5 Ancient Artifacts That Are Made From Meteorites

When humans first began to forge iron into tools, artwork, and weaponry, they probably had no idea that they were holding a piece of space. The origin of iron lies in the stars, created in stellar cores and supernovae. It was one of the elements that forged Earth's core, giving birth to our planet. Iron is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, and today, most of the iron used in human industry is obtained by mining this supply. However, the iron in our planet's crust does not appear in its pure form. Instead, it presents as iron ore, the metal being mixed into rocks with numerous other minerals.

Extracting iron from ore requires a process called smelting, which involves heating the ore to extreme temperature. This technology came about around 2000 B.C., but archaeologists have discovered iron artifacts that date back thousands of years earlier. How could such ancient peoples have utilized iron without the ability to melt ore? They got it from space. Stars continue to forge iron, and it ranks in the top ten most abundant elements in the Universe. There is iron flying all around space in the form of asteroids and meteoroids, and fragments of these bodies sometimes fall to Earth. Meteorites contain much higher concentrations of iron than Earth rocks, up to 95%, with the remainder being mostly nickel. By collecting this celestial iron, ancient civilizations were able to get ahead of technology, and create some of the most exciting artifacts ever uncovered.

Tutankhamun, otherwise known as King Tut, is one of the most famous figures from Ancient Egypt, but it's not actually because of his actions as pharaoh. Ascending the throne around age nine and dying around age 18, the so-called "boy king" had a short and uneventful reign. It was only after his tomb was excavated in 1922, revealing a trove of ancient treasures, that Tutankhamun became an icon. Among these treasures was an iron dagger, roughly a foot in length, with a gold hilt, crystal pommel, and gold sheath etched with images of lilies and feathers.

In Tutankhamun's time, iron was rarer than gold, and archaeologists puzzled over the weapon's origin. Finally, in 2016, a study published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science showed, via x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, that the iron dagger contained a number of other elements consistent with a meteoric origin. Most notably, the blade contains 11% nickel, more than twice as much as any iron ore mined from Earth, but consistent with analyses of meteors.

The researchers even think they may have found the specific meteorite that King Tut's dagger was carved from over 3,000 years ago. They took analyses of 20 meteorite samples from Egypt, comparing their nickel and cobalt levels to the blade. Among them was Kharga, a meteorite found near the coastal city of Marsa Matruh, about 150 miles west of Alexandria, and it turns out to be a near-perfect match for the pharaoh's dagger.

The Ancient Egyptians weren't the only ones crafting meteoric iron 3,000 years ago, but it appears it wasn't always used for grandiose purposes. A humble-looking arrowhead unearthed at a Bronze Age archaeological site in Mörigen, Switzerland shows that people have long recognized the practical value of this once-rare metal. When the arrowhead was first discovered by archaeologists in the 1870s, it didn't seem like anything special. An inch and a half in length, it is coated in a heavy layer of rust, but this humble facade belies the weapon's significance.

A 2023 study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science found that the arrowhead not only exhibits the high nickel and cobalt levels associated with meteoric iron, but that it also contains traces of aluminum isotopes that do not occur naturally on Earth. The study authors immediately suspected that the arrowhead had been crafted from the Twannberg meteorite, the largest meteorite discovered in Switzerland, which happened to be only five miles from where the arrowhead was discovered. To their shock, the compositions didn't match.

Scouring records of other meteorites found in Europe, researchers discovered a likely match with the Kaalijarv meteorite found in Estonia. How could an ancient arrowhead have made it 1,400 miles from Estonia to Switzerland? Archaeologists believe it is the sign of an expansive Bronze Age trade network that stretched across Europe. The arrowhead may have been an especially valuable item. To date, only 55 meteoric arrowheads have been found in Eurasia and Africa combined.

The Treasure of Villena is arguably the most significant prehistoric treasure trove ever found in Europe. It comprises 66 different pieces, mainly bowls, bottles, and bracelets, which date back to sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C. Most of the treasure is gold, amounting to nearly 22 pounds of the precious metal, but in this opulent collection, it is two works of iron that truly stand out. One is a bracelet, and the other is a small half-sphere of iron and gold that may once have been a sword hilt. These are the oldest iron objects ever found on the Iberian Peninsula, forged over 300 years before the Iron Age dawned.

In 2023, researchers published a study in the Spanish journal Trabajos de Prehistoria that identifies meteoric iron as the source for the two items from the Treasure of Villena. The researchers used mass spectrometry, a technology that analyzes the mass-to-charge ratio of ions in a given sample, and discovered that the iron used in both artifacts had concentrations of nickel consistent with meteorite samples, as well as other artifacts made from meteoric iron.

It is unclear where the meteoric iron used to make the Treasure of Villena was sourced from. In fact, archaeologists are virtually clueless about the origins of the artifacts. Whoever forged the bracelet and hilt would have to have been on the forefront of iron technology, potentially one of the first people in history to master this powerful metal.

Meteoric iron is an extremely hard and hardy material, so the discovery of an intricately-detailed statue carved from a meteorite came as a bit of a shock. To make the story all the more dramatic, the statue was the subject of a notorious Nazi heist.

In 1938, German zoologist and SS officer Ernst Schäfer led an expedition to Tibet, where it uncovered a statue of a man with a swastika on his chest. What was originally a symbol of good luck in the Buddhist faith had already been co-opted by Nazis, and the expedition stole the statue and took it back to Germany. The 10-inch, 24-pound figurine is believed to depict either the Buddha himself or Vaishravana, one of the four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism. It is widely believed to have come from the 11th century, but this is a contentious issue. Some researchers have argued that the statue was only made in the 20th century, and that it wasn't even a factor in the famed heist by the Germans. 

One aspect of the statue's history does seem to be clear: its extraterrestrial origin. A study published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science in 2012 revealed that the statue exhibits nickel and cobalt levels that could only have come from a meteorite. Moreover, researchers have traced the material to a specific meteorite, dubbed Chinga, which scattered fragments around the region where present-day Mongolia borders Russia. This meteorite is estimated to have fallen between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Since meteorites were the original source of iron, it should come as no surprise that the earliest iron artifacts ever uncovered to date were made from meteoric fragments. In 1911, archaeologists excavating an ancient cemetery near el-Gerzeh in Egypt uncovered an unassuming collection of nine beads heavily coated in rust. The beads were dated back to roughly 3300 B.C., over a century before the First Dynasty of Egypt arose, ushering in the age of the pharaohs.

Exactly how the beads were made became a topic of hot scientific debate because the metal contained nickel levels that could have come from either Earth or space. However, in 2013, researchers made a breakthrough by scanning the beads with x-rays and neutron beams. Their findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, revealed that the beads contain high levels of a different element, germanium, which only occurs in small concentrations in iron ore from Earth. Furthermore, the metal beads showed a distinct crystalline structure known as a Widmanstätten pattern, which does not occur naturally in any materials from Earth.

These nine beads represent the oldest evidence of iron working we know of. They were found strung onto a necklace alongside gold beads and gemstones, indicating just how valuable iron was in the eyes of ancient peoples. Researchers were even able to determine that the beads were made by hammering the meteoric iron into thin sheets and rolling them up, a technique not seen in any other jewelry found at that site.