WEBVTT - From the Vault: Meteoric Metal and Alien Iron, Part 2 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.600 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.640 Robert Lamb. We're out this week, so we're continuing some 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.120 episodes from the vault here. This is going to be 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.560 part two of our series on meteoric metal and alien iron. 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.000 This originally published five nine, twenty twenty four. Let's jump 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:21.360 right in. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:36.839 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:37.960 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.480 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.680 in our series on human uses of metal from the Sky. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.560 If you haven't heard the first episode yet, you should 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.160 go back and check that one out before you listen 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.560 to this. But in that episode brief recap, we focused 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:58.160 mostly on a specific artifact from the New Kingdom of Egypt, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.840 which was a dagger found wrapped up with the mummy 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.600 of the pharaotutin Common, which had a blade made of iron. 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.840 Now that might not sound remarkable, but this was a 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.720 blade made of iron from an era before the large 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.480 scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And the really cool 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.040 thing about this knife and many other iron artifacts from 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.160 before the regional iron age in Egypt is that they 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.920 were probably created out of iron that came from a 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:31.000 meteorite space metal. So we also discussed the history of 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.360 knowledge that meteorites come from space, including the story of 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.640 how European scientists came to generally agree on the cosmic 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.720 origin of meteorite rocks only around the beginning of the 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.520 nineteenth century or so, and then also some interesting evidence 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.160 that the ancient Egyptians did actually know that iron meteorites 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.760 came from space, for example the way they referred to 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.040 iron as the iron of the sky or the metal 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.640 of the sky, and some other linguistic clues, clues in 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.880 the way the glyphs of the Hieroglyphic language are put together. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.000 And then there are also some other languages like Sumerian, 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:12.120 which have long had similar associations between iron or certain 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.079 types of iron and the sky. And so today we're 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.560 back to talk about more examples of the use of 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:23.880 metal from space in human artifacts in human technological history. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.720 That's right, and where we're going to go next. We're 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.639 going to get back into the use of iron and 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.960 meteoric iron in meteorites in Chinese tradition, Chinese history, and 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:41.200 maybe just a little dash of Chinese mythology. I want 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.360 to refer back to a write up on iron that 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.840 appears in the seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.239 by Brian and Fagan. With this particular bit by Paul Tikratic. 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.720 Cratic sums up Chinese iron usage by pointing out that 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:02.359 iron production in China began around ninth century BCE, perhaps 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.760 introduced from the West, but also just as likely an 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:09.160 independent invention, and that by the Han period to go 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.280 to BCE, the Chinese quote incontestably led the world in 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.880 iron technology and production. But of course, as with these 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.160 other examples we've been looking at, we do have evidence 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.880 of artifacts created with meteoric iron prior to this. Specifically 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.920 it takes us back to the Sheng dynasty. This would 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.120 have been around fourteen one hundred BCE. Now, as we 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.920 previously mentioned, there of course has been some back and 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:40.840 forth on the testing of various pre Iron Age iron artifacts, 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.200 and ultimately a lot of that is still going on, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.480 and these blades are often mentioned in some of those documents. 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.000 Now in that paper that I credited in the last 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.720 episode from Albert Jambond, twenty seventeenth Bronze Age iron meteoretic 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.520 or not a chemical strategy. At least according to this source, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.600 the nickel count is low in these examples, but not 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.720 low enough to assign terrestrial origin, and that this is 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.880 definitely a case it seems like where the lower nickel 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.400 content is likely due to weathering effects. The blades themselves 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:19.400 have long been discussed as probable examples of meteoric iron, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.640 going back at least as far as the book two 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.560 Early Chinese bronz Weapons with Meteoritic Iron Blades by gettens 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.599 at All in nineteen seventy one, which details that these 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.479 blades were found in nineteen thirty one in Anyang, Hanan 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.799 within a single tomb, which is also cited in Metals 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.760 in Antiquity by Young at All nineteen ninety nine. Now 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.040 I have a picture here of these artifacts here for 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.120 you to look at, Joe and everyone else. You can 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.680 look these up as well online. Just look for meteoric 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.719 iron Chinese axes or Chinese broad axes and you can 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.640 likely find images of this. You can tell that these 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:05.680 were ornate, highly stylized weapons. Now, I want to note 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.240 that both of these sources here that are talking about it, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.280 they seem to indicate less than certainty in some of 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.080 the details, saying that there seems to be a lot 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.360 of believe to have been in these references. Though to 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.359 be clear, these weapons have long been in the Freer 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.800 collection at the Smithsonian, and there's no indication that the 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.320 dating or a larger geographic origin is particularly endowed here. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:31.880 I just couldn't help but pick up on the fact 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.479 that this is one of those accounts where there seem 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.159 to be a little bit of ambiguity but no real 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.240 sticking points I think in trying to understand where these 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:45.520 came from. These would have been Chinese broad axes, formally 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:50.240 inlaid and again likely largely ceremonial. These are not weapons 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.280 that would be out on the battlefield. 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.919 Ah. Yeah, and I had been assuming the same was 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.760 true of Tuton Commons iron dagger, though in fact I 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:00.599 guess I don't have a way of knowing that for sure. 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.640 Don't have a reason to suspect to use this for 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:05.000 knife dueling or anything. 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.200 Yeah, it's interesting to think about these examples in terms 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.599 of how do you use it right, because you know, 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.280 we have cases where you're going to have some sort 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.039 of an iron weapon that is going to be of 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.680 exceptional quality, but you're going to have so few of them, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.159 maybe even just one. You know, what, what are you 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.440 going to do during the Bronze period with your iron weapon. 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.479 It's kind of like if, as a thought experiment, you 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.080 were to say, okay, what if I were to take 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.240 a lightsaber back to the Hundred Years War between England 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.479 and France during the fourteenth and fifteenth century, and you 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.200 gave it to one side or the other? You know, 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.360 what good is it going to do? You know, you 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.560 could make a case maybe for some sort of special 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.560 forces style use of the weapon by either party. Okay, 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.039 single combat, sure, but more likely than not, a single 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.320 light saber is not going to decide anything during the 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.440 fourteenth or fifteenth century in any kind of like warfare scenario. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.720 Would make far more sense as a ritual object, as 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.720 a tool of propaganda, as is essentially like a scepter 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.640 to show how special and or powerful you are. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.080 And as we talked about last time, with the specific 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.800 case of iron versus the dominant metal of bronze, there's 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.840 not even really a clear material superiority of early iron 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.240 weapons over say, well made bronze ones of the period 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.800 that the advantages of iron when moving into the iron age, 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:33.640 were primarily advantages in terms of economics and the sourcing 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.200 of materials, that it was easier to produce lots of 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.080 iron implements and tools and weapons at scale, rather than 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 it being that iron is just a much better metal 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.360 or something right right. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.400 And the other key point, as we discussed in the 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:52.400 last episode, is the knowledge of where the meteoric iron 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.920 came from, like knowing that this weapon is, you know, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.680 of heavenly origin or of cosmic origin and so forth, 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.200 that seems to often be really important. And so I'm 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.920 going to get into that question here with Chinese examples. 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.280 Turning first back to gettens at All the work to 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.120 early Chinese bronze weapons with iron blades from seventy one. 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.920 They point out that meteorite falls were known to the 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.600 ancient Chinese and discussed in their literature, often in reference 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.760 to portents. So if the metal used was known to 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.760 have come from the sky, they contend, it would have 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.439 added to the auspiciousness of the weapons and the reason 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.920 that the iron was used in these cases instead of jade, 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.400 which typically occupied an elevated position of ceremonial importance for 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.280 weapons and so forth. Such usage may have also influenced 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:52.400 known Chinese meteorite fragments. Quote such a use of meteoritic 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.200 iron might also explain the fact that only one iron 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.800 meteorite find is known from China. This I is referring 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:07.240 to ancient examples of meteorite, the idea being that iron 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.960 meteorites would have been known as a source for this 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.200 sort of metal and would have been used as such. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.480 And certainly these are not the only known examples of 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:23.480 Chinese meteoric weapons or weapons or artifacts that are believed 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.439 or it's argued, may be made of such iron. There 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.800 are several known artifacts of possible meteoric iron from the 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:36.640 late Sheng and early Western Zo. So for examples of 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.319 some of those observations, because they mentioned, okay, the ancient 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.920 Chinese knew about meteorites. They knew they came from the sky. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.439 For some examples of this knowledge, I turned to the 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:53.199 nineteen ninety four paper Meteorite Falls in China and some 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.840 Related human Casualty Events by Yao at All, published in 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:01.839 the journal Meteoritics. They looked at accounts from roughly seven 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:07.280 hundred BCE through nineteen twenty CE, with the earliest account 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.040 cited found in the Spring and Autumn Annals, traditionally attributed 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:16.880 to Confucius, who would have historically lived around five fifty 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.280 one through four to seventy nine BCE. This work is 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.320 one of the five classics of ancient Chinese literature and 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.040 it covers an historical period stretching from seven twenty two 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:31.440 to for eighty one BCE, and the work includes coverage 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.000 of a six forty five BCE event in which quote 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:40.800 in translation of course, five stones fell in Sung And 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.240 there are various other accounts in this article that they 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.560 don't highlight all of them, but they highlight some of 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:52.760 historic Note there is a Sei dynasty account. This is 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.800 from the work History of the Suy Dynasty, and it 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:03.160 refers to a six sixteen b CE meteorite, with the 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:08.120 account depicting a meteorite hitting a siege tower during the 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:12.360 besiegement of a walled city. What yeah, So the idea 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.240 is that there's a you know, a siege situation going on, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.600 a meteorite hits, takes out the siege tower, causes the sea, 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.600 and then either the strike of the meteorite or the 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.800 perhaps far more likely the subsequent collapse of said siege 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.840 tower results in I believe I read possibly ten fatalities. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.160 That was their I think recorded number. If this is true, 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:41.319 it might stand as the earliest recorded human meteorite related fatality. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.840 These are of course rare. You're talking about situations where 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.559 the you know, a meteorite hits somebody or hits the 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.200 vicinity of a human and in doing so, results in 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:57.880 a casualty. But it's also non entirely clear. I've read 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:02.679 some criticism of this account saying, Okay, this is certainly possible. 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.880 It would be a very rare occurrence. We also have 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.559 to just acknowledge that it's possible that this siege tower 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.280 was taken out by something far more mundane, like human 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.840 munitions fired from the wall of the sieged city, that 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.120 sort of thing. But it is kind of It is 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.920 cataloged in the historic records, so I've seen numerous texts 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.120 acknowledge it and say, well, perhaps this is true. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:29.840 Yeah. 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:34.559 So hundreds of accounts follow these early accounts of meteorites 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.480 and the Chinese records, and I'm not going to go 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.800 through all of them, or even the ones listed in 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.560 this source. But there's one more I wanted to mention 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.600 here because it does line up with what we're talking 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.320 about and the subject of meteors and iron, and that 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.839 is the non meteorite shower of thirteen forty one. It's 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.400 notable because it seems to have been a shower of 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.600 iron meteorites, and it was even referred to as quote 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:03.640 the iron rain, with descriptions of the resulting bore holes 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.360 in the earth matching up with what we know of 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.240 iron meteorite impacts today. Now. Thirteen forty one, of course, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:16.120 is far outside the Bronze Age examples we're looking at, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.640 but you know, you combine this with certainly these much 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.120 earlier examples, and it does seem clear that the ancient 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:27.320 Chinese knew that meteorites came from above, they came from 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.360 the sky, and that alone would be enough to sort 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:36.280 of factor into these myth making understandings of what a 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:41.080 weapon forged of such iron would mean. By the way, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.679 speaking of Chinese mythology, it's worth noting that you the Great, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.040 the character that we've talked about on the show before, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.520 founder of the Shop of the dynasty, in myth and legend, 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.480 the bringer of flood controls is sometimes, at least at 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:03.800 least in early China, these mythology connected to meteorites. Oh so, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.040 according to Mark Edward Lewis in the Mythology of Early China, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.240 some texts say that you was born of a stone 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.960 or in a place named for a stone, while other 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.600 tellings state that quote his mother was inseminated by a 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.400 magical stone or meteor. 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.840 Oh. Interesting, this is a different way of sort of 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.400 like a parenthood by the gods. Yeah. 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.400 Yeah, so I had not run across this before. I 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.200 cross checked it in a couple of my go to 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.360 Chinese mythology sources Yang and in Turner's Chinese Mythology and 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.800 Burrell's work on Chinese mythology. Both of these texts, I 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.960 refer to an origin story for you by which he's 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.920 born from the belly of his father's corpse following the 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:54.880 said father's execution. And this I'm guessing this entirely masculine 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.080 birth as a Buryl describes it. I guess this is 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.880 the predominant origin story that comes later, and that Lewis 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:06.960 here is focusing primarily on early tellings before those traditions emerged. 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:08.960 Oh okay, I see so. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.760 Anyway, these uh, these axes among other artifacts, you know, 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:18.800 another example of an ancient Bronze Age culture having access 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.440 to meteoric iron, using it to craft weapons that then 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.240 have an exalted place within their culture. Uh and so, 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.800 and definitely look up images of this if you have 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.200 the ability to do so readily, because you can you know, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.040 they're they're they're not in pristine form, they haven't been 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.880 restored or anything like that. They're not anywhere near the 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.760 the completeness of Tout and Commons dagger, but you can 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:46.800 still get a sense of the majesty they would have had. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:16:00.320 Yeah, even the stubs are beautiful. Okay. I want to 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:07.880 talk about a statue, specifically a metal sculpture allegedly from Tibet, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.960 sometimes called the Iron Man, referred to in a lot 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.400 of media reports as the Iron Man or sometimes as 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.920 the Space Buddha. 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.640 Well, these both, these descriptions both take you somewhere, that's 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:24.040 for sure. 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.520 So this statue weighs about ten point six kilograms or 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.280 about twenty three pounds, and is roughly twenty four centimeters 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.120 or about nine and a half inches tall. It is 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.680 made of iron, and it depicts a bearded male figure 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.960 that is sometimes referred to as a Buddha, sometimes referred 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.080 to as a God sometimes referred to as a man, 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.600 but he is depicted wearing trousers, a sort of cape 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.480 or cloak that's joined over his shoulders in a knot 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.560 on his chest. He's wearing kind of almost kind of 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:02.120 cloglike looking shoes with a split in the cuff at 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.600 the bottom of the pant legs, and what looks to 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.680 me kind of like scale armor over his mid section. 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.560 And then on that scale armor there is the symbol 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.960 of a swastika, which, remember, before it was appropriated by 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.199 the German Nazi Party, that was around nineteen twenty, it 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.399 was for centuries or even millennia, a traditional symbol with 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.920 positive associations in a lot of different cultures and religions 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.320 throughout the world, notably in Hinduism and Buddhism. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.600 That's right, and it still has that status in various 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:41.879 Hindu and Buddhist traditions, though of course permanently ruined in 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.680 the West by the appropriation of the Nazi Party. 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.120 Yeah, and so in the iron Man statue, the figure 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:53.119 has a halo like disc behind his head and he 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.919 is clutching a round egg shaped object in one hand. 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.399 His legs are folded underneath. His body looks like he 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:05.040 could be sitting cross legged or perhaps even dancing. But 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.879 this whole thing is carved out of a solid piece 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.920 of metal with a rough, unfinished base below the figure. 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.520 So what is the deal with this weird metal statue. Well, 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.840 there was a bunch of media about this statue way 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.840 back in twenty twelve that was associated with the publication 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:28.040 of a paper that was looking into its physical makeup 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.800 and its origins. The paper was by Buckner at All, 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.640 published in the journal Media Critics and Planetary Science again 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.200 in twenty twelve, and it was called Buddha from Space, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.960 an ancient object of art made of a China iron 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.000 metia write fragment. So I'm going to start with what 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.600 was originally alleged by it, but keep in mind that 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.159 some of the information I'm going to say at first 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:56.040 is either not certain or almost certainly not true. The 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.920 lead author of this paper, Elmer Buckner, is a geologist 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:05.080 affiliated with the Planetology Institute at Stuttgart University, and so 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.679 the authors of this paper were looking into the question 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.480 of first of all, what this statue is made of, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.159 but also what does it depict and where did it 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.760 come from? As to where it comes from, there again, 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.520 is plenty of debate about this, but the story as 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.960 received by the authors of the paper goes like this. 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.800 In the years nineteen thirty eight and nineteen thirty nine, 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:33.960 Adolf Hitler's SS sponsored a research and propaganda expedition to Tibet. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.760 This is kind of a famous, famous expedition about which 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.919 there has been much sort of cultural legend. But this 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.560 expedition was led by the German zoologist and explorer Ernst Schaffer. 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.680 This expedition collected a lot of material for return to Germany. 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.119 So they took a bunch of plant and animal samples, 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.760 seeds and grains and plants, and they cataloged birds. There 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.879 was ornithology missions and stuff like that. And it also 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.240 took a lot of cultural artifacts, including, according to a 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.960 Triple As blog post about this paper by Stephen A. 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.280 Edwards quote, a robe believed to have been worn by 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.320 the Dali Lama, a gold coin, and the iron statue. 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.240 The latter apparently attracted the attention of the Nazis because 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:24.120 of a swastika carved into its center. So that's the 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.000 story about where it came from. What does appear to 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.800 be true is that the statue was in the possession 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.359 of a private collector from some time unknown until the 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.640 year two thousand and seven, which is the same year 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:42.240 these authors began investigating it. But before then. The allegation 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:45.960 is that it was taken from Tibet by Schaffer's men 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.239 in the late thirties and then disappeared during World War II, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.400 only to reappear to the public in the two thousands. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.080 All right, now, as to the question of what the 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.400 statue is made of, the authors conducted an elemental analysis 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.720 and found that the concentration of elements present in the 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.840 metal was consistent with an iron meteorite, so much like 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.880 the analysis we talked about in the previous episode looking 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:14.080 at King Tut's dagger. Here they found high concentrations of nickel. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:19.040 This statue was approximately sixteen percent nickel by weight and 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.159 about zero point six percent cobalt, and these are not 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.719 ratios you would expect to find in earth based iron. 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.080 Earth based iron extracted from before the eighteen hundreds tends 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.560 to be not more than about four percent nickel. Also, 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.760 the authors analyzed the ratios of trace platinum group metals 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:41.080 and found that these were also consistent with meteorite iron. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.080 Not only that they were able to match this metal 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:50.280 to the composition of meteorites from a specific known impact area. 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.720 They write, quote, the geochemical data of the meteorite generally 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.200 matched the element values known from fragments of the Chinga 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:04.960 atax site taxite meaning ungrouped iron meteorite strewn field, discovered 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.280 in nineteen thirteen. The provenance of the meteorite, as well 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.679 as the piece of art strongly points to the border 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:15.560 region of eastern Siberia and Mongolia. Accordingly, and I went 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.520 and did a little more looking, So it seems that 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:22.000 the Chinga meteorite is sort of it's an area rather 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:27.360 than one specific object. The Chinga meteorite field is something 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:32.440 that contains fragments of meteorite found by gold miners in Tuva, 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.360 which is a region of southern Siberia in Russia near 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:40.240 the border with Mongolia, and the hundreds of meteorite fragments 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.679 found there are thought to result from an object that 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.520 exploded in the atmosphere over Tuva between ten and twenty 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.800 thousand years ago. So the scientific evidence that the iron 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.920 Man statue was made out of meteorite iron seems quite strong. 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.000 But what about these other questions? What does this statue 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.600 depict and when was a when and where was it made? 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.200 Here's where we start getting into the much more disputed territory. 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:08.760 The authors of this twenty twelve paper claimed that it 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:12.840 was likely a depiction of the warrior king, god and 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:17.320 wealth Buddha known as Viceravanna, who is the guardian of 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.480 the North. There you can think of sort of heavenly 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:24.040 beings that are guardians of the cardinal directions, and Viceravanna 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.959 is the guardian of the North. This figure, Viceravanna, shares 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:32.360 characteristics with the Hindu deity known as Kubera and is 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:36.720 also known as Jambala, sometimes shown carrying a lemon or 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.000 a money bag in his hand, and in other depictions, 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.760 especially earlier ones, the authors say that Viceravana is shown 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:47.520 as quote, a corpulent figure that holds a mongoose which 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:52.080 spews jewels from its mouth. Sometimes also, especially beginning in 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.119 the second half of the eighth century, they say he 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.679 is shown with ghosts at his feet. So, due to 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:03.960 a number of visual motifs such as the crossed legs 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:07.200 and the scale armor and so forth, the authors believe 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.480 that this is Viceravana we're looking at. But they also 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.360 write their thoughts about the religious significance of the swastika 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.320 in the image. They say, quote, the swastika prominently displayed 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.359 on the cuirass of the sculpture was a symbol frequently 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:26.080 used by the nature based pre Buddhist Bun religion rooted 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:29.320 in the western parts of Tibet. The Bun religion had 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:33.400 its own literature and art that was, they say, continuously 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:37.960 absorbed into the Tibetan Buddhism that propagated into the entire 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:41.000 area of Buddhist influence. A paper I'm going to talk 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:44.080 about in a minute I think will somewhat dispute that claim. 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:48.000 But they say, accordingly, the iron man could represent a 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:53.160 Bun slash Buddhist hybrid, showing some recognition features of Kubera 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:54.760 the early Viceravana. 0:24:55.880 --> 0:25:00.040 Good, all right, and not getting into the criticism I 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.520 was about to come, that would seemingly make sense. We 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:08.680 can point in various examples not only in Buddhist traditions, 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:11.720 but in other traditions where we see these emerging of 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:15.480 art styles and merging of cultures in a particular sculpture 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:16.200 or other work. 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.840 Sure, and so going with this hybrid art hypothesis, they 0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:23.760 write quote. According to this interpretation, the possible provenance of 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:27.320 the Iron Man is Western Tibet or anywhere in the 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.840