place within their culture. Uh, and so, And 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.440 definitely look up images of this if you have the 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.640 ability to do so readily, because you can you know 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.480 they're they're they're not in priestine form, they haven't been 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:20.320 restored or anything like that they're not anywhere near the 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.200 the completeness of tut and Commons dagger, but you can 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.240 still get a sense of the majesty they would have had. 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:38.720 Yeah, even the stubs are beautiful. Okay. I want to 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:46.320 talk about a statue, specifically a metal sculpture allegedly from Tibet, 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.400 sometimes called the Iron Man, referred to in a lot 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.600 of media reports as as the Iron Man or sometimes 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.359 as the Space Buddha. 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.840 Well, these these, both, these descriptions both take you somewhere, 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:02.480 that's for sure. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.960 So this statue weighs about ten point six kilograms or 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.720 about twenty three pounds, and is roughly twenty four centimeters 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.560 or about nine and a half inches tall. It is 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:18.120 made of iron, and it depicts a bearded male figure 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.400 that is sometimes referred to as a Buddha, sometimes referred 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:23.520 to as a god, sometimes referred to as a man. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.080 But he is depicted wearing trousers, a sort of cape 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.920 or cloak that's joined over his shoulders in a knot 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.000 on his chest. He's wearing kind of almost kind of 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:40.400 cloglike looking shoes, pants with a split in the cuff 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.880 at the bottom of the pant legs, and what looks 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.120 to me kind of like scale armor over his mid section. 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.000 And then on that scale armor there is the symbol 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.400 of a swastika, which, remember, before it was appropriated by 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.880 the German Nazi Party, that was around nineteen twenty, it was, 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.640 for you know, injuries or even millennia, a traditional symbol 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.879 with positive associations in a lot of different cultures and 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.760 religions throughout the world, notably in Hinduism and Buddhism. 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.040 That's right, and it still has that status in various 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:20.280 Hindu and Buddhist traditions, though of course permanently ruined in 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.119 the West by the appropriation of the Nazi Party. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.520 Yeah, and so in the iron Man statue, the figure 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:31.520 has a halo like disc behind his head and he 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.359 is clutching a round egg shaped object in one hand. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.640 His legs are folded underneath his body, so he looks 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.280 like he could be sitting cross legged or perhaps even dancing. 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.800 But this whole thing is carved out of a solid 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.440 piece of metal, with a rough, unfinished base below the figure. 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.960 So what is the deal with this weird metal statue. Well, 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.240 there was a bunch of media about this statue way 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.280 back in twenty twelve, it was associated with the publication 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.479 of a paper that was looking into its physical makeup 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:10.240 and its origins. The paper was by Buckner at All, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.080 published in the journal Media Critics and Planetary Science again 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.600 in twenty twelve, and it was called Buddha from Space, 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.359 an ancient object of art made of a China iron 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.439 media write fragment. So I'm going to start with what 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.040 was originally alleged by it, but keep in mind that 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:29.600 some of the information I'm going to say at first 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:34.439 is either not certain or almost certainly not true. The 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.400 lead author of this paper, Elmer Buckner, is a geologist 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.520 affiliated with the Planetology Institute at Stuttgart University, and so 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.080 the authors of this paper were looking into the question 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.879 of first of all, what this statue is made of, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.560 but also what does it depict and where did it 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.200 come from? As to where it comes from, there again 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.960 is plenty of debate about this, but the story as 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.400 received by the authors of the paper goes like this. 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.240 In the years nineteen thirty eight and nineteen thirty nine, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:12.400 Adolf Hitler's SS sponsored a research and propaganda expedition to Tibet. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:16.200 This is kind of a famous famous expedition about which 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:20.199 there has been much cultural legend, but this expedition was 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:25.400 led by the German zoologist and explorer Ernst Schaeffer. This 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.080 expedition collected a lot of material for return to Germany. 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.520 So they took a bunch of plant and animal samples, 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.159 seeds and grains and plants, and they cataloged birds. There 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.280 was ornithology missions and stuff like that, and it also 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.640 took a lot of cultural artifacts, including, according to a 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.399 Triple As blog post about this paper by Stephen A. 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:50.720 Edwards quote, a robe believed to have been worn by 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.760 the Dali Lama, a gold coin, and the iron statue. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.680 The latter apparently attracted the attention of the Nazis because 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.439 of a swastika carved into its center. So that's the 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.399 story about where it came from. What does appear to 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.200 be true is that the statue was in the possession 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:13.080 of a private collector from sometime unknown until the year 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.320 two thousand and seven, which is the same year these 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.040 authors began investigating it. But before then, the allegation is 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.600 that it was taken from Tibet by Schaffer's men in 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.679 the late thirties and then disappeared during World War II, 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.560 only to reappear to the public in the two thousands. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:31.439 All right. 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.280 Now, as to the question of what the statue is 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.800 made of, the authors conducted an elemental analysis and found 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.720 that the concentration of elements present in the metal was 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:46.560 consistent with an iron meteorite. So much like the analysis 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.640 we talked about in the previous episode looking at King 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.880 Tut's dagger, here they found high concentrations of nickel. This 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:57.800 statue was approximately sixteen percent nickel by weight and about 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.440 zero point six percent cobalt. These are not ratios you 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.960 would expect to find in earth based iron. Earth based 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.720 iron extracted from before the eighteen hundreds tends to be 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.720 not more than about four percent nickel. Also, the authors 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.680 analyzed the ratios of trace platinum group metals and found 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:20.680 that these were also consistent with meteorite iron. Not only 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.879 that they were able to match this metal to the 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:30.160 composition of meteorites from a specific known impact area. They write, quote, 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.000 the geochemical data of the meteorite generally matched the element 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.640 values known from fragments of the chinga a tax site, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:43.360 A tax site meaning ungrouped iron meteorite strewn field discovered 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.680 in nineteen thirteen. The provenance of the meteorite as well 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.080 as the piece of art strongly points to the border 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:54.000 region of eastern Siberia and Mongolia. Accordingly, and I went 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:55.960 and did a little more looking. So it seems that 0:21:56.000 --> 0:22:00.440 the Chinga meteorite is sort of it's an area rather 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:05.760 than one specific object. The Chinga meteorite field is something 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.879 that contains fragments of meteorite found by gold miners in Tuva, 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.760 which is a region of southern Siberia in Russia near 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.639 the border with Mongolia, and the hundreds of meteorite fragments 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.119 found there are thought to result from an object that 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:25.000 exploded in the atmosphere over Tuva between ten and twenty 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:29.240 thousand years ago. So the scientific evidence that the iron 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:33.360 Man statue was made out of meteorite iron seems quite strong. 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.840 But what about these other questions? What does this statue depict? 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.680 And when was when and where was it made? Here's 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:43.560 where we start getting into the much more disputed territory. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.160 The authors of this twenty twelve paper claimed that it 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.239 was likely a depiction of the warrior king, god and 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:55.520 wealth Buddha known as vice Ravana, who is the guardian 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.920 of the North. You can think of sort of heavenly 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.760 beings that are guard ardians of the cardinal directions, and 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.800 Viceravana is the guardian of the North. This figure, Viceravanna, 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:10.280 shares characteristics with the Hindu deity known as Kubera and 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.840 is also known as Jambala, sometimes shown carrying a lemon 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.440 or a money bag in his hand, and in other depictions, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.160 especially earlier ones, the authors say that Viceravana is shown 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.960 as quote, a corpulent figure that holds a mongoose which 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:30.520 spews jewels from its mouth. Sometimes also, especially beginning in 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.560 the second half of the eighth century, they say, he 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:38.119 is shown with ghosts at his feet. So, due to 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.320 a number of visual motifs such as the crossed legs 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.639 and the scale armor and so forth, the authors believe 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:48.879 that this is Viceravana we're looking at. But they also 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.760 write their thoughts about the religious significance of the swastika 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:56.720 in the image. They say, quote, the swastika prominently displayed 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:59.760 on the cuirass of the sculpture was a symbol frequently 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:03.560 used is by the nature based pre Buddhist Bun religion 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.520 rooted in the western parts of Tibet. The Bun religion 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:10.520 had its own literature and art that was, they say, 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:15.920 continuously absorbed into the Tibetan Buddhism that propagated into the 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:19.240 entire area of Buddhist influence. A paper I'm going to 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:21.600 talk about in a minute, I think will somewhat dispute 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:25.720 that claim. But they say, accordingly, the iron Man could 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:30.840 represent a Bun slash Buddhist hybrid, showing some recognition features 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:33.160 of Kubera the early Vicerovana. 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:38.440 O good, all right, and not getting into the criticism 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:41.960 is about to come. That would seemingly make sense. We 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:47.080 can point in various examples, not only in Buddhist traditions, 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:50.159 but in other traditions where we see these emerging of 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:53.880 art styles and merging of cultures in a particular sculpture 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:54.640 or other work. 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.959 Sure, and so going with this hybrid art hypothesis, they write, quote, 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.840 according to this interpretation, the possible provenance of the iron 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:06.280 Man is western Tibet or anywhere in the area of 0:25:06.320 --> 0:25:10.040 Buddhist influence, and the age can be tentatively dated at 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:22.800 the eighth to tenth century. Now, as far as I 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:27.840