Meteorites in history
Sacred stones, royal treasures, unlucky cars and the falls that convinced science that rocks really do drop from the sky.
See also the timeline of meteorites, every milestone in date order, and the people of meteoritics who made the science.
Sacred stones and the ancient world
Meteorites in history and religion
For thousands of years, stones that fell from the sky were treated as messages from the gods.
From prehistoric times to ancient Egypt
The first iron people ever worked came from space.
From ancient Greece to Mecca
Sacred stones of the Greek, Roman and Arab worlds.
The Black Stone of the Kaaba
The most revered stone in the world, and a mystery to science.
The Stone of Emesa
A Roman emperor who worshipped a black stone.
Egyptian meteorite beads
Jewellery made from space metal, 5,000 years ago.
King Tutankhamun's meteorite dagger
A blade from the sky, buried with a pharaoh.
Tutankhamun's desert glass scarab
A jewel carved from glass made by a cosmic impact.
From the Middle Ages to Ensisheim
How Europe moved from omens to science.
The Winona meteorite
A meteorite buried like a person, 800 years ago.
Meteorites and people
Valera, 1972: the cow-killing meteorite
The only meteorite with a documented animal victim.
Sylacauga, 1954: the woman hit by a meteorite
The best-documented case of a person struck by a meteorite.
Claxton, 1984: the mailbox meteorite
A space rock that flattened a letterbox in Georgia.
Peekskill, 1992: the car that was hit
Filmed by dozens, and it landed on a Chevy.
Barwell, 1965: Britain's Christmas Eve meteorite
The largest recorded meteorite fall in the United Kingdom.
The 'Iron Man' Buddha statue
A statue carved from a meteorite, and a scientific argument.
Famous falls
The Thunderstone of Ensisheim
Europe's oldest witnessed fall with the stone still preserved.
L'Aigle, 1803
The fall that convinced science.
Weston, 1807: America's first recorded fall
Two Yale professors and a famous quote that probably never happened.
Pułtusk, 1868: a shower of stones
Tens of thousands of meteorites fell on one January evening.
Nakhla, 1911: a rock from Mars
One of only five Martian meteorites seen to fall.
Sikhote-Alin, 1947: the iron rain
The largest iron meteorite shower ever witnessed.
Allende, 1969: older than the planets
A fall that arrived just in time for the Apollo era.
Giants and craters
Hoba: the largest meteorite on Earth
A 60-tonne slab of iron that has never been moved.
Willamette: America's largest meteorite
A 15-tonne iron, a secret move and a sacred bond.
Cape York: the iron of the Inuit
Centuries of tools, then a voyage to New York.
Campo del Cielo: the field of the sky
A crater field and some of the heaviest meteorites ever found.
Canyon Diablo and Meteor Crater
The first crater on Earth proved to have been made by a meteorite.
Tunguska, 1908: the great explosion
Eighty million trees flattened, and no crater.