1 00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:06,840 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:15,560 Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 3 00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:16,960 Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb. 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:19,320 Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick. And today on Stuff to Blow 5 00:00:19,360 --> 00:00:21,119 Speaker 3: Your Mind, we wanted to kick off a series of 6 00:00:21,160 --> 00:00:28,760 Speaker 3: episodes on tools, blades, weapons, artifacts, ceremonial ornaments, and various 7 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,520 Speaker 3: things things made by humans out of materials that came 8 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:37,199 Speaker 3: from outer space, particularly stuff made from meteorite iron. 9 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:40,839 Speaker 2: Yeah. So, whether you've listened to our show before or not, 10 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,040 Speaker 2: you're probably familiar with the three age system of classifying 11 00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:48,920 Speaker 2: ancient civilizations, defining them by their material and the technological 12 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,280 Speaker 2: level of advancement for that given civilization. And this is 13 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:55,680 Speaker 2: not without its complexity and even its controversy, as we'll 14 00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:58,840 Speaker 2: get into, but it divides things into the Stone Age, 15 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,360 Speaker 2: the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. In this series 16 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 2: of episodes from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going 17 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:07,319 Speaker 2: to be dealing predominantly with the Age of Bronze, typified 18 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:12,479 Speaker 2: by its bronze production and lasting very roughly. And these 19 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,280 Speaker 2: dates are not solid for all places and civilizations. A 20 00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:20,720 Speaker 2: strong caveat there from somewhere around thirty three hundred to 21 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:24,520 Speaker 2: twelve hundred BCE, So we're dealing with a very amorphous 22 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:28,759 Speaker 2: period of time here, and the transference into the age 23 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,400 Speaker 2: of iron is much the same. But before we jump 24 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:34,640 Speaker 2: into the key example that we're going to be looking 25 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:36,520 Speaker 2: at in this episode, I just wanted to share a 26 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,720 Speaker 2: couple of quotes to perhaps help put this time frame 27 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,440 Speaker 2: in perspective and even cast a different light on civilization 28 00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:47,520 Speaker 2: before the widespread production and use of iron. Both of 29 00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:52,600 Speaker 2: these are from books that deal more specifically with Chinese 30 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:57,000 Speaker 2: technology and Chinese history, but I believe some of the 31 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:00,240 Speaker 2: takeaways from both of these quotes are just appliable across 32 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:03,000 Speaker 2: the board. So this first one is a quote from 33 00:02:03,080 --> 00:02:07,800 Speaker 2: John Key in his book A History of China. He writes, quote, Indeed, 34 00:02:07,960 --> 00:02:10,799 Speaker 2: bronze came to occupy much the same position in ancient 35 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:13,919 Speaker 2: China as stone. In the contemporary civilization of Egypt or 36 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:18,440 Speaker 2: later those of Iran, Persia and Greece. Enormous effort was 37 00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:23,920 Speaker 2: devoted to producing bronzewear. Highly sophisticated ideas were expressed through it. 38 00:02:24,360 --> 00:02:27,280 Speaker 2: Some of the earliest inscriptions were found on it, and 39 00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:32,360 Speaker 2: its durability has ensured that plentiful examples have survived. And 40 00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:35,480 Speaker 2: this other quote is from Joseph Needham, whose work we've 41 00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:38,440 Speaker 2: discussed in the show before, from Science and Society in 42 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 2: Ancient China quote, it looks as if the earliest kings 43 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:46,120 Speaker 2: or feudal princes recognized bronze metallurgy to be the basis 44 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:49,960 Speaker 2: of feudal power over the Neolithic peasantry because of the 45 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:54,079 Speaker 2: superior arms which it rendered possible, and therefore they appropriated 46 00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:58,519 Speaker 2: that the technique of metalworking. So what I like about 47 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:00,720 Speaker 2: these two quotes is I think they helped drive home 48 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,320 Speaker 2: that bronze was not only a material for tools, but 49 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,639 Speaker 2: a material through which culture was made manifest, as well 50 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,120 Speaker 2: as a source of power, both in physical weaponry and 51 00:03:09,160 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 2: even just as an idea. And while these examples, again 52 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:15,440 Speaker 2: are both from texts that focus exclusively on Chinese history, 53 00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:17,440 Speaker 2: I think you can sort of get a broader take 54 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:20,919 Speaker 2: home from them, Like I said earlier, So on top 55 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:22,600 Speaker 2: of that, I would say, also, I think it's essential 56 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:24,920 Speaker 2: to keep in mind that the Bronze Age was far 57 00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:29,720 Speaker 2: from just a period between or a precursor to something 58 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,720 Speaker 2: you know better or more advanced. It was a time 59 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:34,840 Speaker 2: of great technological and cultural advancement. It was the age 60 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:39,000 Speaker 2: of the wheel, of irrigation, of writing systems, enhanced weaponry, 61 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:43,080 Speaker 2: and much more. And it's not merely the time before iron. 62 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:46,400 Speaker 2: It is the time that gave birth to iron technology 63 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:47,640 Speaker 2: as well well. 64 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:49,560 Speaker 3: And I think that that can really be driven home 65 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:52,960 Speaker 3: in the fact that iron is not even necessarily for 66 00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:56,920 Speaker 3: all uses a superior metal to bronze. Bronze could be 67 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:00,600 Speaker 3: considered materially superior in some ways. It's just that iron 68 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:05,120 Speaker 3: is once you have the technology to smelt it and 69 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:07,880 Speaker 3: then work it in the high temperatures you need, it 70 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,920 Speaker 3: is easier to produce at mass scales and cheaper. 71 00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:13,320 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely from what I've read, there's 72 00:04:13,360 --> 00:04:17,640 Speaker 2: definitely a period of time in which your early smelted 73 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:20,640 Speaker 2: iron tools, weapons, what have you are not going to 74 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 2: be as durable and as highly efficient as the high 75 00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:29,599 Speaker 2: end bronze weapons and tools of that same time period. 76 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:32,240 Speaker 3: But you can make more of them, right right. 77 00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:34,440 Speaker 2: But eventually, of course, iron comes to. 78 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:36,600 Speaker 3: Dominate, especially in the form of steel. 79 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,080 Speaker 2: Yes, I know some will say steel isn't strong, flesh 80 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:42,760 Speaker 2: is strong, YadA, YadA, YadA, but steel is pretty strong. 81 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:46,120 Speaker 3: Well, I do want to start within one of the 82 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:50,880 Speaker 3: regional Bronze ages. To start off today's episode by looking 83 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:55,920 Speaker 3: at a very intriguing and mysterious artifact from ancient Egypt. 84 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:59,960 Speaker 3: This is a dagger from the stars found buried alongside 85 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:04,159 Speaker 3: the pharaoh tutin Common. So the tomb of the eighteenth 86 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:08,600 Speaker 3: dynasty Egyptian pharaoh tutin Common was uncovered by the British 87 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:13,000 Speaker 3: archaeologist Howard Carter and his team in nineteen twenty two. 88 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:17,440 Speaker 3: Tutin Common reigned from thirteen sixty one to thirteen fifty 89 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,080 Speaker 3: two BCE, becoming king around the age of nine or so, 90 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 3: unruling until his early death around the age of eighteen. 91 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:29,560 Speaker 3: Tutin Common is thought to have been a son of 92 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:33,480 Speaker 3: the pharaoh Acinaten, though from what I understand this relationship 93 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:37,000 Speaker 3: is not totally certain. There is a DNA relationship to 94 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:39,800 Speaker 3: another mummy that has been found that is presumed to 95 00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 3: be Akinatin, but it's not known for sure. Acinatein his 96 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:47,600 Speaker 3: likely father, was notable for trying to replace the traditional 97 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:52,240 Speaker 3: polytheistic religion of Egypt with a It's debatable how to 98 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:57,839 Speaker 3: characterize this, but a monotheistic or monoltruistic or perhaps henotheistic 99 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:02,240 Speaker 3: whatever you call it, focus on single God, an emphasis 100 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:05,040 Speaker 3: of one god above all the others from the Egyptian pantheon, 101 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,120 Speaker 3: and that is the solar deity Atan, which took the 102 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,440 Speaker 3: form of the disk of the Sun. We've talked about 103 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,200 Speaker 3: that sort of attempt to go one God early in 104 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:17,880 Speaker 3: Egypt before, but this shift did not last long after 105 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:22,359 Speaker 3: Achinatin's death, and one of Tutonkommon's main accomplishments as pharaoh 106 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:26,640 Speaker 3: seems to have been the restoration of the old polytheistic cults. 107 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:31,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, the rejection of new coke and the re acceptance 108 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:32,320 Speaker 2: of old coke. 109 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,760 Speaker 3: Play in the hits getting the old gang together. So 110 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,760 Speaker 3: Tutancommon's tomb was considered a very special discovery in the 111 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:44,680 Speaker 3: twentieth century because even though it had been partially looted 112 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:47,839 Speaker 3: at least twice shortly after it was sealed, it was 113 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:52,240 Speaker 3: still considered relatively intact compared to other tombs, so many 114 00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:55,160 Speaker 3: of the original grave goods were still in place. And 115 00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:57,200 Speaker 3: this was not really the case at all for most 116 00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,400 Speaker 3: of the other royal tombs of ancient Egypt. They were 117 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:03,760 Speaker 3: mostly scoured by grave robbers thousands of years ago. This 118 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:07,680 Speaker 3: is sometimes misstated as saying that that Tuten comments Tune 119 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,520 Speaker 3: tomb had never been disturbed, and that's not true. It 120 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:12,840 Speaker 3: was robbed long ago like all the rest of them, 121 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:15,880 Speaker 3: it just didn't get robbed as much. And some have 122 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:20,680 Speaker 3: speculated that Tuton Common's tomb was relatively well preserved because 123 00:07:20,760 --> 00:07:23,800 Speaker 3: the entrance got covered up by stuff and people pretty 124 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:27,080 Speaker 3: quickly forgot where it was. And so when this tomb 125 00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:30,880 Speaker 3: was rediscovered in the twentieth century, it contained a wealth 126 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:34,520 Speaker 3: of treasures and a beautiful, wonderful glimpse into the past. 127 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,520 Speaker 3: So for a taste of the variety of objects found 128 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:40,360 Speaker 3: in the tomb, I just wanted to read directly from 129 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,680 Speaker 3: the diary entry of Howard Carter describing the day of 130 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:47,400 Speaker 3: November twenty sixth, nineteen twenty two, when his team finally 131 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:49,800 Speaker 3: cleared away the last of the rubble from the passageway 132 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:53,560 Speaker 3: into the tomb and got the first look inside. So 133 00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,160 Speaker 3: Carter writes, quote, it was sometime before one could see 134 00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:00,560 Speaker 3: the hot air escaping caused the candle to flick, But 135 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,440 Speaker 3: as soon as one's eyes became accustomed to the glimmer 136 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 3: of light, the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one, 137 00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:11,280 Speaker 3: with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful 138 00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:16,000 Speaker 3: objects heaped upon one another. There was naturally short suspense 139 00:08:16,080 --> 00:08:19,120 Speaker 3: for those present who could not see. When Lord Carnivon 140 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,560 Speaker 3: said to me, can you see anything? I replied to him, yes, 141 00:08:22,880 --> 00:08:25,920 Speaker 3: it is wonderful. I then, with precaution, made the whole 142 00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 3: sufficiently large for both of us to see. With the 143 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,840 Speaker 3: light of an electric torch as well as an additional candle, 144 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:36,439 Speaker 3: we looked in. Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe, 145 00:08:36,600 --> 00:08:39,520 Speaker 3: as the better light revealed to us the marvelous collection 146 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:43,400 Speaker 3: of treasures. Two strange ebony black effigies of a king, 147 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,040 Speaker 3: gold sandaled bearing staff and mace loomed out from the 148 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:52,720 Speaker 3: cloak of darkness. Gilded couches in strange forms lion headed, 149 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:59,320 Speaker 3: hathor headed, and beast infernal, exquisitely painted inlaid and ornamental caskets, 150 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:05,120 Speaker 3: flo alabaster vases, some beautifully executed of lotus and papyrus, 151 00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:09,920 Speaker 3: device strange black shrines with a gilded monster snake appearing 152 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:14,680 Speaker 3: from within, quite ordinary looking white chests, finely carved chairs, 153 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:18,720 Speaker 3: a golden inlaid throne, a heap of large, curious white 154 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:22,960 Speaker 3: oviform boxes beneath our very eyes, on the threshold, a 155 00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:27,920 Speaker 3: lovely lodiform wishing cup in translucent alabaster, stools of all 156 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:32,360 Speaker 3: shapes and design of both common and rare materials, and lastly, 157 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:37,000 Speaker 3: a confusion of overturned parts of chariots glinting with gold 158 00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:41,320 Speaker 3: peering from amongst which was a mannikin the first impression 159 00:09:41,360 --> 00:09:44,280 Speaker 3: of which suggested the property room of an opera of 160 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,560 Speaker 3: a vanished civilization. Our sensations were bewildering and full of 161 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:51,960 Speaker 3: strange emotion. We questioned one another as to the meaning 162 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,720 Speaker 3: of it all. Was it a tomb or merely a cache? 163 00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:58,680 Speaker 3: A sealed doorway between the two sentinel statues proved there 164 00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,000 Speaker 3: was more beyond, and with the numerous cartouches bearing the 165 00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:05,719 Speaker 3: name of Touton common on most of the objects before us, 166 00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:08,880 Speaker 3: there was little doubt that there behind was the grave 167 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:09,760 Speaker 3: of that pharaoh. 168 00:10:10,559 --> 00:10:14,360 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like the atmosphere he captures here in 169 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:14,960 Speaker 2: this description. 170 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:17,880 Speaker 3: One of my favorite things is the description of the 171 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:22,080 Speaker 3: disassembled parts of the chariot, all there piled up in 172 00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:26,880 Speaker 3: the tomb. Anyway, documenting the contents of the tomb went 173 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:30,640 Speaker 3: on for years after the initial discovery, and one of 174 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:34,720 Speaker 3: the objects found later this was in nineteen twenty five. 175 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:39,400 Speaker 3: This was buried right along with the pharaoh's body. One 176 00:10:39,400 --> 00:10:42,800 Speaker 3: of these artifacts. It was a beautiful dagger. In fact, 177 00:10:42,920 --> 00:10:46,240 Speaker 3: there were two daggers buried with tooton common, one made 178 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:50,240 Speaker 3: of gold and another made of iron. And ironically it's 179 00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:53,160 Speaker 3: the iron dagger that I would like to focus on, 180 00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:55,640 Speaker 3: So Rob, I've got some pictures for you to look 181 00:10:55,679 --> 00:10:59,720 Speaker 3: at here, this sort of like with different sides of 182 00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:03,520 Speaker 3: theagger facing and then different types of illumination. But the 183 00:11:03,559 --> 00:11:06,680 Speaker 3: iron dagger is a little over a foot long, and 184 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:09,240 Speaker 3: it was found not only within the king's tomb but 185 00:11:09,559 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 3: with his mummified remains inside the inner coffin, and in 186 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:17,079 Speaker 3: fact not only in the inner coffin, but literally inside 187 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:20,760 Speaker 3: the king's wrappings, so wrapped up with him up against 188 00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:23,680 Speaker 3: his thigh, the gold dagger was apparently on his abdomen. 189 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:27,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very splendid looking weapon, and there are 190 00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:30,280 Speaker 2: no shortage of images of this, you can easily look 191 00:11:30,360 --> 00:11:31,160 Speaker 2: up online. 192 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,120 Speaker 3: So the knife has a handle made out of gold 193 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:37,760 Speaker 3: with a crystal knob on the end, sort of very 194 00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:41,880 Speaker 3: smooth and rounded off crystal knob, and a golden sheath 195 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:46,400 Speaker 3: decorated with images of on one part a repeating feather pattern. 196 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:50,400 Speaker 3: There are flowers I think maybe supposed to be Lilly's, 197 00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:54,680 Speaker 3: and there's also a jackal's head. And surprisingly, this dagger 198 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,079 Speaker 3: made out of iron remained relatively rust free for all 199 00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:02,920 Speaker 3: these centuries. Though it does have blemishes, they're not rust Instead, 200 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:05,480 Speaker 3: it has black spots in the middle that to me 201 00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:09,160 Speaker 3: almost look like lunar maria. They're these sort of you know, strange, 202 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:14,640 Speaker 3: beautiful little black depressions that have almost geographical looking edges. 203 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:15,480 Speaker 2: Yeah. 204 00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:19,280 Speaker 3: Yeah, So the stagger made of iron was instantly quite 205 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:23,400 Speaker 3: interesting to experts because it was made of iron. Tutin 206 00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:27,199 Speaker 3: Common lived at a time when iron artifacts were quite 207 00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:31,760 Speaker 3: rare in Egypt, not completely non existent, but precious and few. 208 00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:37,240 Speaker 3: We associate iron today with raw utility. I think of 209 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:40,840 Speaker 3: like just stacks of rebar and stuff, you know, Like 210 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:45,319 Speaker 3: we think of its hardness and toughness and it's ready availability. 211 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 3: So of course iron and steel steel being a product 212 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:51,880 Speaker 3: of iron, are thought of as useful for making durable 213 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,840 Speaker 3: workaday tools, machine parts, in architecture, for making bridges and 214 00:12:56,880 --> 00:13:01,240 Speaker 3: framing buildings and so forth. But in Totincman's Egypt, the 215 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:05,560 Speaker 3: evidence indicates that the rare iron artifacts that did exist 216 00:13:05,840 --> 00:13:11,400 Speaker 3: were treated instead as sacred, decorative and ceremonial items, more 217 00:13:11,440 --> 00:13:15,640 Speaker 3: like we treat gold and silver today, except perhaps even 218 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:20,400 Speaker 3: more precious. Now, why would something as cheap, abundant and 219 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:25,360 Speaker 3: mundane as iron be treated as precious sacred material. It 220 00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:28,520 Speaker 3: seems to be because at the time iron was anything 221 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:32,000 Speaker 3: but abundant and mundane. The mundane iron that we think 222 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:36,160 Speaker 3: of today is extracted from iron ore that we mine 223 00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:39,240 Speaker 3: out of the ground, and then we extract in pure 224 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:43,920 Speaker 3: metallic form from its ore form in extremely hot furnaces. 225 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:47,559 Speaker 3: And while there were plenty of iron ore deposits in 226 00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:50,920 Speaker 3: the deserts of Egypt, there was not a widespread industry 227 00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:54,439 Speaker 3: that was able to separate pure metallic iron from its 228 00:13:54,559 --> 00:14:00,120 Speaker 3: ore in the region until several hundred years later. I 229 00:14:00,480 --> 00:14:04,120 Speaker 3: was iron harder to work with and extract than other metals, 230 00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:06,800 Speaker 3: such as the copper tin alloy that forms the basis 231 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:09,960 Speaker 3: of ancient bronze. I think that there's sort of a 232 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:12,680 Speaker 3: more complicated answer and a sort of a simpler answer. 233 00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:15,480 Speaker 3: And the simpler answer is basically higher melting point, like 234 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:18,880 Speaker 3: it takes more energy to extract iron from its ore, 235 00:14:19,640 --> 00:14:21,960 Speaker 3: and it takes more heat to make it malleable and 236 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:23,640 Speaker 3: workable once it is extracted. 237 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:25,840 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember we went into some of this 238 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:27,880 Speaker 2: back when we did an episode on the One Ring 239 00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:31,000 Speaker 2: of the Lord of the Rings, and you know, talking 240 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,560 Speaker 2: about what kind of metals would would melt or not 241 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:37,680 Speaker 2: melt the constraints that are laid out in the text. 242 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:43,720 Speaker 3: However, there was one source of pure or to some 243 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:49,960 Speaker 3: degree pure metallic iron available before the smelting process was developed, 244 00:14:50,560 --> 00:14:55,760 Speaker 3: and that source of metallic iron was meteorites, chunks of 245 00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:59,720 Speaker 3: iron that fell from space. So experts have, for a 246 00:14:59,800 --> 00:15:03,320 Speaker 3: law some times suggested that maybe King Tut's dagger, and 247 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:06,040 Speaker 3: not just his dagger, but other iron artifacts that were 248 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,760 Speaker 3: also found within the tomb, and other iron artifacts from 249 00:15:08,760 --> 00:15:13,240 Speaker 3: ancient Egypt from this period and before, were in fact 250 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:17,080 Speaker 3: meteoric in origin, that they were hammered out of iron 251 00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:19,040 Speaker 3: that fell to Earth from the sky. 252 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:22,960 Speaker 2: So your exploitive headline here, of course, is ancient Egyptian 253 00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:28,400 Speaker 2: to use space weapons. And I've seen various indulgences of 254 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:31,720 Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But I mean, yeah, you're not 255 00:15:31,800 --> 00:15:34,520 Speaker 2: too far off the mark with that that even if 256 00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:37,320 Speaker 2: you are implying things that are not true as well. 257 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:40,480 Speaker 2: I've even seen alien weapons mentioned before. 258 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,880 Speaker 3: Now, before those of you get too excited, no this 259 00:15:44,080 --> 00:15:46,800 Speaker 3: is not ancient alien stuff. No, this would be. This 260 00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:49,200 Speaker 3: does not need to be a gift from aliens that 261 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:52,120 Speaker 3: came from above. Because meteorites still land on Earth today. 262 00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:54,640 Speaker 3: They land naturally. People can find them. 263 00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:58,240 Speaker 2: Right right, And that of course is especially true if 264 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:02,600 Speaker 2: you if in one or two situations with meteorites, is 265 00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:07,440 Speaker 2: it dramatic in its entry or do you have an 266 00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:10,880 Speaker 2: environment in which objects like this are easy to find, 267 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:14,400 Speaker 2: such as a desert. So you will find various desert 268 00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:17,520 Speaker 2: environments where there is a long tradition of gathering such 269 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:21,120 Speaker 2: meteorites because they stand out more. But you know, even 270 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:23,400 Speaker 2: if you see or think you see something fall, you 271 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:28,040 Speaker 2: can also get into trouble trying to find what fell 272 00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:32,160 Speaker 2: from the sky. We've talked about the phenomena of star 273 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:35,600 Speaker 2: jelly before. This is where someone sees a shooting star 274 00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,760 Speaker 2: or thinks the meteorite has fallen in their general vicinity, 275 00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:40,920 Speaker 2: and they go out into the woods and they start 276 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:44,000 Speaker 2: poking around. Do they find something that they think looks 277 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,440 Speaker 2: weird And it may be like just some sort of 278 00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:50,120 Speaker 2: slimy substance in the forest. It's a slimy substance that 279 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:52,400 Speaker 2: was always there, or it is frequently there, but they 280 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:54,200 Speaker 2: just never went out and poked it and looked for 281 00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:56,160 Speaker 2: it before. So ultimately you have to know what you're doing. 282 00:16:56,560 --> 00:16:59,080 Speaker 2: But a desert environment can be a real gift to 283 00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:00,160 Speaker 2: the meteorite hunter. 284 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:04,240 Speaker 3: That's right. So what is a meteorite, Well, a meteorite is, 285 00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:08,200 Speaker 3: in short, any solid natural object that falls from space 286 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:12,200 Speaker 3: through our atmosphere and reaches the surface of the Earth intact. 287 00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:16,520 Speaker 3: And this usually means a chunk of a rocky asteroid. 288 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:19,199 Speaker 3: It seems that's what it is in most cases, but 289 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:22,880 Speaker 3: some cases could possibly mean pieces of comets or even 290 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:25,879 Speaker 3: pieces of other planets. Sometimes there'll be an impact and 291 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:29,080 Speaker 3: a piece of Mars or something else breaks off and 292 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:34,119 Speaker 3: will end up falling to Earth somehow. Now, most meteorites 293 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:38,280 Speaker 3: found on Earth are not primarily made of iron. There 294 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:43,400 Speaker 3: are three main types of meteorites. You've got stony meteorites, 295 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:47,160 Speaker 3: which are made mostly of silicon based rock. There are 296 00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,879 Speaker 3: iron meteorites, which are primarily made of solid metal, mostly 297 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,080 Speaker 3: iron with some nickel and other trace metals. And then 298 00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,440 Speaker 3: there's a hybrid category, which are often considered quite beautiful, 299 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:00,600 Speaker 3: maybe the most visually striking of all of them, the 300 00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:04,600 Speaker 3: stony iron meteorites, which are a pretty close to even 301 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,560 Speaker 3: mix of iron metal and silicate rock. Now, iron meteorites 302 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:12,160 Speaker 3: are not the most common types of meteorites to fall 303 00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:15,719 Speaker 3: to Earth. I've read estimates that they're only about like 304 00:18:15,840 --> 00:18:19,040 Speaker 3: five or six percent of meteorite falls. But they are 305 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:22,280 Speaker 3: sometimes easier to find than stony meteorites. And this might 306 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:25,080 Speaker 3: be in part due to their durability and the environment 307 00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:28,399 Speaker 3: and really stick around, but also probably in part because 308 00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:33,280 Speaker 3: they look weirder and more alien. And stony meteorites can 309 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:35,240 Speaker 3: look a lot of different ways, but Rob, I just 310 00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:37,280 Speaker 3: attached a few examples for you to look at. A 311 00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:40,400 Speaker 3: lot of stony meteorites you could easily mistake for an 312 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:44,440 Speaker 3: earth based rock, but iron meteorites more often, I guess 313 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:46,920 Speaker 3: you could still mistake them for an earth based rock, 314 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:49,480 Speaker 3: but more of them look like really strange. 315 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:54,080 Speaker 2: Yeah, they have a very novel appearance that even the 316 00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:57,159 Speaker 2: novice would would likely look at and think, well, that's interesting. 317 00:18:57,280 --> 00:18:59,800 Speaker 2: I should pick that up and maybe take this back 318 00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:02,679 Speaker 2: and show it to someone who knows what's up with rocks, 319 00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:07,959 Speaker 2: because yeah, they have this fascinating kind of you know, 320 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,040 Speaker 2: like cool liquid kind of appearance, with all these dimples 321 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:13,720 Speaker 2: and creases and so forth. 322 00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:17,199 Speaker 3: Why is this a metal brain the size of a 323 00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:19,640 Speaker 3: bear in the middle of the desert? What is that? 324 00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:25,280 Speaker 3: Iron meteorites are thought to probably be the remaining cores 325 00:19:25,359 --> 00:19:29,080 Speaker 3: of asteroids that at some point asteroids or parts of 326 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:33,920 Speaker 3: former planetesimals that at some point melted and then re solidified. 327 00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:36,840 Speaker 3: They're mostly made of iron, Like I said, they have 328 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,040 Speaker 3: some nickel content, as well as other traces of minerals 329 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,679 Speaker 3: and metals, some cobalt content, some phosphorus, some sulfur, and 330 00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:48,320 Speaker 3: so forth. They are often found on Earth covered in 331 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:52,800 Speaker 3: a black or rusty crust of iron oxide that forms 332 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:55,960 Speaker 3: as they travel through the atmosphere. And there are two 333 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,480 Speaker 3: primary minerals found in iron meteorites. You've got camosite, which 334 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:05,080 Speaker 3: has relatively less nickel, and tainite, which has relatively more. 335 00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:09,640 Speaker 3: Within iron meteorites, these two minerals, chemosite and taanite are 336 00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:15,080 Speaker 3: quite often found in an interesting interlocking crystal structure which 337 00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:18,640 Speaker 3: when you cut a cross section of one of these 338 00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,960 Speaker 3: meteorites and you treat it with a weak or diluted acid, 339 00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:26,520 Speaker 3: it reveals this repeating arrangement of lines, known as a 340 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:31,320 Speaker 3: Vidminstottin pattern, And to try to describe this, it looks 341 00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:35,320 Speaker 3: kind of like a texture of infinite triangles within triangles, 342 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:38,439 Speaker 3: or you might say like a fractal representation of a 343 00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:41,000 Speaker 3: capital letter A in the English alphabet. 344 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,640 Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks very very sci fi, very futuristic, kind 345 00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,560 Speaker 2: of like some sort of you know, a chrome etching 346 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:52,359 Speaker 2: of the interior scaffolding of the death Star or something. 347 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:55,360 Speaker 3: To come back to our stuff on anomalous imagery, it's 348 00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:57,159 Speaker 3: one of those things that there are all kinds of 349 00:20:57,160 --> 00:21:00,560 Speaker 3: patterns like this in nature that make people say that's technology, 350 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:03,720 Speaker 3: but that's just what these crystals do. And in fact, 351 00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:08,400 Speaker 3: the way this specifically look seems to be a result 352 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 3: of creating a two dimensional cross sectional representation of an 353 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:18,639 Speaker 3: underlying three dimensional structure that's known as an octahedral. So 354 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:23,959 Speaker 3: an octahedron is a polyhedron, a three dimensional structure with 355 00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:28,399 Speaker 3: eight faces. So you can picture like two four sided 356 00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:31,840 Speaker 3: pyramids joined at the square base, or if you're a 357 00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,280 Speaker 3: D and D player, you just picture a D eight die. 358 00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:36,800 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's sematar damage. 359 00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,399 Speaker 3: So the octahedral structure is created by the interaction of 360 00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:44,800 Speaker 3: these two different minerals chemisite and tanite, they form these 361 00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,760 Speaker 3: different bands and boundaries, and then when they come together 362 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:49,280 Speaker 3: like that, and you cut through the middle of a 363 00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:51,320 Speaker 3: meteorite and you look at the pattern it makes, it's 364 00:21:51,359 --> 00:22:03,280 Speaker 3: this vidmin Stottin pattern. Now, we might come back and 365 00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:06,840 Speaker 3: talk more about iron meteorites themselves in the next episode. 366 00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:10,240 Speaker 3: But an interesting question is, so it was proposed long 367 00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,600 Speaker 3: ago that King Tut's dagger, as well as many of 368 00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:15,840 Speaker 3: these other iron artifacts, were made out of meteorite iron. 369 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:19,760 Speaker 3: But is the dagger really meteorite iron? And if so, 370 00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:23,800 Speaker 3: how could we know? Well, there have been multiple investigations 371 00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:25,960 Speaker 3: of this over the years and they've come up with 372 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,840 Speaker 3: For a while, they came up with conflicting results. There 373 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:33,720 Speaker 3: was some controversy over this, were different results, different investigators 374 00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:36,520 Speaker 3: came to different conclusions. But it seems to be that 375 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:41,000 Speaker 3: the more recent research points very strongly to a meteoric origin. 376 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,160 Speaker 3: So I'll mention a couple of studies. One is by 377 00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:48,760 Speaker 3: Daniellocomelli at All that was published in the journal Metiorritics 378 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,200 Speaker 3: and Planetary Science in the year twenty sixteen, and it's 379 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:57,640 Speaker 3: called the Meteoritic Origin of Toutencommon's iron dagger blade. Now, 380 00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,760 Speaker 3: one thing that is an obstacle when you investigating this 381 00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:04,560 Speaker 3: sort of thing is method because modern science has lots 382 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:08,879 Speaker 3: of very powerful tools of chemical analysis, but many of 383 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:12,480 Speaker 3: them are destructive techniques, so you would have to destroy 384 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,679 Speaker 3: some small part of the artifact in order to analyze it. 385 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:20,439 Speaker 3: And for obvious historical preservation reasons, researchers wanted to avoid 386 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:24,520 Speaker 3: having to destroy part of a priceless historical dagger in 387 00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:27,640 Speaker 3: order to figure out what it's made of. So this investigation, 388 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,320 Speaker 3: which by the way, the team was made up of 389 00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:35,920 Speaker 3: both Italian and Egyptian researchers, they use non destructive methods, 390 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,240 Speaker 3: so they analyze the blade with a non destructive imaging 391 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:45,040 Speaker 3: technique called X ray fluorescence spectrometry to determine the composition 392 00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:47,800 Speaker 3: of the blade. So the way that works is you 393 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,119 Speaker 3: bombard the blade with some radiation. They use like a 394 00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,560 Speaker 3: portable X ray scanner. You bombard it with some radiation 395 00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:59,280 Speaker 3: and then that radiation causes the atoms in the blade 396 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:03,560 Speaker 3: to floor to give off light energy as they're you know, 397 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,359 Speaker 3: as the radiation hits the electrons that are orbiting the 398 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:08,560 Speaker 3: atoms and then causes some of them to fall down 399 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,760 Speaker 3: to lower energy levels and that puts off radiation in return, 400 00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:15,399 Speaker 3: and by analyzing what gets reflected back, you can see 401 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,600 Speaker 3: what types of elements that it's made of. And what 402 00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:22,000 Speaker 3: they found was that the composition of the blade was 403 00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,439 Speaker 3: iron with a high percentage of nickel and cobalt. So 404 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,880 Speaker 3: I think they found that it was mostly iron, with 405 00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 3: ten point eight percent by weight nickel and zero point 406 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,600 Speaker 3: five to eight percent by weight cobalt, and these numbers 407 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,200 Speaker 3: are are not to be found in earth based iron generally. 408 00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,959 Speaker 3: Studies have found that earth based iron extracted from before 409 00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,200 Speaker 3: like the eighteen hundreds, tends to always have less than 410 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:49,760 Speaker 3: four percent nickel by weight. 411 00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:52,760 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was reading some sources about this as well, 412 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:54,880 Speaker 2: and yeah, a lot of it seems to come back 413 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:56,240 Speaker 2: to the nickel, though. 414 00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,560 Speaker 3: I've read some criticisms that you shouldn't go by the 415 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:01,520 Speaker 3: nickel alone and that to really be sure you should 416 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,159 Speaker 3: look at like some other comparison points as well, like 417 00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,200 Speaker 3: the ratio of nickel to cobalt. I think some other 418 00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:08,000 Speaker 3: things as well. 419 00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one paper I was looking at Albert 420 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:16,280 Speaker 2: Jambond from twenty seventeen Bronze age iron meteoritic or not. 421 00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:22,400 Speaker 2: And this is the additional subheading subtitle a chemical strategy. 422 00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,359 Speaker 2: And in this one they pointed out like weathering is 423 00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,760 Speaker 2: also sometimes something that has to be taken into place 424 00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:34,240 Speaker 2: given the nickel levels that can be detected, and it 425 00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,639 Speaker 2: may have to do with like basically a weathering away 426 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,879 Speaker 2: of some of the nickel content at least on the 427 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:40,879 Speaker 2: testable portions of an artifact. 428 00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:44,800 Speaker 3: But from what I could tell, most researchers are pretty 429 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,880 Speaker 3: well convinced by this and other recent studies. There's another 430 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,600 Speaker 3: one I'm gonna mention in a second saying that this 431 00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,679 Speaker 3: probably really is meteorite. So speaking to the BBC, the 432 00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:58,760 Speaker 3: lead author, Daniella Coomelli, who by the way, is that 433 00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,920 Speaker 3: she's an experimental physic assist affiliated with the Polytechnic University 434 00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:07,200 Speaker 3: of Milan, she sounds pretty confident. She says meteoric iron 435 00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:09,960 Speaker 3: is clearly indicated by the presence of this high percentage 436 00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:13,760 Speaker 3: of nickel, and in fact, the authors of this study 437 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:19,040 Speaker 3: from twenty sixteen even matched the composition of the blade 438 00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,239 Speaker 3: of Tutencommon's dagger to that of a known meteorite in 439 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,200 Speaker 3: the region, one which landed about two hundred and forty 440 00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:29,680 Speaker 3: kilometers west of the city of Alexandria. They also argue 441 00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,920 Speaker 3: that the blade shows what they call a high manufacturing quality, 442 00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,280 Speaker 3: which is not found in some of the other simple 443 00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,440 Speaker 3: artifacts made out of meteorite iron from this period in Egypt. 444 00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:44,159 Speaker 3: So it shows that someone at this time had the 445 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,280 Speaker 3: ability to work with iron at a high level. But 446 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,920 Speaker 3: this type of craftsmanship must have been rare. 447 00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, rare craftsmanship besitting of a rare material. There's 448 00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,919 Speaker 2: one little bit I want to side here. This is 449 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,400 Speaker 2: from the Brian M. Fagan book The Seventy Great Inventions 450 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,120 Speaker 2: of the Ancient World. Paul T. Kratoc is the main 451 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,720 Speaker 2: writer on a chapter in that that deals with with 452 00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:15,879 Speaker 2: iron and other metals, and Kratak mentions the dagger of Tutankammon, 453 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,639 Speaker 2: and there's an excellent photo of it in that book. 454 00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:23,080 Speaker 2: But then he adds an additional detail from the following century. 455 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:27,560 Speaker 2: So this is a different culture because as we've already 456 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:32,160 Speaker 2: mentioned there there are other examples of meteoric iron being 457 00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:40,360 Speaker 2: used in very regal, very ornamental pieces like this and 458 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,639 Speaker 2: this one, this particular one is referred to in a letter. 459 00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:46,760 Speaker 2: This is from twelve to fifty BCE. We have a 460 00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:51,520 Speaker 2: letter from the Hittite ruler Tatusilius the third to the 461 00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,439 Speaker 2: king of Assyria, and in this letter he apologizes for 462 00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,560 Speaker 2: not being able to supply iron and instead hopes that 463 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,359 Speaker 2: the guilt to a single accompanying iron blade will be 464 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:08,760 Speaker 2: acceptable Socratic rights quote. So in twelve fifty BC, a 465 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,040 Speaker 2: single iron blade from the one available source of iron 466 00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:18,120 Speaker 2: was an appropriate placiatory gift to another monarch. So, I mean, 467 00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,000 Speaker 2: you can also see that in the fact that, yeah, 468 00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,879 Speaker 2: King tut is buried with one of these blades, you know, 469 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,600 Speaker 2: within his wrappings. But you know, here's this other case 470 00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:29,320 Speaker 2: where it's like it just more evidence that like, these 471 00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,960 Speaker 2: things were so highly valued. These are the kind of 472 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:35,320 Speaker 2: things that kings gave to each other, you know, these 473 00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:37,840 Speaker 2: are the kind of things that kings were buried with. 474 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,440 Speaker 2: But Kradack also points out that mere centuries later, iron 475 00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:46,640 Speaker 2: making industry would end up stretching across Eurasia. So again, 476 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 2: iron ore is very common, but it is the last 477 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:53,480 Speaker 2: metal of antiquity to be smelted, due in part to 478 00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:54,480 Speaker 2: the high melting point. 479 00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,080 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm almost trying to imagine. I mean, I guess 480 00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,600 Speaker 3: the change took place. I suppose over a long enough 481 00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:02,520 Speaker 3: period of time that you wouldn't have really had stuff 482 00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,719 Speaker 3: like this, I guess. But I'm imagining somebody clutching extremely valuable, 483 00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:11,280 Speaker 3: you know, precious iron artifacts of a ceremonial value, and 484 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:15,120 Speaker 3: then suddenly, like the you know, the iron working and 485 00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,200 Speaker 3: the iron smelting comes into vogue, and now iron is 486 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,840 Speaker 3: all over the place, and it's just it's not the 487 00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:21,560 Speaker 3: same anymore. 488 00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:26,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, but they would still have the appeal of having 489 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,280 Speaker 2: this source that is associated with the sky as having 490 00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,920 Speaker 2: come from heaven or from the cosmos and the gods 491 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,000 Speaker 2: and so forth. And that is something that I've seen 492 00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:39,240 Speaker 2: reference in some other sources that I'll probably come back 493 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:44,720 Speaker 2: to later on that certainly in the Chinese examples. You know, 494 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,480 Speaker 2: the Chinese were the ancient Chinese were aware of meteorites, 495 00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,080 Speaker 2: that they knew about these various events, and they wrote 496 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:54,720 Speaker 2: about them in their early literature, and therefore there was 497 00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,400 Speaker 2: likely this connection in place. So it was this precious 498 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:03,720 Speaker 2: metal that was unlike the metal used for other tools 499 00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:09,080 Speaker 2: and so forth, unlike even other precious metals and other 500 00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:12,040 Speaker 2: stones and so forth that were used. But then there 501 00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,840 Speaker 2: was also the story behind it, the idea that it 502 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,080 Speaker 2: has some sort of connection to the Cosmos. 503 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,600 Speaker 3: I want to get to something about that story within 504 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,360 Speaker 3: an Egyptian context in just a minute. But first I 505 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,960 Speaker 3: promised I was going to mention another study on the 506 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,720 Speaker 3: meteor origin of the iron in the blade. So the 507 00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:30,960 Speaker 3: other study I wanted to point out was from twenty 508 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:35,440 Speaker 3: twenty two. This is in the journal I think, same journal, Yeah, 509 00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:39,760 Speaker 3: same journal, Metiaritics and Planetary Science. And this is by 510 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,800 Speaker 3: Takafumi Matsui at All and it's called the Manufacture and 511 00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:47,920 Speaker 3: Origin of the toot And Common Metiorritic Iron Dagger. And 512 00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,520 Speaker 3: this paper further supports the conclusion that the iron in 513 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:54,920 Speaker 3: the King's dagger is from a meteorite, and not only that, 514 00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 3: adds evidence about what kind of meteorite, And so the 515 00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,280 Speaker 3: author's right quote. Here we report non destructive two dimensional 516 00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:07,280 Speaker 3: chemical analysis of the tutencommon iron dagger conducted at the 517 00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:11,280 Speaker 3: Egyptian Museum of Cairo. Elemental mapping of nickel on the 518 00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:16,600 Speaker 3: dagger blade surface shows discontinuous banded arrangements in places with 519 00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:21,840 Speaker 3: cubic symmetry and a bandwidth of about one millimeters, suggesting 520 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:26,120 Speaker 3: a vidmin stotton pattern. Remember that, yeah, ah, yeah, So 521 00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:30,520 Speaker 3: the intermediate nickel content with the presence of the vidmin 522 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,959 Speaker 3: stotton pattern implies the source meteorite of the dagger blade 523 00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:39,000 Speaker 3: to be octahedrite. So again, that's the octahedron the d 524 00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:43,640 Speaker 3: eight die. Furthermore, they say that the quote randomly distributed 525 00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:48,880 Speaker 3: sulfur rich black spots are likely remnants of troylite inclusions 526 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:53,400 Speaker 3: in iron meteorite. So remember those black spots I mentioned 527 00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,920 Speaker 3: on the dagger that I said looked like lunar maria, 528 00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,920 Speaker 3: You know, those strange kind of geographical looking depressions and 529 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,880 Speaker 3: dark spots. These authors conclude that those are probably sulfur 530 00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:11,000 Speaker 3: rich troylite inclusions, little impurities in the original metal made 531 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,960 Speaker 3: of mineral iron sulfide and so iron sulfide. By the way, 532 00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,719 Speaker 3: you ever boil a hard boiled egg too long and 533 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,520 Speaker 3: it ends up with a green cake forming around the yolk, 534 00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:26,360 Speaker 3: that's iron sulfide. I think hydrogen sulfide in the egg 535 00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:30,480 Speaker 3: white reacts with with iron and the egg yolk and 536 00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,360 Speaker 3: make iron sulfide. So yeah, that's that's what the gross 537 00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:35,760 Speaker 3: green stuff is. It's not gonna hurts you. You can 538 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:36,320 Speaker 3: still eat it. 539 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,080 Speaker 2: You're not a fan of green eggs. 540 00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,160 Speaker 3: Well, no, I'm fine with all full green eggs. I 541 00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,240 Speaker 3: don't love the green the green case around the yolk. 542 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:49,200 Speaker 3: I feel like you boiled that too long. That's a no, no, okay. 543 00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:52,280 Speaker 2: I won't do any of the follow up questions about 544 00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,360 Speaker 2: whether you would need it with a goat and so forth. 545 00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,080 Speaker 3: I need anything with a goat. You know. Goat's just 546 00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,320 Speaker 3: good company that makes even unpalatable food. Fine. 547 00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,880 Speaker 2: Yes, they are quite amusing anyway. 548 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,520 Speaker 3: The authors of the paper argue that the vidmuns dot 549 00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,480 Speaker 3: and pattern and the troilite inclusions, the fact that those 550 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,440 Speaker 3: were preserved, these things together indicate that the iron was 551 00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,320 Speaker 3: probably forged and worked at low temperatures of less than 552 00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,480 Speaker 3: nine hundred and fifty degrees celsius. They also even use 553 00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:25,240 Speaker 3: material analysis to not just say, like what physically the 554 00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:29,120 Speaker 3: stagger is, but to connect it to some historical documents. 555 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,600 Speaker 3: I don't think they were the first people to make 556 00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:36,920 Speaker 3: this connection, but they used some material analysis to kind 557 00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,440 Speaker 3: of back it up. So the authors here argued that 558 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:44,560 Speaker 3: this stagger was quite possibly a gift given to Tutankhommon's 559 00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:49,240 Speaker 3: likely grandfather. I'm Innhotep the third from the Kingdom of 560 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:54,760 Speaker 3: Mitani in Anatolia. Because there is a tablet mentioning such 561 00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:57,800 Speaker 3: a gift among Egyptian records. There's a tablet that says, 562 00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,720 Speaker 3: you know, they're sending a gift to I'm Inhotep the 563 00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,960 Speaker 3: third and it's described as an iron dagger with a 564 00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,279 Speaker 3: golden hilt. And then the bit of material evidence that 565 00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:12,600 Speaker 3: backs this up is that there is lime plaster used 566 00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,680 Speaker 3: to glue jim stones to the gold hilt, and that 567 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:21,600 Speaker 3: lime plaster glue is characteristic of Mittani craftsmanship rather than Egyptian, 568 00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:26,000 Speaker 3: which tended to use gypsum plaster instead. So this dagger, 569 00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 3: wrapped up with the body of King Tut inside his 570 00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,960 Speaker 3: wrappings laying on his thigh, seems to have been made 571 00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:36,120 Speaker 3: out of metal that came from a meteorite. And it's 572 00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,080 Speaker 3: a good guess that this was a gift to King 573 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,200 Speaker 3: Tut's grandfather from Anatolia. 574 00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,919 Speaker 2: Wow, now some of you are probably wondering, well, which 575 00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:46,440 Speaker 2: god was in charge of all of this. So a 576 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:52,160 Speaker 2: brief sidebar here on this in general, and for this 577 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,480 Speaker 2: I turned once more to Geraldine Pinch's book and Egyptian mythology, 578 00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,840 Speaker 2: and essentially we should probably point out, yeah, that the 579 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,279 Speaker 2: Egyptian god associated with metal working is the god Taw, 580 00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:07,880 Speaker 2: and not only is Ta associated with metalworking, he's also 581 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,560 Speaker 2: held up as a kind of creator deity in some 582 00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,440 Speaker 2: of these traditions. Said to have designed and crafted the 583 00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:18,160 Speaker 2: world have to have smelt the new lands, and I 584 00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,160 Speaker 2: found this interesting. Made bodies for the kings of Egypt 585 00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,960 Speaker 2: out of electrum, copper, and iron bodies according to Pinch, 586 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,600 Speaker 2: that were presumably made so that they could occupy those 587 00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,520 Speaker 2: bodies in the lands beyond death. So this would be 588 00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:38,840 Speaker 2: like your resurrected metal body for the next world. He 589 00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,600 Speaker 2: Ta here, though is often described as being beautiful of face. 590 00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:45,560 Speaker 2: His skin is often described as being blue, though I've 591 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,759 Speaker 2: also seen it green in some depictions. He wears an 592 00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:53,400 Speaker 2: artisan's cap, and he's associated with dwarves, perhaps to the 593 00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:58,200 Speaker 2: fact that dwarves were often employed in gym working. And 594 00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:00,560 Speaker 2: this on its own is a pretty fast any topic, 595 00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,400 Speaker 2: the role of dwarfs in ancient Egypt. There are a 596 00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:07,319 Speaker 2: few different papers on this. Some of these individuals worked 597 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:11,880 Speaker 2: in entertainment or as personal attendants. Others were animal tenders 598 00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:16,160 Speaker 2: and indeed jewelers, but also there were individuals of the 599 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,680 Speaker 2: Old Kingdom who rose to high rank and status and 600 00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:20,920 Speaker 2: were buried as such, and we're able to tell they 601 00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,000 Speaker 2: had that status because of the way they were buried. 602 00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,879 Speaker 2: So it's often argued that cultural acceptance was pretty high 603 00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,320 Speaker 2: for them, and Ta was ultimately just one of multiple 604 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,439 Speaker 2: gods held to have a dwarf in form of one 605 00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,560 Speaker 2: sort or another. And Ta also would later be equated 606 00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:42,080 Speaker 2: with Hephaestus by the Greeks, though of course Ephaestus was 607 00:36:42,120 --> 00:37:02,600 Speaker 2: not beautiful of face, I think in most traditions. 608 00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,919 Speaker 3: So meteorites have of course been found by people since prehistory, 609 00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:02,160 Speaker 3: but how often did we actually understand what they were 610 00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,360 Speaker 3: and where they came from. Just one example of people 611 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:09,400 Speaker 3: not generally accepting that meteorites came from outer space is 612 00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:14,239 Speaker 3: European scientists up until the early nineteenth century. There's a 613 00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,520 Speaker 3: good summary of this history of the debate about the 614 00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:21,839 Speaker 3: origin of meteorites in the book Cosmic Horizons, edited by 615 00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,480 Speaker 3: Steven Soder and Neil de Gras Tyson. I think it 616 00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,400 Speaker 3: was published in the year two thousand and The short 617 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:31,680 Speaker 3: version of the story is that there have long been 618 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:37,040 Speaker 3: reports from people seeing fireballs in the sky or hearing explosions, 619 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,440 Speaker 3: then finding rocks that they believed had fallen from above. 620 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,400 Speaker 3: But as of the late eighteenth century, most scientists of 621 00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:48,319 Speaker 3: the European Enlightenment doubted that stones actually fell from the sky, 622 00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:50,880 Speaker 3: or if they did believe it, they thought maybe that 623 00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:54,200 Speaker 3: the stones came from somewhere on Earth. They couldn't have 624 00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,560 Speaker 3: come from outer space. Maybe they were thrown from a 625 00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:01,240 Speaker 3: distant volcano, or maybe they were picked up and tossed 626 00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:05,120 Speaker 3: by a hurricane far away. Because at the time there 627 00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,000 Speaker 3: was a sort of a dogma. There was a convention 628 00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:12,720 Speaker 3: that space, apart from the planets and the comets, was empty. 629 00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,799 Speaker 3: You know, you got the Earth, you got the Sun, 630 00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:18,319 Speaker 3: the planets, the stars, the comets, but other than that, 631 00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,520 Speaker 3: it's just empty out there. There's not like stuff flying around. However, 632 00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,480 Speaker 3: a German physicist by the name of Ernst Kladney, who 633 00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,960 Speaker 3: lived seventeen fifty six to eighteen twenty seven, published a 634 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,919 Speaker 3: book in the year seventeen ninety four arguing that these 635 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:37,000 Speaker 3: reports were accurate and that rocks and pieces of iron 636 00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:41,440 Speaker 3: actually do sometimes fall from the sky, in some cases 637 00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:45,560 Speaker 3: creating fireballs and explosions as they are heated by friction 638 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,759 Speaker 3: traveling through the atmosphere. Claudney was an interesting guy. He 639 00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,160 Speaker 3: was a lawyer by training, but he was also very 640 00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,920 Speaker 3: into music and acoustics, and he discovered a way of 641 00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:02,000 Speaker 3: visualizing sound wave by putting dust or powder on a 642 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,120 Speaker 3: plate and then vibrating the plate by rubbing it with 643 00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,120 Speaker 3: a violin bow, and so the powder would range itself 644 00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:12,840 Speaker 3: into these patterns that were related to the sound waves produced. 645 00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:18,240 Speaker 3: Claudney went about collecting eyewitness reports of fireballs and meteorite 646 00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,759 Speaker 3: falls from the sky, and he tried to evaluate them 647 00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,600 Speaker 3: for credibility and see what could be learned from them, 648 00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,759 Speaker 3: and eventually he concluded that yes, rocks really do fall 649 00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:32,359 Speaker 3: from space. One thing he did was use descriptions of 650 00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,160 Speaker 3: fireballs to estimate the speed at which these rocks were 651 00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:39,680 Speaker 3: entering the Earth's atmosphere, and he realized they must be 652 00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,400 Speaker 3: going much faster than could be accounted for by the 653 00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:47,440 Speaker 3: Earth's gravity alone, so they're not simply falling, but they 654 00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,719 Speaker 3: must be flying through space at extreme velocities. And this 655 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,920 Speaker 3: connected with the fact that when these alleged rocks were found, 656 00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,719 Speaker 3: they looked scorched all over. The friction of entering the 657 00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,280 Speaker 3: atmosphere at these high speeds melt to their outer shells, 658 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:03,919 Speaker 3: and so he looked into it He published this book 659 00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,480 Speaker 3: in seventeen ninety four, and it was initially met with 660 00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,640 Speaker 3: skepticism by his peers by European scientists, but many scientists 661 00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,839 Speaker 3: updated their beliefs due to new emerging evidence. They sort 662 00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:19,640 Speaker 3: of got lucky with some things, some documented events that 663 00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,560 Speaker 3: really backed up his argument, including a widely reported meteor 664 00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,399 Speaker 3: fall near Siena, Italy, just a couple of months after 665 00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,440 Speaker 3: the book was published, another one in England which included 666 00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,840 Speaker 3: an eyewitness account of a farmer who claimed a black 667 00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,560 Speaker 3: rock hit the earth only thirty feet away from him 668 00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,640 Speaker 3: and caused an explosion in the mud that splattered all 669 00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:43,600 Speaker 3: over his body. And then there was another one in 670 00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:48,000 Speaker 3: Normandy in eighteen oh three, which was extensively documented by 671 00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,800 Speaker 3: the French physicist Jean Baptiste bo which included reports of 672 00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:56,319 Speaker 3: a fireball as well as an elliptical impact area that 673 00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:01,640 Speaker 3: had many weird stones within it. These reports were supplemented 674 00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,200 Speaker 3: by chemical and mineral analysis of some of these meteorite samples, 675 00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,399 Speaker 3: and it turned out that these samples were unlike any 676 00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,520 Speaker 3: rocks or metal ores known of on Earth. For example, 677 00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,640 Speaker 3: the rocks contained what they called at the time globules. 678 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,600 Speaker 3: These are now known as chondrules, their little round grains 679 00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,960 Speaker 3: within the structure of the rock that begin as molten 680 00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,240 Speaker 3: droplets of minerals in space, and then a crete together 681 00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,719 Speaker 3: within asteroids. Also connecting to what we've already found, they 682 00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,400 Speaker 3: discovered that iron meteorite fragments contained levels of nickel that 683 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,879 Speaker 3: had never been observed in Earth based iron. And then 684 00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:42,279 Speaker 3: finally another piece of evidence was the discovery of the 685 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,439 Speaker 3: first asteroid, the Dwarf Planet series in eighteen oh one, 686 00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:50,400 Speaker 3: which suggested that space between the planets and the comets 687 00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:54,080 Speaker 3: was not empty. There were lots of rocky things floating 688 00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:56,840 Speaker 3: around out there, and some of them might occasionally land 689 00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,920 Speaker 3: on Earth, and that was in fact what meteorites were. 690 00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,640 Speaker 3: So it was more than one hundred years after Newton's 691 00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:08,400 Speaker 3: principia that the true origin of meteorites was widely accepted 692 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:12,560 Speaker 3: among European scientists. But that brings me to an article 693 00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,240 Speaker 3: that I wanted to talk about to address the question 694 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:18,320 Speaker 3: of what the ancient Egyptians knew. So I was reading 695 00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,120 Speaker 3: an article in the anthropology magazine Sapiens written by an 696 00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:26,640 Speaker 3: Egyptologist who named Victoria almansa Villatorro. This is from twenty 697 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,120 Speaker 3: twenty three and if Almansa Villatoro's argument is correct, the 698 00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:33,799 Speaker 3: fact that meteorites come from space or from the sky 699 00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:38,680 Speaker 3: was known to the ancient Egyptians. Just one cool example 700 00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,360 Speaker 3: she mentions in the article is there's an interesting inscription 701 00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:48,240 Speaker 3: in hieroglyphics inside the pyramid of Unus at Sakara. Unus 702 00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,080 Speaker 3: was the last pharaoh of the Fifth dynasty during Egypt's 703 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,239 Speaker 3: Old Kingdom, and he ruled in the middle of the 704 00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:58,680 Speaker 3: twenty fourth century BCE, so like forty four hundred years ago, 705 00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,719 Speaker 3: and the sentence from the pyramid text reads, Eunice the 706 00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:08,360 Speaker 3: king seizes the sky and splits its iron. Now, this 707 00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,440 Speaker 3: article in Sapiens is based somewhat on almans Of Villatorro's 708 00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,080 Speaker 3: academic publication in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology from twenty 709 00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:20,040 Speaker 3: nineteen called the Cultural Indexicality of the N forty one 710 00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,080 Speaker 3: sign for beat this. Oh, this's got some strange characters. 711 00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,239 Speaker 3: BJ three sort of is what it looks like the 712 00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,560 Speaker 3: metal of the sky and the sky of metal. Now, 713 00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,120 Speaker 3: this includes a lot of linguistic arguments that are way 714 00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:34,799 Speaker 3: over my head, but I was just going through to 715 00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:39,000 Speaker 3: get the main point and pull out some details. And 716 00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,040 Speaker 3: one of the things I wanted to get to. I 717 00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:42,920 Speaker 3: wanted to mention briefly just because I thought it was 718 00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,960 Speaker 3: interesting before getting to remain conclusions or about the religious 719 00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,920 Speaker 3: and ceremonial functions of iron Almansa. Villaturro mentions in the 720 00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:56,000 Speaker 3: paper that pre Iron Age iron artifacts are associated in 721 00:43:56,120 --> 00:44:00,800 Speaker 3: Egypt with an elaborate funerary ritual known as the opening 722 00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,440 Speaker 3: of the Mouth, which was a sort of ceremony performed 723 00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,520 Speaker 3: over a dead body. I think often of a king 724 00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:09,319 Speaker 3: or a ruler, but a ceremony over a body that 725 00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,640 Speaker 3: seems to be sort of activated the powers of life 726 00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,680 Speaker 3: beyond death. It's sort of like turning on after life 727 00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:18,040 Speaker 3: mode to give you the powers of like eating and 728 00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,920 Speaker 3: drinking and speaking in the afterlife. And I briefly got 729 00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:25,160 Speaker 3: very interested in this. So this was not in the paper, 730 00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:27,840 Speaker 3: but I went looking for a text of the spoken 731 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:29,839 Speaker 3: part of the opening of the mouth ceremony. I think 732 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:31,719 Speaker 3: there are a lot of different versions of this, but 733 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,440 Speaker 3: the one I found in particular was a translation of 734 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:39,319 Speaker 3: the ritual from the tomb chapel of rek Mira, which 735 00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,480 Speaker 3: involved like dedicating a statue of the dead, and the 736 00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:47,920 Speaker 3: text includes the following lines. There's a letter, a capital 737 00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,759 Speaker 3: letter in here which just refers to the name of 738 00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:52,799 Speaker 3: the dead. So when you hear in, you think of 739 00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,080 Speaker 3: the name of the dead. It goes, I have balanced 740 00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:57,640 Speaker 3: your mouth and bones for you. 741 00:44:57,960 --> 00:44:58,040 Speaker 1: In. 742 00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,120 Speaker 3: I have opened your mouth for you. 743 00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:00,560 Speaker 1: In. 744 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,719 Speaker 3: I open your mouth for you with the new uplade. 745 00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:06,520 Speaker 3: I have opened your mouth for you with the new uplade. 746 00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,880 Speaker 3: The mesca hetch you blade of iron that opens the 747 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,200 Speaker 3: mouths of gods. Horace is the opener of the mouth 748 00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,480 Speaker 3: of N. Horace. Horace has opened the mouth of N. 749 00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,600 Speaker 3: Horace has opened the mouth of N with that which 750 00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,520 Speaker 3: he opened the mouth of his father, with which he 751 00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,759 Speaker 3: opened the mouth of Osiris, with the iron that came 752 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,600 Speaker 3: from Seth. The mesketch you blade of iron with which 753 00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:32,719 Speaker 3: the mouths of gods are opened. May you open the 754 00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:33,839 Speaker 3: mouth of N with it? 755 00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,120 Speaker 2: Nice And we get that connection back to Osyrus, who 756 00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:41,919 Speaker 2: we talked about previously on the show. This is interesting too, 757 00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,160 Speaker 2: because then when I was researching Taw, who I talked 758 00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,480 Speaker 2: about earlier, the Egyptian god associated with craftsmanship. There was 759 00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,520 Speaker 2: also mention in Pinch's work about the opening of the 760 00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:56,879 Speaker 2: mouth ceremony and elsewhere in the book. She talks about 761 00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,600 Speaker 2: the Horus connection and so forth, but it's seems like 762 00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,160 Speaker 2: Todd did have some sort of connection to this as well, 763 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,440 Speaker 2: and she mentions that it was used for mummies but 764 00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:11,560 Speaker 2: also for sculptures, and maybe given his craftsmanship angle, he's 765 00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,160 Speaker 2: more aligned with that end of it. I'm not entirely certain, 766 00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:19,880 Speaker 2: but yeah, imbuing life into the sculpture, embodying it somehow, 767 00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,000 Speaker 2: and like you said, perhaps turning on after life mode 768 00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:27,960 Speaker 2: for the mummified body of an important person. 769 00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:31,799 Speaker 3: But also very interesting that implements specifically of iron are 770 00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,440 Speaker 3: associated with this ritual, that it has some kind of 771 00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:39,040 Speaker 3: mythical or ritual potency here. So all months of Villatorro 772 00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,520 Speaker 3: in this article gets into the fact that before the 773 00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,360 Speaker 3: widespread or large scale smelting of iron and iron working 774 00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,399 Speaker 3: within Egypt, there are still these iron artifacts that are 775 00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:55,600 Speaker 3: thought to be made primarily of iron sourced from meteorites, 776 00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:00,799 Speaker 3: and that they almost always again serve this more ceremonial 777 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,279 Speaker 3: or decorative function. They are either objects of kind of 778 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,920 Speaker 3: wealth and power and decoration. They symbolize status maybe or 779 00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:14,160 Speaker 3: that they have this religious significance. But anyway, I wanted 780 00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:16,080 Speaker 3: to come back to the core question of like what 781 00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:20,040 Speaker 3: is the evidence that the ancient Egyptians actually understood that 782 00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:24,080 Speaker 3: this meteoritic iron or meteorite iron came from the sky. 783 00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,680 Speaker 3: And so she writes, in the second millennium BCE, the 784 00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:32,840 Speaker 3: Egyptian word or phrase used to refer to iron was 785 00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,279 Speaker 3: a phrase that literally can mean the metal of the 786 00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:42,480 Speaker 3: sky or the iron of the sky, and there are 787 00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,839 Speaker 3: early known Egyptian associations between iron and the sky. So 788 00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:50,480 Speaker 3: you've got the pyramid pyramid text which are texts inscribed 789 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,280 Speaker 3: on the inner walls of the pyramids where the Egyptian 790 00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,840 Speaker 3: kings and queens of the fifth to eighth dynasties of 791 00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,400 Speaker 3: the Old Kingdom were buried. This would cover a period 792 00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:02,440 Speaker 3: of forty one hundred forty four hundred years ago or so. 793 00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:07,759 Speaker 3: These texts included incantations that would be recited by priests 794 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:11,960 Speaker 3: to guide the dead rulers into the afterlife. And the 795 00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:16,240 Speaker 3: pyramid texts describe a really interesting cosmology, really interesting picture 796 00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:20,240 Speaker 3: of how the universe was shaped. And in her work, 797 00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:24,600 Speaker 3: Almans of Villatro argues that the way they described the 798 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:28,880 Speaker 3: sky should be pictured as a giant iron bowl with 799 00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,280 Speaker 3: water in it, and water can fall from the bowl. 800 00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,960 Speaker 3: I guess that's rain, but also chunks of the iron 801 00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,279 Speaker 3: bowl itself can fall to the earth, and these would 802 00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:43,440 Speaker 3: be iron meteorites. Now the author admits that it's not 803 00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:46,839 Speaker 3: obvious this is what's being described. You have to sort 804 00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:50,440 Speaker 3: of decode a linked system of metaphors within the glyphs 805 00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:54,480 Speaker 3: of the Egyptian language. She writes, quote, in the Pyramid texts, 806 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,440 Speaker 3: the word for iron is written with a hieroglyph that 807 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:02,440 Speaker 3: represents a hemispherical container of water. How the Egyptians perceived 808 00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:06,440 Speaker 3: the sky. Iron and sky are interchangeable in the texts, 809 00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,360 Speaker 3: which is why passages describe the dead sling the iron 810 00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,759 Speaker 3: and the king needing to break an iron barrier to 811 00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,840 Speaker 3: reach the sky. And then she documents how there are 812 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,920 Speaker 3: also links between the concept of iron and the concept 813 00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:24,520 Speaker 3: of water, because remember, in many ancient cosmologies, people sort 814 00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,800 Speaker 3: of believe the sky was in some sense full of water, 815 00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,560 Speaker 3: and so maybe when it rains, that's water leaking out 816 00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:35,040 Speaker 3: of the waters above. And so Almans of Vulatora writes 817 00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,960 Speaker 3: that the goddess Newt personified the sky. But also at 818 00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,600 Speaker 3: this period there are religious texts explaining the belief that 819 00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:46,399 Speaker 3: in the afterlife a dead royal would return to the 820 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:51,600 Speaker 3: waters of nuts Uterus, and so this sign used for 821 00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,759 Speaker 3: iron is also associated with the word for uterus and 822 00:49:55,840 --> 00:50:00,520 Speaker 3: the word for well, like water well. And so she 823 00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,239 Speaker 3: admits there might be legitimate reasons for doubting this interpretation 824 00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:08,920 Speaker 3: that these associations mean that the Egyptians knew that iron 825 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,680 Speaker 3: meteorites came from the sky. And one is the simple 826 00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,280 Speaker 3: question of, like, how likely is it in a given 827 00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:19,080 Speaker 3: space and time period that someone would be able to, 828 00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:23,440 Speaker 3: like have the like witness a meteorite falling, which itself 829 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:27,680 Speaker 3: is a fairly rare event, witness it falling, and then 830 00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:30,840 Speaker 3: have it be lucky enough that it lands very physically 831 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,359 Speaker 3: close that you can close enough that you can go 832 00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:37,239 Speaker 3: find the physical meteorite and then associate it with the 833 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,759 Speaker 3: falling you saw from above and put all that information 834 00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,880 Speaker 3: together and then also pass it on for it to 835 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,640 Speaker 3: become general cultural knowledge. You know, that would take a 836 00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,840 Speaker 3: sort of like a lucky confluence of events that themselves 837 00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:56,320 Speaker 3: might be fairly rare, but you know, it happens often 838 00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:59,040 Speaker 3: enough that there are records of other times in places 839 00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:01,600 Speaker 3: where people did see something falling and then they claim 840 00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:04,640 Speaker 3: to have found a stone or something. So it's certainly 841 00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,840 Speaker 3: not impossible, And in the case of ancient Egypt, it 842 00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:11,319 Speaker 3: seems like there's this linguistic and literary evidence that would 843 00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:15,520 Speaker 3: help support that idea that people did have this cultural 844 00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:19,520 Speaker 3: knowledge making a link between iron and the sky and 845 00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:20,440 Speaker 3: the waters above. 846 00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,719 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and again perhaps throwing in the idea of 847 00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:29,279 Speaker 2: the desert being an ideal place to spot them in 848 00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:33,680 Speaker 2: the dark stone standing out against of a lighter colored sand, 849 00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,520 Speaker 2: and so forth. May come back to meteorite hunting a 850 00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:41,600 Speaker 2: little bit in subsequent episodes to explore this aspect of 851 00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:42,439 Speaker 2: everything a bit more. 852 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,480 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Oh, one more thing she knows that I 853 00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,319 Speaker 3: think is interesting. This is not totally unique to the 854 00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:51,840 Speaker 3: Egyptian language. She also notes that there is a similar 855 00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:56,400 Speaker 3: sort of linguistic link in ancient Sumerian, which also characterizes 856 00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,640 Speaker 3: iron as sort of the metal of the sky. 857 00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:03,879 Speaker 2: Excellent, excellent. Well, in the next episode, I think we're 858 00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,879 Speaker 2: going to get into some more examples. We're gonna we're 859 00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:09,080 Speaker 2: going to keep exploring the overall topic, but we'll also 860 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:13,080 Speaker 2: get into some other specific examples from other cultures. Well, 861 00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:15,000 Speaker 2: we'll sort of ask some of the same questions of 862 00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:19,279 Speaker 2: Chinese traditions. You know, did they know that that this 863 00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,520 Speaker 2: iron came from above and what did that mean to 864 00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:24,879 Speaker 2: them and so forth. So, yeah, there are a lot 865 00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,839 Speaker 2: of additional interesting angles to explore. And there are some 866 00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:33,919 Speaker 2: other other examples and alleged examples of meteoric iron being 867 00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:38,879 Speaker 2: used in artifacts that are related to to cultures that 868 00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:40,960 Speaker 2: that I didn't even know how to tradition of using 869 00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,840 Speaker 2: such substances. So it'll be it'll be fascinating to continue. 870 00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:46,800 Speaker 3: To explore this, no doubt. I'm excited. 871 00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,879 Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the meantime, if you have thoughts on 872 00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,160 Speaker 2: this topic, if you if there are specific examples you 873 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:55,960 Speaker 2: want to get in there early and say yes, make 874 00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,480 Speaker 2: sure you cover this, go ahead and hit us with it. 875 00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,520 Speaker 2: You know we're we're in we're still in research mode here. 876 00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,160 Speaker 2: We're still writing up the notes, so you know, there's 877 00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:06,759 Speaker 2: time to get it in there, and if not, it's 878 00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,520 Speaker 2: something we can discuss on our listener mail episodes. Our 879 00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:12,799 Speaker 2: listener Mail episodes published Mondays in the Stuff to Blow 880 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:16,200 Speaker 2: Your Mind podcast feed. 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