Iron from the sky: ancient Egypt
The Egyptians treasured iron from meteorites, and their texts link iron with the heavens.
Key facts
- People and tradition
- Ancient Egypt
- Region
- Africa
- When
- About 3200 to 1300 BC
The story
Long before anyone could smelt iron from ore, the only metallic iron on Earth came from meteorites. Ancient Egyptians prized it. Beads hammered from meteoritic iron were buried at Gerzeh around 3200 BC, and one of the daggers found in Tutankhamun's tomb, from about 1325 BC, has a blade of meteoritic iron.
Egyptian religious texts connect iron with the sky. The Pyramid Texts, among the oldest religious writings known, describe the bones of the king as made of iron, the material of the heavens, and later texts use a word for iron that has been translated as 'iron of the sky'.
What science says
Modern analysis confirms what the Egyptians seem to have known. The Gerzeh beads and Tutankhamun's blade contain about 10 per cent or more nickel and traces of cobalt, a mixture typical of iron meteorites and unlike early smelted iron. The blade even shows faint traces of the crystal pattern that forms only in metal that cooled extremely slowly inside an asteroid.
Did you know?
Iron meteorites are mostly an alloy of iron and nickel, which makes them resist rust better than ordinary iron.
The Iron Age began in the eastern Mediterranean only around 1200 BC, long after the Gerzeh beads were made.