>A famous dagger found in the wrapping of Egyptian King Tutankhamun's mummy was made with iron from a meteorite, a study confirms.
At least a +2
>>47562034
STR +2 Aggravating damage (True Faith).
>>>/his/
>>47562034
>it's possible to confirm
>the origin of an element
That's some high fantasy, right there.
we've know that for years.
>>47563376
XRF analysis can identify the trace elements found within it.
A terrestrial iron, for instance, will contain not only iron, but carbon, from smelting, silicon, manganese, and traces of other elements too.
A non-terrestrial iron source will contain different compositions of those elements, for instance, less carbon, and more iridium.
its through that sort of study (as well as others like the crystalline structure) that the source material can be confirmed to be non-terrestrial.
>>47562034
Not that big a deal. A lot of early ironworking was done with meteoric iron because they didn't have to smelt it.
>>47563475
It also tended to be easy to extract (debris fields and impact craters rather than finding a vein of hematite or whatever) and locally (sorta) available as Gibeon meteorite.
>>47563427
^This, archaeologists have put together trace element analysis for the vast majority of relevant ore sources on earth, it's really not that hard to run these sorts of analyses.
>>47563376
Trace elemental analysis and isotope percentages, faggot.
Meteorite iron is not actually very good for tools, it was used because it was the only iron they could actually work for quite a while.
This sort of thing is really cool and is where the idea of legendary weapons kind of comes from. It is literally made from material from heaven.
But yeah, its a bronze age item, they used Meteoric Iron because it was the only kind of Iron they could work.
>>47563594
Meteoric iron's certainly better than no iron at all, anon.
>>47563633
All things are relative, too. Bronze itself isn't bad. Its leagues ahead of stone. It just isn't steel.
>>47563633
Well yeah, that's what I'm saying. If it weren't better than bronze, they wouldn't have bothered. I suppose there's something to be said for the novelty of a meteor iron tool, but probably most meteoric iron wasn't actually known to be from a meteor in those times.
>>47563702
Iron really isn't better than bronze. It's softer and worse at holding shape. It's also much cheaper (because bronze requires extensive trade) and when your knife fell out of the sky it's much cooler
>>47563745
Clarification: I'm talking about iron tools, not steel ones
>>47563702
>If it weren't better than bronze, they wouldn't have bothered.
Before they learned how to smelt iron, meteorites was the only available source of it, and as such the scarcity made it extremely luxurious. That the paharoah was buried with an iron knife does set the bar here.
So they would have bothered almost no matter what the mechanical properties where, even if it was only for purely ceremonial things. People have done it with gold.
As it is, I suspect the high-nickel iron was, well, acceptable compared to bronze.
>>47563745
Iron being cheap only comes into play when you start smelting iron ore. Meteoric iron isn't as abundant, and as such not as cheap.
>>47563745
Even shitty cast iron is a little bit harder than bronze, and even rudimentary steel is much harder and tougher. Additionally, iron and steel are lighter than bronze.
>>47563865
>Before they learned how to smelt iron, meteorites was the only available source of it, and as such the scarcity made it extremely luxurious. That the paharoah was buried with an iron knife does set the bar here.
Oh yes, absolutely. I'm just saying what made it cool to them was not that it came from a meteorite (which they probably wouldn't have been able to tell at the time), but that it was iron at all.
Though yeah, I suppose them not knowing WHY naturally occurring iron metal was rare doesn't mean that its rarity wasn't a major, perhaps the major factor in its perceived worth.
>>47562034
I like to imagine either he shanked a few uppity nobles with that thing because they believed it was some sort of magic or perhaps they used it in part during his whole 'Remove all the Wiggly Bits' ceremony.
Considering how Valuable or Magical they considered it? That shit could probably be the best to send off to the afterlife. Ya know, after all the fucking treasure in his tomb.
>>47563376
Isotope ratios and x-ray crystallography can spot meteoric iron by it's composition and crystalline metallic structures.
>>47562034
So, combine this with the curse of the tomb and here's what you get:
The meteor falls, bringing Something with it to Ancient Egypt. Since I'm a Lovecraft nerd, it's a Colour Out of Space.
Egyptian sorcerors bind the blighted creature to the metal of the rock it came from, the only anchor its foul nature seemed to accept. They break up the metal into daggers, plates, anything they can, believing it dismembers the "demon" they have bound in the metal.
When Tutakhamun dies, he is buried in obscurity, in a sealed and hidden tomb not to forget his lineage, but to ensure that the piece of the demon he is buried with can never be found and thus the beast can never be "reassembled" as Osiris was.
Which is a nice idea in theory. Eventually the fragment of Colour worms its way out of the metal but is still too weak to escape the tomb - until the explorers find it.
Now it is free, having blighted and slain those connected to the expedition as it searches for more fragments of itself.
>>47564582
YES
>>47564582
The demon can be killed with TERRY PRATCHETT'S SWORD.
>>47563989
Don't confuse cast iron (yes, a bit harder than bronze) and more likely to be found in late Bronze - early Iron Age wrought iron. Bronze is almost twice as hard on any hardness test
>>47564670
>can be killed with TERRY PRATCHETT'S SWORD.
I'd like to point out that Pratchett, worried of it being confiscated (and let's face it, because it's rad and exactly what you're supposed to do with magic swords) hid his sword somewhere.
So now there's a sword wrought of thunderbolt iron and finished with silver, and its current resting place is lost now with the man who hid it.
By all the power of narrative his sword can kill damn near anything.
I reckon being a Pharaoh would have been pretty cool.
>>47570079
you were the god-king of the most advanced civilization on earth and likely a bit inbred
>>47570119
Oh no, the province I live in is rife with inbreeding that's gross. I take it back.
Yuk get bad genes away from me please.
Didn't Damascus steel, used for making incredible strong swords, come from a deposit result of a meteorite?
>>47570149
this is what the owner of the rad dagger looked like
>>47563376
Archaeologists can even tell the provenance of various items' raw materials, on earth, within a couple hundred miles radius, at least for stone and early metals.
>>47570246
Literal fuccboi. Least he's not subsaharan black
>>47564559
The crystalline structure changes if you do any hot forging though (or any other such heating up).
>>47570150
No. Or at least, I've never heard anything such, there's no nickel content worth mentioning in pulad type steels (compared to usually 5-25% for an iron meteorite), and I don't think they could ever have been anywhere near as abundant as they are if they were relying on meteorite metal.
As for the strength of pulad blades, well, that may have been rather severely overhyped. It wasn't a terrible material or anything like that, but it certainly wasn't a superb one either.
>>47570149
actually population that practice inbreeding for a long time eventually get rid of defective genes so their offspring are more or less OK in the long run.
>>47563338
You see the two replies above yours? They get it. You don't get it.
>>47562034
>relevance to /tg/: 0
>>47572841
>Two replies out of 37 are vaguely on-topic on an off-topic thread, it's fiiine!
>>47564670
>>47568400
Wrong. The Color bound to the dagger is seeking out the sword for an entirely different reason. Its mate is trapped in there.
>>47562034
WE WUZ SPACE TRAVELERS N' SHIEEET
>>47563702
>I suppose there's something to be said for the novelty of a meteor iron tool, but probably most meteoric iron wasn't actually known to be from a meteor in those times.
Not necessarily true.
>Ancient Egyptians attached great significance to meteoritic iron for the production of fine ornamental or ceremonial objects, the researchers say.
>"They were aware that these rare chunks of iron fell from the sky already in the 13th [Century] BCE, anticipating Western culture by more than two millennia," they write in their findings.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36432635
>>47572886
>this nigger desn't know what a "plot hook" is.
Everything can be relevant to /tg/. Everything.
WE
>>47570808
>The crystalline structure changes if you do any hot forging though (or any other such heating up).
This is bronze age egypt though - they didn't have forges capable of hot forging meteoric iron, so it's likely just been hammered until it was knife shaped.
>>47570246
Little we know, he was a handsome athlete before he took the burden of safeguadring the dagger.
>>47573543
WUZ
>>47573322
Earlier posters are really underestimating people. Ancient cultures all had an entire caste of people who watched the sky as part of their job. They were aware of what meteors were.
>>47573357
>I can post whatever I want on /tg/ and it'll totally be relevant because I can claim it's a "plot hook", whatever that this
>>47570352
The article says that they've identified which meteor the knife was made from.
> one in particular - which landed 150 miles (240km) west of Alexandria - contained similar levels of nickel and cobalt.
>>47563475
Yeah, I don't understand why this is a story.
>>47574103
COMETS AND SHIT
