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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is.

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Speaker 3: Robert Man and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back

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Speaker 3: with part three of our series on human uses of

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Speaker 3: iron from space. I think we had a little interlude

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Speaker 3: there where. On Tuesday of this week we ran an

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Speaker 3: unrelated interview. But today we're back to finish off the

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Speaker 3: series with Part three. Now, if you haven't heard the

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Speaker 3: first two parts yet, you should probably go back check

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Speaker 3: those out first, But to do a quick recap. In

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Speaker 3: part one, we focused largely on the iron dagger of

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Speaker 3: Tuton Common, a blade found wrapped up with the pharaoh

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Speaker 3: tuton Common inside his coffin from before the time of

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Speaker 3: large scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And we discussed

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Speaker 3: chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger was almost

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Speaker 3: certainly made out of iron that came not from Earth,

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Speaker 3: but from a piece of iron meteorite that fell from space.

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Speaker 3: And it turns out that a lot of iron artifacts

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Speaker 3: like amulets, beads, tools and trinkets. A lot of these

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Speaker 3: iron artifacts from before the various regional iron ages have

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Speaker 3: this in common. They come from meteorites, so ancient peoples

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Speaker 3: were taking alien metal that fell from the sky and

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Speaker 3: shaping it to their uses. In Part two, we talked

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Speaker 3: about a few more specific artifacts believed to be made

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Speaker 3: from meteorite irons, such as the Shang Dynasty axes from

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Speaker 3: ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known as the

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Speaker 3: Iron Man or sometimes in the media as the Space Buddha,

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Speaker 3: which was at one point alleged to be a Tibetan

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Speaker 3: depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism known as vice Ravana,

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Speaker 3: but according to some experts in Buddhist art, was actually

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Speaker 3: a twentieth century European design, amounting to a forgery or

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Speaker 3: at least a crude imitation of Tibetan imagery. And then

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Speaker 3: I ended up getting in to some of the speculation

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Speaker 3: about who could have actually made this sculpture, which is

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Speaker 3: a somewhat wild story if true, big if true. We

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Speaker 3: also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites come

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Speaker 3: from space. So it took scientists of the European Enlightenment

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Speaker 3: until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to really

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Speaker 3: agree on this, but there is some evidence that people

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Speaker 3: in ancient China. In ancient Egypt and other cultures knew

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Speaker 3: that this metal came from above, and some of the

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Speaker 3: indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the fact

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Speaker 3: that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention to

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Speaker 3: refer to iron as iron of the sky or metal

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Speaker 3: of the sky. And so today we're back to talk

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Speaker 3: about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology and

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Speaker 3: artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing that's

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Speaker 3: interesting this has sort of come up a little so far,

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Speaker 3: is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power, a

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Speaker 3: sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after the

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Speaker 3: spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron.

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Speaker 3: So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane,

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Speaker 3: and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from

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Speaker 3: the earth and we use it to make all kinds

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Speaker 3: of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably

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Speaker 3: appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and that's why in this next section I

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Speaker 2: want to get out of the Bronze Age and get

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Speaker 2: into the post Bronze Age Islamic world, where we see

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Speaker 2: various mentions of what may be meteoric iron. So a

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Speaker 2: lot of this is going to concern swords, at least

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Speaker 2: in the outset here. Swords have of course played a

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Speaker 2: significant role in human history and take on various meanings

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Speaker 2: across various cultures that use them, which is pretty much

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Speaker 2: any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've

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Speaker 2: just us on stuff to blow your mind and the

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Speaker 2: artifact the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before,

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Speaker 2: we see sword like weapons in cultures that did not

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Speaker 2: have access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality

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Speaker 2: is ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here

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Speaker 2: about you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that

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Speaker 2: are that to the untrained eye might look like a sword.

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Speaker 2: May even be you may even have bits of stone

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Speaker 2: embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance,

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Speaker 2: so there is something like, even when you cannot make

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Speaker 2: swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials, there is

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Speaker 2: something about the form, and it's an extension of the

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Speaker 2: human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up

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Speaker 2: in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known,

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Speaker 2: the sword increasingly took on various literal symbolic metaphorical meanings,

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Speaker 2: And this of course means that swords factor into various

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Speaker 2: religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance,

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Speaker 2: in Christiananity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict,

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Speaker 2: and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to

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Speaker 2: refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like

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Speaker 2: anything in a religious text, people will take it and

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Speaker 2: apply whatever meaning they want to it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot of ways you could read

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Speaker 3: I come not to bring peace, but a sword.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now you'll find swords, even flaming swords, and Buddhist

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Speaker 2: iconography and Hinduism, and the sword of course also factors

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Speaker 2: into Islam. And I bring up these other religious examples

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Speaker 2: in part because, based on some of the sources I

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Speaker 2: was looking at, it does seem that there is often

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Speaker 2: a Western bias in interpreting sword iconography and references in

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Speaker 2: Islam as more overtly tied to armed conflict than perhaps

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Speaker 2: in other religions. This is not to say that the

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Speaker 2: sword in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't always refer to harmed conflict or violence.

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Speaker 3: Could be literal, could be metaphorical.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, so. Islamic swords may stand for religious or political authority,

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Speaker 2: they may stand for mystical knowledge and more in addition

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Speaker 2: to military victory. But moving on to specific swords, there

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Speaker 2: are a number of them of note from Islamic history.

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Speaker 2: The prophet Muhammad is held to have possessed nine swords

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Speaker 2: during his life, and the most famous of which is

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Speaker 2: the dul Fakari or dul Fakar. I may be pronouncing

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Speaker 2: this incorrectly. If so, I apologize, but the name's meaning

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Speaker 2: is largely uncertain, but may relate to concepts of splitting,

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Speaker 2: and is often depicted as a pronged, split or double

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Speaker 2: bladed sword. You can look up images of various images

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Speaker 2: of the sword in iconography, and depending on how it's presented,

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Speaker 2: the blade may split near the tip or I've seen

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Speaker 2: examples of the blades splitting close to the hilt. So

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Speaker 2: I guess it kind of runs the gamut from like

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Speaker 2: the highly symbolic to the you know, pievable and practical,

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Speaker 2: and again that we're talking about largely about imagery here.

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Speaker 2: Actual symbolic swords have been produced, but the sword in

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Speaker 2: question here, the dual Forakar, is I think largely understood

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Speaker 2: to be a mystical and or mythological item. The story goes, however,

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Speaker 2: that the prophet acquires the sword at the Battle of

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Speaker 2: Bata in six twenty four, and then ultimately passes the

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Speaker 2: sword on to his son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph,

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Speaker 2: now Caliph's by the way, if you're not familiar, these

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Speaker 2: were the Muslim civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad.

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Speaker 2: So the sword in question here, the Dulafaikar, is strongly

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Speaker 2: associated with Ali. There are various legends about his military

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Speaker 2: exploits with this mystical weapon and its ability to cut

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Speaker 2: through his enemies, though it is also a symbol of

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Speaker 2: political and spiritual authority. It is in many ways said

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Speaker 2: to be the sword of swords, as Islamic blades were

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Speaker 2: traditionally inscribed with the phrase there is no sword but

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Speaker 2: dul Fokar, and there is no hero but Ali. Okay,

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Speaker 2: some superlatives, right right, And you can find examples of this.

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Speaker 2: I was looking around and like various museums inevitably have

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Speaker 2: swords of Islamic origin that have that do mention the

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Speaker 2: Dulfokar on them. So it's a can you can find

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Speaker 2: examples of this, perhaps even in your own museum within

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Speaker 2: your own region. Now, some say that the actual sword

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Speaker 2: in question here, among other relics, is currently in the

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Speaker 2: in the possession of the Topekapi Palace museum in Turkey.

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Speaker 2: But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism, the

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Speaker 2: sword is believed to be in heaven or and or

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Speaker 2: in the possession of Muhammad Almadi, the Imam believed to

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Speaker 2: return at the end of time. So again there's this

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Speaker 2: idea that again a highly mystical sword that is held

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Speaker 2: in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore. Now,

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Speaker 2: I say all this to sort of going to get

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Speaker 2: into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is not

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Speaker 2: the sword that I wanted to talk about in connection

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Speaker 2: to today's episode. Like there's I've seen no discussion that

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Speaker 2: this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to

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Speaker 2: this sword containing meteoric iron, And I guess we should

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Speaker 2: also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings

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Speaker 2: not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However,

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Speaker 2: we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric

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Speaker 2: iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example

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Speaker 2: in just a second, but you know, we should remember

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Speaker 2: that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the

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Speaker 2: rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs

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Speaker 2: depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the

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Speaker 2: rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition

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Speaker 2: of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed

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Speaker 2: toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on

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Speaker 2: religion for better charting of time and location. Thus there's

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Speaker 2: a reason to focus more on the movements of the stars,

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Speaker 2: and this ends up helping to foster a more robust

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Speaker 2: cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions in the

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Speaker 2: ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now, on the

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Speaker 2: other hand, I was reading a survey of Muslim materials

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Speaker 2: on comets and meteors by David Cook. According to Cook,

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Speaker 2: comets and meteors during the for a very long time

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Speaker 2: in these traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were

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Speaker 2: held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial,

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Speaker 2: so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions

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Speaker 2: would still be found in other forms of literature, especially

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Speaker 2: when they were held as portents or lined up with

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Speaker 2: important deaths or events such as the death of the

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Speaker 2: Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in

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Speaker 2: the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in

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Speaker 2: the past, I think this was when I was writing

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Speaker 2: for How Stuff Works, and I was writing or applying

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Speaker 2: some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and

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Speaker 2: I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had

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Speaker 2: been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back,

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Speaker 2: I tried to get into this because I early wanted

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Speaker 2: to figure out where's this coming from, what specifically is

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Speaker 2: this referring to? What are the sources? And the initial

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Speaker 2: source was a nineteen forty one paper published in the

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Speaker 2: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and

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Speaker 2: Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard,

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Speaker 2: and at one point in the text he discusses the

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Speaker 2: possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for

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Speaker 2: the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going

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Speaker 2: to read a quote hear from it In later times,

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Speaker 2: we read that Attila, timor Antar and other devastating conquerors

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Speaker 2: had swords from heaven. So also the Caliphs, whose swords

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Speaker 2: were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone

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Speaker 2: that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an

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Speaker 2: Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords

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Speaker 2: were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that

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Speaker 2: fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to

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Speaker 2: the show for a while, you know that we did

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Speaker 2: in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca

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Speaker 2: a while back, probably a few years at this point,

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Speaker 2: And one of the things that we did cover there

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Speaker 2: that maybe wasn't as a parent to the author of

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Speaker 2: this paper, is that the origins of the Cobbastone are

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Speaker 2: far from a settled matter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I

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Speaker 3: don't remember exactly what we concluded there, but it seemed

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Speaker 3: like there were still plenty of room for uncertainty there,

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Speaker 3: though there were suggestions of reasons for thinking it may

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Speaker 3: have been a stone created by an impact of some sort,

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Speaker 3: whether it came from above, or maybe whether it was

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Speaker 3: created of like one of those types of glasses created

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Speaker 3: by impacts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think ultimately it's just all observational

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Speaker 2: because it's a sacred relic. It's not going to be

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Speaker 2: scientifically analyzed, which is the case with many relics around

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Speaker 2: the world. In getting into this whole business about the sword,

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Speaker 2: so that was what I really wanted an answer to,

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Speaker 2: and I've got to admit that I was able to

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Speaker 2: find out precious little about Islamic swords alleged to have

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Speaker 2: been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British

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Speaker 2: geologist Sir Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by

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Speaker 2: this author, I didn't really find any answers to my

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Speaker 2: questions either. I did consult a couple of sources about

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Speaker 2: the history of metallurgy in the region. And it is

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Speaker 2: key to note that we've already touched on islam arises.

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Speaker 2: After the end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East,

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Speaker 2: the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any

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Speaker 2: meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of

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Speaker 2: the past, and they clearly had access to what is

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Speaker 2: often held up is the best steel of the day.

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Speaker 3: Right, steel being a product of iron, So it would

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Speaker 3: not be a question like we talked about with the

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Speaker 3: King tut example, with this being a you know, a

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Speaker 3: product from before the regional iron age, from before people

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Speaker 3: before there was large scale smelting of iron in the area.

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Speaker 3: There's plenty of smelting of iron and production of iron artifacts.

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Speaker 3: These would just be iron from a different source in

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Speaker 3: a place that was already rich with iron, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, interestingly enough, interestingly enough here, I don't know

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Speaker 2: to what extent, or any extent this ends up coloring

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Speaker 2: these older writings by Western writers, if this factors into

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Speaker 2: the analysis at all. But there is actually a line

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Speaker 2: in the Quran fifty seven twenty five that refers to

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Speaker 2: iron in a way that is sometimes interpreted as having

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Speaker 2: some connection to meteoric iron. I'm going to read the

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Speaker 2: passage here, this is of course in translation. Indeed, we

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Speaker 2: sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we

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Speaker 2: sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so

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Speaker 2: that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron

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Speaker 2: with its great might benefits for humanity and means for

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Speaker 2: Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for

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Speaker 2: him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is

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Speaker 2: all powerful almighty ah.

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Speaker 3: So I imagine some interpretation is hinging there on the phrase

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Speaker 3: we sent down iron, with the idea of iron somehow

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Speaker 3: coming from above exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading paper talk titled Basic Concepts of

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Speaker 2: Physics and the Perspective of the Qur'an by M. M. Karashi.

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Speaker 2: This was in a nineteen eighty nine edition of Islamic Studies,

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Speaker 2: and the author here writes that quote the implication of

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Speaker 2: the words has become fully apparent only through historical investigation

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Speaker 2: of the earliest use of meteoric iron. So I could

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Speaker 2: be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction

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Speaker 2: or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these

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Speaker 2: lines in the Qur'an reference and historical understanding of iron

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Speaker 2: meteor rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again, as we've

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Speaker 2: touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world

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Speaker 2: in different parts and to different degrees, that there was

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Speaker 2: a connection between iron and meteorites, between iron and the

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Speaker 2: sky again makes perfect sense, given everything we've discussed, but

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Speaker 2: isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem to

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Speaker 2: interpret this verse as just stating that iron in the

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Speaker 2: earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of meteors

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Speaker 2: doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation.

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Speaker 2: You know, it was sent down just a way of

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Speaker 2: saying it came from God, which you know fair enough.

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Speaker 2: And say anything was sent down, you could, I guess

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Speaker 2: you could say a giraffe was sent down, but that

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into the

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Speaker 2: Earth's atmosphere.

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Speaker 3: Well, everything in this passage is said to be sent down,

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Speaker 3: and the other cases of sent down here don't necessarily

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Speaker 3: seem to imply a physical descent from space.

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Speaker 2: Right, So again I invite correction or clarity on these points,

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Speaker 2: especially from anyone who has kroonic knowledge and so forth.

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Speaker 2: But I did find it interesting that in this passage

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Speaker 2: we see a possible reference to meteoric iron, and then

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Speaker 2: we also have these other, like more perhaps dubious mentions

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Speaker 2: in Western writings about meteoric swords meteoric iron swords that

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Speaker 2: were used by the Calbs.

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Speaker 3: All right, well, I wanted to begin this next section

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Speaker 3: by looking at how big chunks of meteorc iron arrive

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Speaker 3: on Earth. Already, we've mentioned several examples of meteoroids that

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Speaker 3: at some point entered Earth's atmosphere and fragmented or shattered

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Speaker 3: in the air, separating into a series of smaller meteorite

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Speaker 3: fragments which can be found across an impact field. For example,

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Speaker 3: in the last episode, we talked about the Chinga meteorite,

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Speaker 3: one piece of which was probably used to make the

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Speaker 3: so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And

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Speaker 3: while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect,

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Speaker 3: the physical origins are not. Really it does seem to

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Speaker 3: be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite.

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Speaker 3: So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found

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Speaker 3: in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia,

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Speaker 3: since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early

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Speaker 3: nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a

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Speaker 3: large area is the result of some original object coming

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Speaker 3: apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten

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Speaker 3: to twenty thousand years ago. Now, there are different ways

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Speaker 3: for meteoroids to come apart or lose their structural integrity

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Speaker 3: in the atmosphere. In some cases they land roughly intact,

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Speaker 3: in some cases they split up into some number of

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Speaker 3: smaller pieces from the original, and in some cases they

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Speaker 3: basically just explode or vaporize, and on the explosion end

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Speaker 3: of the scale, the explosions before the meteoroids reach the ground.

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Speaker 3: These explosions are referred to as air bursts. In many

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Speaker 3: such cases, the entire object, or nearly the entire object,

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Speaker 3: is burned up or reduced to dust in the process.

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Speaker 3: In the case of the relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which

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Speaker 3: exploded over Russia in February twenty thirteen, an asteroid that

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Speaker 3: was originally like twenty meters or sixty five feet in diameter.

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Speaker 3: When it entered the Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few

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Speaker 3: tens of kilometers above the ground. For some reason, I've

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Speaker 3: seen different estimates about the altitude. Some say twenty three

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Speaker 3: kilometers up, others say thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was,

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Speaker 3: this explosion released a huge amount of energy, expressed in

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Speaker 3: the hundreds of kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred

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Speaker 3: or five hundred kilotons of T and T. The explosion

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Speaker 3: way up there, damaged thousands of buildings on the ground,

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Speaker 3: blew out glass, and sent some fifteen hundred people to

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Speaker 3: the hospital, though thankfully no deaths were reported.

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Speaker 2: The footage of this, like the dashboard footage that was

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Speaker 2: going around, is quite incredible, so if you haven't seen it,

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Speaker 2: definitely seek it out.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely that is worth looking at. It is awe inspiring,

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Speaker 3: and this is a particularly big air burst in the

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Speaker 3: modern era, not of course the biggest that can happen,

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Speaker 3: but very big and recent memory, though, I was reading

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Speaker 3: if the object had impacted the ground instead of exploding

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Speaker 3: high up in the atmosphere, if it had hit the

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Speaker 3: ground or exploded lower in the atmosphere the dam the

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Speaker 3: damage could have been much much worse. So in a way,

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Speaker 3: the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that

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Speaker 3: the Chelubenzk meteoroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the

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Speaker 3: size of a house, I've read estimates that well below

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Speaker 3: one percent of its mass reached the ground in the

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Speaker 3: form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've

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Speaker 3: seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero

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Speaker 3: point one percent of its mass or like zero point

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Speaker 3: zero five percent of its mass, some very small percent

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Speaker 3: of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks,

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Speaker 3: and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as

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Speaker 3: the object broke apart and burned up. So this got

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Speaker 3: me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to

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Speaker 3: just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key

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Speaker 3: factor is speed. So the original object, which might be

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Speaker 3: a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a

365
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Speaker 3: few meters in diameter or maybe up to tens of meters,

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Speaker 3: typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the

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Speaker 3: American Meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going

368
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Speaker 3: anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers

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Speaker 3: per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this

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Speaker 3: variability that you might not think about it first. The

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Speaker 3: speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not

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Speaker 3: only on the speed of the comet or the asteroids

373
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Speaker 3: orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own

374
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Speaker 3: intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also

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Speaker 3: affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously

376
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Speaker 3: orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second and

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Speaker 3: is also though this is less important, rotating at about

378
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Speaker 3: one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course,

379
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 3: speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer.

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Speaker 3: So even though we use language like the speed at

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Speaker 3: which a meetia enters our atmosphere, that could give the

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Speaker 3: false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media

383
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Speaker 3: is moving. In reality, both are moving, and they're moving

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00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 3: in their own directions, and so the speed of entry

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Speaker 3: is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to

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Speaker 3: each other, you know, So it could be kind of

387
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Speaker 3: trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere

388
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Speaker 3: it hits, or it could be like slamming into more

389
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Speaker 3: kind of a head on kind of collision with the

390
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Speaker 3: part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course,

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Speaker 3: other things about other things about the way a meteor

392
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Speaker 3: enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fate,

393
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Speaker 3: whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so

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Speaker 3: that would include things like the angle of entry. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: whatever the speed is at that incredible speed, the air

396
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Speaker 3: directly in front of the meteoroid. Once it enters the

397
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Speaker 3: atmosphere becomes greatly compressed. It's squeezing a lot of atmospheric

398
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Speaker 3: gas in its path into a very small space, very rapidly,

399
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 3: so you can imagine it kind of like a pneumatic

400
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 3: piston that is moving so fast it doesn't need a

401
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,719
Speaker 3: cylinder to squeeze the air in front of it. If

402
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 3: you're traveling at dozens of kilometers per second, you're going

403
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 3: to squeeze a lot of air into a thin layer

404
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 3: at your bow before it has the chance to move

405
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:22,800
Speaker 3: out of the way. And as a result of being

406
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 3: so violently compressed, this air gets extremely hot, and then

407
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 3: this layer of hot compressed gas flows around the sides

408
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 3: of the object as it travels. This fast movement not

409
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:37,120
Speaker 3: only compresses the gas in front, but it also creates

410
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 3: a relative vacuum in the space directly behind the meteoroid,

411
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 3: and these forces put a lot of stress on the object,

412
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Speaker 3: heating it up by thousands of degrees celsius, melting or

413
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Speaker 3: vaporizing parts of it. Causing pieces of it to break off.

414
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 3: Is just a huge amount of stress on a solid

415
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Speaker 3: chunk of material. These pieces that might be broken off

416
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Speaker 3: of the object are in turn subjected to extreme forces

417
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Speaker 3: of heat and pressure, and a sudden breakup of the

418
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Speaker 3: main mass of the meteoroid can release just a lot

419
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Speaker 3: of energy quite suddenly and resemble an explosion. Also, in

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Speaker 3: addition to all this, I came across a paper from

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Speaker 3: twenty eighteen adding another interesting mechanism, another piece of information

422
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Speaker 3: to the puzzle here. So this paper was by Tabita

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Speaker 3: and Malash published in Mediauritics and Planetary Science in the

424
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Speaker 3: Air twenty eighteen and the paper is called Air Penetration

425
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Speaker 3: Enhances Fragmentation of Entering Meteoroids. So this paper is discussing

426
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Speaker 3: an attempt to model the physics of a fragmenting meteoroid

427
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 3: with reference to the example of Chellibinsk and the authors

428
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 3: here argue that their model reveals a previously unrecognized but

429
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 3: very important mechanism in how this breakup occurs, and that

430
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 3: is the penetration of high pressure air inside the body

431
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 3: of the object through permeability of the material or through

432
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 3: tiny cracks and pores in the rock or the metal.

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Speaker 3: And as this air percolates into the solid body of

434
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 3: the meteoroid, it decreases its material strength. That weakens it

435
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 3: and makes it more likely to want to split apart.

436
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 3: One of the authors, Purdue University professor j Malash, described

437
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 3: the process in a press release, saying, quote, there's a

438
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 3: big gradient between the high pressure air in front of

439
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 3: the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it. If

440
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 3: the air can move through the passages in the meteorite,

441
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 3: it can easily get inside and blow off pieces. So

442
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 3: air bursts are aided by this percolation, which every time

443
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 3: I say that, I do think of coffee as a

444
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 3: kind of kitchen first thinking. But this percolation of superheated

445
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 3: compressed gas into the body of the meteoroid through these

446
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 3: tiny holes and gaps in its structure. But not all

447
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 3: meteoroids are equally vulnerable to this process. Size and density

448
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 3: help protect a meteoroid from fragmentation and vaporization. Iron meteoroids

449
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 3: are not completely immune, but since they are denser on

450
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 3: average than stony meteoroids, they are less likely to result

451
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 3: in an air burst, and thus it is more likely

452
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 3: that large solid chunks reach the Earth's surface intact. And

453
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 3: so I would like to talk about one such meteorite

454
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 3: iron meteorite that did reach the surface of the Earth

455
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 3: in several very large pieces, and that is the Inongenic meteorite,

456
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 3: also known as the Cape York meteorite, three large pieces

457
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 3: of which are now on display at the American Museum

458
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 3: of Natural History in New York. There's one that is enormous,

459
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,719
Speaker 3: you know, it's like sort of car sized, and even

460
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,479
Speaker 3: the other two that are smaller are very big. So

461
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 3: some thousands of years ago, we don't know exactly when

462
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 3: a meteoroid weighing possible like two hundred tons about one

463
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty metric tons, but we don't know for sure,

464
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 3: entered the atmosphere and fragmented into pieces in the Arctic

465
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 3: over North America. But as several still very large pieces

466
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 3: of iron meteorite did make it to the ground. They

467
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 3: landed in what is today northwestern Greenland, probably before it

468
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 3: was inhabited by people, after people first arrived in the area.

469
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 3: Again we don't know for sure when this was. They

470
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 3: found these large caches of solid iron and began using

471
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 3: them to make iron tools through a process called cold forging,

472
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 3: essentially using heavy objects such as stones to hammer pieces

473
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 3: of the iron meteorite until they broke off, and then

474
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 3: you would hammer these pieces until they reached the shape

475
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 3: you wanted, such as a knife blade or a harpoon tip.

476
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: And this cold forging process was very energy intensive. It

477
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 3: took a lot of human labor. These sources of meteorite

478
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 3: iron became a vital mineral resource for the Inuit peoples

479
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 3: of the region.

480
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 2: It is telling once more, we're talking about a culture

481
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 2: that would often be interacting with a landscape upon which

482
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: little bits of meteorites would potentially show up a lot

483
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 2: easier and be easier to find, you know, in this

484
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: case the snowscape, but in other cases we've been talking

485
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:29,959
Speaker 2: about desert environments.

486
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 3: Ice is actually a great surface for finding meteorites. This

487
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 3: came up in that documentary that we watched by the

488
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 3: Verner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer documentary where they're looking for

489
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 3: meteorites on the surface of ice sheets by helicopter in Antarctica,

490
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 3: and it was a great place to look for them

491
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 3: because otherwise, you know, you not expecting to see rocks

492
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 3: on the top of these ice sheets.

493
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 2: That is Fireball Visitors from Darker Worlds from twenty twenty

494
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 2: and yeah, we actually interviewed Herzog and Oppenheimer for the

495
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 2: show I believe it was an anticipation of this, right,

496
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 2: or was it about their volcano documentary. I'm blanking because

497
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:15,959
Speaker 2: I watched them both around the same time. At any rate,

498
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 2: we talked to Werner Herzog and it.

499
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 3: Was terrifying, though I do want to have a caveat there.

500
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 3: I've seen some pictures I believe, of how these particular

501
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 3: iron meteorites were as they were originally in the places

502
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 3: where the Inuit people's found them, and from what I

503
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 3: recall seeing, it seemed like they were not just like

504
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 3: on top of bare ice sheets, but they were positioned

505
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 3: among a landscape more like nestled in among rocks and earth,

506
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 3: so I think they still would have really stood out.

507
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 3: They would have looked weird because they were iron meteorites,

508
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 3: but not just not so much like the things that

509
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 3: these scientists were looking for in Antarctica, where it's just

510
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 3: like a black rock on otherwise unbroken white ice sheet.

511
00:30:58,720 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 2: Right right.

512
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 3: Anyway, the tools made out of these cold forged chunks

513
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 3: of iron meteorite were they entered circulation. They were sourced

514
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 3: from these locations and then eventually traded with the communities

515
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 3: surrounding the Inuit peoples of northwestern Greenland. Eventually they made

516
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 3: it even farther. There's some evidence that some iron tools

517
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 3: made out of pieces of this meteorite were traded with

518
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 3: Norse Vikings sometime before in the eleventh century or before.

519
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 3: But by the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, explorers from Europe

520
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 3: started to make repeated contact with various Inuit peoples, including

521
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 3: the Inhuit of the far North and the Inuit are

522
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 3: a group of Inuit people also known sometimes as the

523
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 3: polar Inuit. They speak a language called Inukton and their

524
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 3: homeland is in northwestern Greenland. These European and US explorers,

525
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 3: such as the Scottish naval officer John Ross, recorded that

526
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 3: in speaking to these people, they were told about some

527
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 3: kind of mountain of iron that the Inehuit were using

528
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 3: to make their iron tools, but for a long time

529
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 3: they never saw. The explorers never saw these iron sources

530
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 3: for themselves. This was until the expeditions led by the

531
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 3: US explorer Robert Peer beginning around eighteen ninety four. Peery

532
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: is mainly known for trying to reach the North Pole.

533
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 3: There's some dispute about whether Peery ever actually did make

534
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 3: it to the geographic North Pole. He certainly claimed he

535
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 3: did in April nineteen oh nine, but it's difficult to

536
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 3: verify since the ice would have been over water and

537
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 3: is constantly moving, so the marker he placed in the

538
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 3: ice can't confirm it. Also, some later analysis of the

539
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 3: records of the expedition cast doubt on the physical plausibility

540
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 3: of their journey and also if Piery did make it

541
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 3: to the geographic North Pole. There's an account from Matthew Henson,

542
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 3: an African American explorer who lived from eighteen sixty six

543
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 3: to nineteen fifty five and served on multiple expeditions with Peery,

544
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,959
Speaker 3: indicating that he was actually the one who made it

545
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 3: there first. If they did make it so, a lot

546
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 3: of questions remain about that, But anyway, after living among

547
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 3: the Inhuit and learning from them and trading with them,

548
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 3: PII eventually removed three large chunks of iron meteorite from

549
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 3: Inhuit lands, the largest of which is known as Anihito

550
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 3: or the Tent, and this one is more than thirty

551
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 3: metric tons and it required the construction of a rail

552
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: system just to get it to his ship in order

553
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 3: to be transported to New York. But there are also

554
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 3: two other smaller but still quite sizable iron masses known

555
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 3: as the Woman and the Dog. Later and Pieri's plan

556
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 3: was to sell these objects in order to finance his

557
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 3: future expeditions to the Arctic, and they remain on display

558
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 3: today at the American Museum of Natural History. Now, in

559
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 3: addition to taking away these meteorites that were so important

560
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 3: to the Inhuit, not just practically as tools. More on

561
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 3: that in a minute, there is also an incredibly tragic

562
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: story of how Pierri took away six Inuit people and

563
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 3: delivered them back to the American Museum as well, under

564
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 3: the false pretense that they would soon be sent back

565
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 3: home with many gifts and supplies. But in crowded New

566
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 3: York they were quickly exposed to unfamiliar pathogens and most

567
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 3: of them died of respiratory diseases. So in the end

568
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,439
Speaker 3: that story is very sad. I think one man from

569
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 3: the group was able to return to Greenland, and there

570
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 3: was a boy among the group named Minic who did

571
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 3: grow up in the United States for some time, and

572
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 3: then I believe it sometime later tried to return to

573
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 3: Greenland and then also at some point came back to

574
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 3: the United States. But he passed away in the nineteen

575
00:34:46,960 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 3: eighteen flu pandemic. But regarding the Inhuit beliefs about these

576
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 3: meteorites that had provided them with iron tools for so

577
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 3: many hundreds of years, I wanted to mention a really

578
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,879
Speaker 3: interesting episode of another podcast that I came across while

579
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,800
Speaker 3: researching this subject. So this other podcast is called Endless

580
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 3: Thread and it's put out by Boston's public radio station WBUR.

581
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 3: I previously wasn't familiar with it, but this one episode

582
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,760
Speaker 3: I listened to is really great. And this podcast generally

583
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 3: discusses uses of meteorite among the Inuit people. But my

584
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 3: favorite thing about it is that it includes interview material

585
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 3: with an Inhuit shaman named Hivshoe, and it's definitely worth

586
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 3: checking out that episode in full. I think the main

587
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 3: title before a colon and subtitle is a Meteorite in Greenland,

588
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 3: but I wanted to mention one interesting and important thing

589
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 3: that sort of comes up in it. So Hisshue is

590
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 3: from a place in northwestern Greenland called hira Paluk, where

591
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 3: the Inhuit people have this long relationship with metiorite fragments

592
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 3: in and Hipshue says that in their language, these are

593
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 3: known as the excrement of the stars.

594
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 2: That sounds like an entirely different take on.

595
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 3: What these are, but it doesn't have the connotations you

596
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,280
Speaker 3: might bring to it, the thinking of it as excrement,

597
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 3: because these objects are quite sacred. In fact, I've read

598
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 3: in other contexts that a justification given for Peri's removal

599
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 3: of the iron meteorites from Inhuit lands is that the

600
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: Inhuit acquired other sources of iron and steel for practical

601
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 3: uses through trade and so forth. So I guess the

602
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 3: thinking is like, oh, they can they can get iron

603
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 3: from other sources now, so they don't really need these

604
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 3: meteorites anymore now, I think there are even if they were.

605
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 3: Even if these metea rites were only significant for practical

606
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 3: uses as a source of iron, I think there would

607
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 3: be reasons for doubting that that way of thinking that justification.

608
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 3: But in this interview, Hisshue makes clear that these meteorites

609
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 3: have significance beyond simply being utilitarian sources of metal. Though

610
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 3: they were that as well, their significance was sacred, and

611
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 3: he mentions that cutting off a piece of metal from

612
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 3: the source involves a ritual. There is a ritual to

613
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 3: that sort of giving the people access to the metal

614
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 3: from this sacred object, and the tools made from it

615
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 3: are not simply viewed as tools. He calls them partners

616
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,439
Speaker 3: because in a way, he says, everything in their view

617
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 3: of the world is life. Everything is infused with life.

618
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 3: So a tool made from this meteorite is not just

619
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 3: simply a dead object to get some use out of. It,

620
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 3: is a partner in your work. So anyway, if you

621
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 3: want to check out that other podcast episode again, the

622
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 3: show is called Endless Thread. The title of the episode

623
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 3: is a meteorite in Greenland. But to continue on this subject,

624
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 3: I was reading around and I found other accounts of

625
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 3: Inuit people explaining that they view these meteorites as having

626
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 3: a sacred power and that in fact, religious significance and

627
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 3: material utility are not mutually exclusive in their view. So

628
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 3: just one example I came across was a paper published

629
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 3: in the journal Meteoritics by marden at All called Contemporary

630
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 3: Inuit Traditional Beliefs concerning Meteorites. This is from the year

631
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two and it records what was said about

632
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 3: meteorites by Inuit elders in the High Canadian Arctic in

633
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty eight, So a few details of what the

634
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 3: authors here were told. They were told that Inuit people

635
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 3: have long come across rocks in the landscape that they

636
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 3: interpret as being not natural, sort of not the same

637
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,479
Speaker 3: as everything else around them, and in some cases these

638
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 3: are meteorites, and meteorite pieces that are discovered or possessed

639
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 3: by a person can give people special powers in some cases,

640
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 3: or have some kind of special link to the fate

641
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 3: of the person who owns them. They mentioned that these

642
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 3: iron media have been sources of metal for the fashioning

643
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 3: of effective tools and weapons. But contrary to what might

644
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 3: be a common Western assumption, this does not mean that

645
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,839
Speaker 3: they are not viewed as sacred or spiritual objects. Quote.

646
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 3: The one evident thing that became clear to the author

647
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 3: is that the Inuit distinctly believed that these meteorites are

648
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 3: religious objects of the highest order, and it brings into

649
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 3: question the current academic practice of sending meteorites south to

650
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 3: research institutes. Any seeming conflict with the traditional use of

651
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 3: meteoric iron is more apparent than real. The animals, the hunt,

652
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,359
Speaker 3: the act of survival, all being bound up in the

653
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 3: mystic patterns of animistic belief. So what I take from

654
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,440
Speaker 3: this is it's sort of pushing back against an assumption

655
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 3: that many Westerners might have that, oh, if people are

656
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 3: just using this metal to make tools that they use

657
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 3: for everyday chores, you know, for hunting and other things

658
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 3: that must be done to survive, and you know, and

659
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 3: maybe if you compensate them by trading with them some

660
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 3: other objects that are useful for survival, then there's nothing

661
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 3: wrong with taking this stuff away. And you might not

662
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,280
Speaker 3: feel the same way about an artifact that has religious

663
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 3: significance but maybe was crafted by humans and kept in

664
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 3: a sacred special place and has no role in the

665
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 3: ongoing work of everyday life. But I think they're saying

666
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 3: that's wrong. Even though this is used to make materials

667
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 3: that are used in regular work, it still is also sacred.

668
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 3: And that kind of raises questions for me about like,

669
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 3: why would we have the contrary assumption to begin with?

670
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 3: Why would we naturally assume that if a material is

671
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 3: broken off of a mother load and hammered into blades

672
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,320
Speaker 3: or harpoon tips or other tools used for everyday survival,

673
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 3: that material is not sacred or is not a religious object.

674
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 3: The conclusion doesn't actually follow from that premise. It implies

675
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 3: there's some other unstated premise that is driving the intuition.

676
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 3: That premise could be something like things you see every

677
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 3: day aren't sacred, or things you use to accomplish work

678
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 3: are not sacred, which, again, like where would such a

679
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 3: belief come from?

680
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot to unwrapped there, because on one hand,

681
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 2: you could see this kind of viewpoint being rooted in

682
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: like clear examples of highly ornate objects that were not

683
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 2: intended for actual functional use, such as some sort of

684
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 2: a ritualistic weapon that was clearly not intended for use

685
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 2: on the battlefield, or some sort of ritualistic item that

686
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,879
Speaker 2: essentially has the role of a scepter where it becomes

687
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 2: a symbol of power, but it is somewhat divorced from

688
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 2: practical applications that it may have had in its sort

689
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:47,800
Speaker 2: of artifact based history, like, for instance, the traditional traditional

690
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: scepters in Chinese tradition. I've seen some discussion that they

691
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 2: they may have in an origin been backscratchers. It's one theory,

692
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 2: you know. So it's like, Okay, you have a practical

693
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 2: item that then ultimately becomes a thing that is completely

694
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 2: divorced from that tradition and so if you're looking for

695
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 2: those kinds of like clear examples like Okay, well this

696
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 2: is clearly a sacred item because it doesn't look like

697
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 2: it could be used every day, so you have that

698
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 2: going on. But then yeah, I don't know. It is

699
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: weird to think about this idea of thinking that everyday items,

700
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 2: everyday things cannot be held up as sacred because I think,

701
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: for one thing, you can see various plenty of examples

702
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 2: from history where things people encountered every day still took

703
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 2: on sacred meaning. One example that comes to mind is

704
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:39,479
Speaker 2: the horse. Like the horse is you know, during times

705
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 2: of its domestication to be clear here, you know, it

706
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 2: takes on sacred connotations, mystical connotations. Like the horse. The

707
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 2: skull of the horse is often held up in different societies,

708
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,480
Speaker 2: is having some sort of a you know, peculiar meaning

709
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,319
Speaker 2: or area to it. And yet the horse was every day.

710
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 2: The horse was something that was just part of your

711
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 2: daily life and you depended upon. And then on the

712
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 2: other end of things, like there's just our personal experience

713
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 2: like a beloved tool. We may not really be in

714
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 2: the mindset of thinking about things in our immediate vicinity

715
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 2: as being you know, mystical or magical or sacred, because

716
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 2: maybe we just don't apply that mindset to our immediate world.

717
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 2: But I don't think that the way we consider our

718
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: tools and consider our knickknacks are completely divorced from that

719
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: thinking either. I mean, just think about, like whatever, if

720
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 2: you do engage in some sort of a craft or

721
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: a handiwork, Like, do you have a beloved tool, and

722
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,320
Speaker 2: how much would you have to lean into the idea

723
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 2: of it being important to get to the level of

724
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 2: it being sacred.

725
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 3: Or the source of the material from which it is

726
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 3: made being sacred.

727
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this also comes back to It reminds me

728
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 2: we were talking earlier about excrement, the idea of meteoric

729
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 2: iron as being the excrement of the sky or so forth.

730
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: This brings me back just something that came up in

731
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 2: our episodes on Dust about how there's sort of like

732
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: a modern understanding of extrement. You know, it's just pure waste, right,

733
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 2: But for people that were actually engaged in like working

734
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 2: the land and all like, there would have been more

735
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 2: of an understanding that this is not like a valueless byproduct,

736
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 2: this is something that then can be used to grow

737
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 2: something new, you know. It can be used as a fertilizer.

738
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 2: There are various traditions where, of course it's also used

739
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 2: and typically you know, I think we're dealing with animal

740
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 2: excrement in these cases, but it can be used also

741
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:40,080
Speaker 2: as fuel for fire, So you don't have to like

742
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 2: lean far in that direction to see this is something

743
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: that can be that new life can be breathed into,

744
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,439
Speaker 2: you know. But again, just coming back to the idea

745
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 2: of sacred items in everyday life, I mean, yeah, I

746
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 2: think most of us can easily admit that we very

747
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 2: easily imbue physical items with meaning. I mean, it becomes

748
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 2: a problem. So it's they're not necessarily, you know, hoarders

749
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 2: are not making everything sacred, I guess necessarily. But you know,

750
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: I don't I don't think it's you know, beyond the

751
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 2: realm of our understanding that that a tool, especially when

752
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: you depend upon could could you know, take on a

753
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:23,640
Speaker 2: sacred quality. Now as we begin to close out these episodes,

754
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:25,440
Speaker 2: I guess we're closing out these episodes on iron, I

755
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 2: don't know, do you think you have another one in you, Joe?

756
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 3: Well, there certainly are plenty more examples we could talk about,

757
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 3: but I feel like maybe we're ready to move on

758
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 3: for for our purposes, but we could come back to it,

759
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, yeah, there, we'll come up again.

760
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. There are a lot of examples out there.

761
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 2: I would love to hear from listeners about it. I mean,

762
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 2: for ins as we didn't touch on much in the

763
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 2: way of modern meteoric weapons that have been produced very

764
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 2: much with the understanding that these are meteors, these meteorites

765
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 2: and and this this is metal from the sky. And

766
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 2: you see various examples of this.

767
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 3: Uh.

768
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 2: The late Terry Pratchett, for example, had a meteoric blade

769
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 2: forged for himself using I believe bits of meteorite that

770
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 2: he himself had collected. This was for when he was knighted.

771
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 3: Oh boy.

772
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wanted to make sure you had the right

773
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 2: sword for.

774
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 3: It, really making it an occasion.

775
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, make a feast of it. There's all. There

776
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 2: are also various other blades. I was reading about a

777
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 2: Japanese blade. This is a Japanese Samurai sword forged by

778
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 2: modern day swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshiwara. It is called the Tintatsuto

779
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 2: or the Sword of Heavenly Iron. And this particular sword,

780
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 2: which you can see is on display. It uses iron

781
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 2: from the Gibbean meteorite that fell in Namibia during prehistoric times.

782
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 2: You can look up images of it. Looks pretty cool

783
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 2: and I also read that fragments of this meteorite were

784
00:46:54,200 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 2: also traditionally used by the Nama people of Namibia for

785
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,919
Speaker 2: many centuries in tools and in weapons. And you'll find

786
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 2: various meteoric swords in fiction. I don't believe this is

787
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 2: in like the core of books. This may be in

788
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 2: the additional matter, but apparently a couple of these blades

789
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 2: show up in the works of J. R. Tolkien and

790
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 2: also on Avatar the Last Airbender. I'd totally forgotten about this,

791
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 2: but a meteoric sword does come into play on that

792
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,880
Speaker 2: show as well. Those are just a couple of the

793
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 2: fictional examples, but I'm sure there are plenty more. So yes,

794
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:31,959
Speaker 2: we would love to hear from you out there. Write

795
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 2: in with your favorite examples of fictional meteoric weapons, as

796
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 2: well as various examples or potential examples. With that huge

797
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 2: caveat you know that we get into in the first

798
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 2: episode regarding actual weapons that may include iron of meteoric origin.

799
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 3: Please do We're gonna get a lot of the fictional ones.

800
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 3: I think this is a rich vein to exploit here.

801
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's have it all right, We're gonna go ahead

802
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 2: and close out the show here. But hey again, we'd

803
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 2: love to hear from everyone out there, and if you

804
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,520
Speaker 2: would like to help us out, if you want to

805
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 2: support the show, I tell you, one of the best

806
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 2: things you can do is make sure that you are

807
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,560
Speaker 2: subscribed to the show. So wherever you get your podcasts,

808
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 2: be at Apple, various other places, just make sure that

809
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 2: you've hit subscribe if you have the power to do so.

810
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 2: Above and beyond that, throw us some ratings, you know,

811
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 2: give us a nice collection of stars. Maybe say a

812
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 2: few kind words, and you know, share, share the show,

813
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 2: share a word of the show with people.

814
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 3: You know that's right, to invoke a cliche. We depend

815
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 3: upon the support of listeners like you. But all you

816
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 3: got to do is listen and share it. So huge

817
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 3: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

818
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

819
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

820
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

821
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

822
00:48:52,680 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 3: your mind dot com.

823
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,279
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824
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,160
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825
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