WEBVTT - From the Vault: Meteoric Metal and Alien Iron, Part 3 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.119 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:12.560 Robert Lamb. We have another vault for you. This is 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.680 going to be part three in our series from last year. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.680 Originally published five sixteen, twenty twenty four Meteoric Metal and 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.560 Alien Iron, Part three. Let's jump right in. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.960 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.160 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.600 And we're back with part three of our series on 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.760 human uses of iron from space. I think we had 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.560 a little interlude there where. On Tuesday of this week 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.600 we ran an unrelated interview, But today we're back to 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.960 finish off the series with Part three. Now, if you 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.000 haven't heard the first two parts yet, you should probably 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.520 go back check those out first, But to do a 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.399 quick recap. In Part one, we focused largely on the 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.440 iron dagger of Tutin Common, a blade found wrapped up 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.319 with the pharotutin Common inside his coffin from before the 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.160 time of large scale smelting of iron in Egypt, and 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.840 we discussed chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.920 was almost certainly made out of iron that came not 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.399 from Earth, but from a piece of iron meteorite that 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.679 fell from space. And it turns out that a lot 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:35.440 of iron artifacts like ambulets, beads, tools, and trinkets. A 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.720 lot of these iron artifacts from before the various regional 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.080 iron ages have this in common. They come from meteorites. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.039 So ancient peoples were taking alien metal that fell from 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.320 the sky and shaping it to their uses. In Part two, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.040 we talked about a few more specific artifacts believed to 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.400 be made from meteorite iron, such as the Shang Dynasty 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.559 axes from ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.360 as the Iron Man or sometimes in the media as 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.640 the Space Buddha, which was at one point alleged to 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.680 be a Tibetan depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.760 known as vice Ravana, but according to some experts in 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.960 Buddhist art, was actually a twentieth century European design, amounting 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.040 to a forgery or at least a crude imitation of 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.160 Tibetan imagery. And then I ended up getting into some 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.840 of the speculation about who could have actually made this sculpture, 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.880 which is a somewhat wild story if true, Big if true. 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.760 We also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.280 come from space. So it took scientists of the European 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.400 Enlightenment until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.520 really agree on this, But there is some evidence that 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.440 people in ancient China, in ancient Egypt and other cultures 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.560 knew that this metal came from above. And some of 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.600 the indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.359 fact that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.520 to refer to iron as iron of the sky or 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.280 metal of the sky. And so today we're back to 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.000 talk about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.079 and artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.200 that's interesting this has sort of come up a little 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:20.000 so far, is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power, 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.320 a sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.720 the spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.040 So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane, 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.480 and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:36.240 the earth and we use it to make all kinds 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:41.320 of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:46.280 appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars. 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.400 That's right, and that's why in this next section I 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.600 want to get out of the Bronze Age and get 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:58.720 into the post Bronze Age Islamic world, where we see 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:04.880 various mentions of what may be meteoric iron. So a 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.640 lot of this is going to concern swords at least 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.360 in the outset here. Swords have of course played a 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.440 significant role in human history and take on various meanings 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.000 across various cultures that use them, which is pretty much 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.599 any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:24.839 discussed on Stuff to Blow your Mind and the Artifact 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.360 the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before, we 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.480 see sword like weapons in cultures that did not have 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.440 access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality is 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.880 ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here about 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.240 you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that are 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.040 that to the untrained eye might look like a sword. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.919 May even be you may even have bits of stone 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.640 embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.960 So there is something like even when you cannot make 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.800 swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials. There is 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.400 something about the form and to the extension of the 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.800 human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:10.120 in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known, 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:15.159 the sword increasingly took on various literal, symbolic, metaphorical meanings. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.080 And this of course means that swords factor into various 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.120 religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance, 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.960 in Christianity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict, 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:32.000 and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.880 refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.800 anything in a religious text, people will take it and 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:39.680 apply whatever meaning they want to it. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:41.600 Yeah, there are a lot of ways you could read 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:43.760 I come not to bring peace, but a sword. 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.480 Yeah. Now you'll find swords, even flaming swords, and Buddhist 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.400 iconography and Hinduism, and the sword of course also factors 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.960 into Islam. And I bring up these other religious examples 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.360 in part because, based on some of the sources I 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:00.839 was looking at, it does that there is often a 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.000 Western bias in interpreting sword iconography and references in Islam. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.159 As more overtly tied to armed conflict than perhaps in 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:10.559 other religions. This is not to say that the sword 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.160 in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures, it 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.719 doesn't always refer to armed conflict or violence. 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.520 Could be literal, could be metaphorical exactly so. 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.640 Islamic swords may stand for religious or political authority, they 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.960 may stand for mystical knowledge and more in addition to 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.479 military victory. But moving on to specific swords, there are 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.920 a number of them of note from Islamic history. The 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.520 prophet Muhammad is held to have possessed nine swords during 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.640 his life, and the most famous of which is the 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:49.680 Dul Fakhari or dual Fakhar, and may be pronouncing this incorrectly. 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.680 If so, I apologize, But the name's meaning is largely uncertain, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.880 but may relate to concepts of splitting, and is often 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:04.520 depicted as a wronged, split or double bladed sword. You 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.200 can look up images of various images of the sword 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.600 in iconography, and depending on how it's presented, the blade 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.320 may split near the tip or I've seen examples of 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.240 the blade splitting close to the hilt, so I guess 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.480 it kind of runs the gamut from like the highly 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:26.280 symbolic to the believable and practical. And again we're talking 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:32.920 about largely about imagery here. Actual symbolic swords have been produced. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.160 But the sword in question here, the dual fora car, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.880 is I think, largely understood to be a mystical and 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.720 or mythological item. The story goes, however, that the prophet 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.680 acquires the sword at the Battle of baut in six 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.280 twenty four, and then ultimately passes the sword onto his 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.280 son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph now Califf's by 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.320 the way, if you're not familiar, these were the Muslim 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.480 civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad. So the sword 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.280 in question here, the Dulafakar, is strongly associated with Ali. 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.760 There are various legends about his military exploits with this 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.760 mystical weapon and its ability to cut through his enemies. 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.480 Though it is also a symbol of political and spiritual authority. 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.120 It is in many ways said to be the sword 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:25.320 of swords, as Islamic blades were traditionally inscribed with the 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.520 phrase there is no sword but dul Fokar, and there 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:30.960 is no hero but Ali. 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.959 Okay, some superlatives right. 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.439 Right, and you can find examples of this. I was 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:40.160 looking around and like, various museums inevitably have swords of 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:45.680 Islamic origin that have that do mention the Dulfakar on them, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.400 So you can find examples of this, perhaps even in 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.840 your own museum within your own region. Now, some say 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.840 that the actual sword in question here, among other relics, 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.800 is currently in the possession of the Tope Copy Museum 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:05.040 in Turkey. But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism, 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.400 the sword is believed to be in heaven and or 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.480 in the possession of Muhammad Almabi, the Imam believed to 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.360 return at the end of time. So again there's this 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.960 idea that, again a highly mystical sword that is held 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.880 in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.760 Now I say all this to sort of going to 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.600 get into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.040 not the sword that I wanted to talk about in 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.680 connection to today's episode. Like, I've seen no discussion that 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.000 this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:46.920 this sword containing meteoric iron. And I guess we should 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.200 also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:53.200 not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.920 we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:02.160 iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.800 in just a second, but you know, we should remember 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:09.679 that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.480 rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.480 depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.280 rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.440 of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.880 toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.600 religion for better charting of time and location. Thus, you know, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.000 there's a reason to focus more on the movements of 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.120 the stars, and this ends up helping to foster a 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.800 more robust cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.319 in the ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.760 on the other hand, I was reading a survey of 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.880 Muslim materials on comets and meteors by David Cook. According 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.200 to Cook, comets and meteors during the for a very 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:04.680 long time, traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.319 held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial, 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:15.480 so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.320 would still be found in other forms of literature, especially 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.000 when they were held as portents or lined up with 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.080 important deaths or events, such as the death of the 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.400 Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.160 the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.840 the past, I think this was when I was writing 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.360 for How Stuff Works and I was writing or applying 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.200 some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:47.720 I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.640 been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back, 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.440 I tried to get into this because I really wanted 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.720 to figure out where is this coming from, what specifically 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.560 is this referring to? What are the sources? And the 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.920 initial source was a nineteen forty one paper published in 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.559 the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.000 and Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.360 and at one point in the text he discusses the 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:18.000 possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:22.280 the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.680 to read a quote here from it. In later times 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:29.760 we read that Attila, timur Antar and other devastating conquerors 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.400 had swords from heaven. So also the caliphs, whose swords 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.520 were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.520 that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.480 Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.440 were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.559 fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:52.640 the show for a while, you know that we did 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.359 in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.000 a while back, probably a few years at this point. 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.560 And one of the things that we did cover there 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.720 that maybe wasn't as apparent to the author of this 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.120 paper is that the origins of the Cobbastone are far 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:08.040 from a settled matter. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.240 Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.880 don't remember exactly what we concluded there, but it seemed 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:17.439 like there was still plenty of room for uncertainty there, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.800 though there were suggestions of reasons for thinking it may 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.480 have been a stone created by an impact of some sort, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:27.679 whether it came from above, or maybe whether it was 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.680 created of like one of those types of glasses created 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:32.559 by impacts. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.040 Yeah. Yeah, And I think ultimately it's just all observational 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.080 because it's a sacred relic. It's not going to be 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.320 scientifically analyzed, which is the case with many relics around 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.440 the world. In getting into this whole business about the sort, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.640 so that was what I really wanted an answer to, 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.440 and I've got to admit that I was able to 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.160 find out precious little about Islamic swords alleged to have 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.160 been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.960 geologists Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through nineteen 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:07.240 twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by this author, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.400 I didn't really find any answers to my questions either. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.400 I did consult a couple of sources about the history 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.200 of metallurgy in the region, and it is key to 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.160 note that we've already touched on islam arises after the 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.520 end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East and 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:26.480 the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.920 meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.400 the past, and they clearly had access to what is 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.000 often held up is the best steel of the day. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.680 Right, steel being a product of iron, So it would 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.400 not be a question like we talked about with the 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:45.360 King tut example, with this being a product from before 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.680 the regional iron age, from before people before there was 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.080 large scale smelting of iron in the area. There's plenty 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.360 of smelting of iron and production of iron artifacts. These 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.200 would just be iron from a different source in a 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.800 place that was already rich with iron, exactly. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.280 Yeah. Now, interestingly enough, interestingly enough here, I don't know 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.000 to what extent, or any extent this ends up coloring 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:12.400 these older writings by Western writers, if this factors into 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.920 the analysis at all. But there is actually a line 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:22.120 in the Quran fifty seven twenty five that refers to 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:26.360 iron in a way that is sometimes interpreted as having 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.040 some connection to meteoric iron. I'm going to read the 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.680 passage here. This is of course in translation. Indeed, we 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.800 sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.840 sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.320 that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.040 with its great might, benefits for humanity and means for 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.920 Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.040 him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.080 all powerful, almighty ah. 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.560 So I imagine some interpretation is hinging there on the 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.880 phrase we sent down iron, with the idea of iron 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.760 somehow coming from above exactly. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:11.440 Yeah. I was reading paper talk titled Basic Concepts of 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.280 Physics and the Perspective of the Quran by M. M. Karashi. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.600 This was in a nineteen eighty nine edition of Islamic Studies, 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.720 and the author here rights that quote the implication of 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.800 the words has become fully apparent only through historical investigation 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.600 of the earliest use of meteoric iron. So I could 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.880 be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.440 or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.720 lines in the Quran reference on historical understanding of iron 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.160 media rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again as we've 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.080 touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.640 in different parts, and to different degrees, that there was 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.520 a connection between iron and Metea rights between iron and 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.400 the sky. Again, it makes perfect sense given everything we've discussed, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.080 but isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.600 to interpret this verse as just stating that iron in 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:12.399 the earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.240 meteors doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.680 You know, it was sent down just a way of 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.640 saying it came from God, which you know fair enough, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.040 you can say anything was sent down. You could, I 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.800 guess you could say a giraffe was sent down, but 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.160 that doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:31.200 the Earth's atmosphere. 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.200 Well, everything in this passage is said to be sent down, 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.080 and the other cases of sent down here don't necessarily 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.680 seem to imply a physical dissent from space. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.560 Right, So again I invite direction or clarity on these points, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.200 especially from anyone who has Garonic knowledge and so forth. 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.480 But I did find it interesting that in this passage 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:57.440 we see a possible reference to meteoric iron, and then 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.800 we also have these other like more perhaps dubious mentions 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:07.480 in Western ridings about meteoric swords meteoric iron swords that 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:08.640 were used by the Klobs. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.679 All right, Well, I wanted to begin this next section 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:25.399 by looking at how big chunks of meteorc iron arrive 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.840 on Earth. Already we've mentioned several examples of meteoroids that 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:35.080 at some point entered Earth's atmosphere and fragmented or shattered 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.760 in the air, separating into a series of smaller meteorite 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.920 fragments which can be found across an impact field. For example, 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.720 in the last episode, we talked about the Chinga meteorite, 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.159 one piece of which was probably used to make the 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.439 so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.520 while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect, 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.760 the physical origin are not. Really it does seem to 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.880 be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite. 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.439 So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.520 in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia, 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:14.840 since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:19.800 nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.679 large area is the result of some original object coming 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:29.800 apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.520 to twenty thousand years ago. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:32.040 Now. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:37.199 There are different ways for meteoroids to come apart or 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.680 lose their structural integrity in the atmosphere. In some cases 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.560 they land roughly intact, in some cases they split up 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.760 into some number of smaller pieces from the original, and 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.520 in some cases they basically just explode or vaporize, and 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.479 on the explosion end of the scale, the explosions before 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.960 the meteoroids reach the ground these explode are referred to 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.760 as air bursts. In many such cases, the entire object, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.280 or nearly the entire object, is burned up or reduced 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.280 to dust in the process. In the case of the 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:17.200 relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which exploded over Russia in February 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.920 twenty thirteen, an asteroid that was originally like twenty meters 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.720 or sixty five feet in diameter when it entered the 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.160 Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few tens of kilometers above 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.680 the ground. For some reason, I've seen different estimates about 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.120 the altitude. Some say twenty three kilometers up, others say 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.760 thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was, this explosion released 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.080 a huge amount of energy, expressed in the hundreds of 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.600 kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred or five hundred 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.280 kilotons of T and T. The explosion way up there, 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.760 damaged thousands of buildings on the ground, blew out glass, 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.600 and sent some fifteen hundred people to the hospital, though 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.400 thankfully no deaths were reported. 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.560 The footage of this, like the ashboard footage that was 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.480 going around, is quite incredible, so if you haven't seen it, 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:05.480 definitely seek it out. 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.120 Absolutely that is worth looking at. It is awe inspiring, 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.560 and this is a particularly big air burst in the 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.040 modern era, not of course the biggest that can happen, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.440 but very big and recent memory, though, I was reading 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.720 if the object had impacted the ground instead of exploding 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:24.320 high up in the atmosphere, if it had hit the 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.159 ground or exploded lower in the atmosphere, the damage the 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.680 damage could have been much much worse. So in a way, 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.080 the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:37.199 the Cheliubinsk metioroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.600 size of a house, I've read estimates that well below 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.639 one percent of its mass reached the ground in the 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.040 form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.280 seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.760 point one percent of its mass or like zero point 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.879 zero five percent of its mass. Some very small percent 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.920 of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks, 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.399 and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.040 the object broke apart and burned up. So this got 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.679 me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.640 just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:18.560 factor is speed. So the original object, which might be 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.439 a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.280 few meters in diameter, maybe up to tens of meters, 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:29.560 typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:33.080 American meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.880 anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.520 per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:45.840 variability that you might not think about it first. The 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:50.520 speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.920 only on the speed of the comet or the asteroid's 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.919 orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.840 intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:05.080 affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:08.440 orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second, and 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:12.480 is also though this is less important, rotating at about 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.359 one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course, 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.080 speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.159 So even though we use language like the speed at 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.919 which a meteor enters our atmosphere, that could give the 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:29.080 false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:32.440 is moving, in reality, both are moving, and they're moving 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:35.560 in their own directions, and so the speed of entry 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.720 is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:41.679 each other, you know. So it could be kind of 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.160 trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.160 it hits, or it could be like slamming into more 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:48.920 kind of a head on kind of collision with the 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.600 part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course, 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:55.520 other things about other things about the way a meteor 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:59.960 enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fail 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:03.159 whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:06.880 that would include things like the angle of entry anyway, 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:10.399