From ancient Greece to Mecca
Sacred stones of the Greek, Roman and Arab worlds.
Greek writers recorded a large stone that fell at Aegospotami in Thrace around 466 BC. The philosopher Anaxagoras was said to have argued that it had come from the Sun, an idea far ahead of its time.
Several cults of the ancient Mediterranean centred on black stones said to have fallen from heaven. In 204 BC the Romans brought the sacred stone of the goddess Cybele from Asia Minor to Rome to help them in the war against Hannibal. Later, the Emperor Elagabalus brought the black stone of the sun god Elagabal from Emesa in Syria to Rome.
None of these stones survives to be tested, so whether they were real meteorites is unknown. The most famous sacred stone of all, the Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca, has also been suggested to be a meteorite, but it has never been examined scientifically.