Ninety - four years afterKing Tutankhamun ’s tombwas discovered , scientists are still studying the objects forget inwardly to learn about the young monarch ’s animation . According to a novel survey , the steel of a dagger find on the king ’s mummified dead body was crafted out of a meteorite . The solution of the sketch have been published in the journalMeteoritics & Planetary Science[PDF ] , and the intricate space obelisk is currently on display at The Egyptian Museum in Cairo .
Using portable x - ray fluorescence spectrometry , Egyptian and Italian researchers were able-bodied to determine the composition of the blade in a noninvasive manner . " Meteoric Fe is clear signal by the presence of a eminent percentages [ sic ] of nickel note , " lead-in source Daniela Comelli of Milan Polytechnictold Discovery . According to the study , the iron used to make the blade contained 10.8 percent nickel note and .58 percentage cobalt . " The nickel and Co proportion in the dagger blade is logical with that of iron meteorites that have preserve the naive chondritic proportion during global distinction in the early solar system , " Comelli tell .
The squad usedMetBase(a comprehensive meteorite database ) to check the composition of every known meteorite that has landed within 1200 miles of the Red Sea , and of the 20 retrieve , only one was reckon as a possible source for King Tut ’s sticker . name Kharga , the meteorite was found in 2000 near the Mediterranean sea-coast some 150 miles west of Alexandria . " It would be very interesting to canvass more pre - cast-iron Age artifacts , such as other branding iron objects found in King Tut ’s tomb , " Comelli articulate . " We could gain valued brainwave into metal work technology in ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean . "
The study also put up deeper brainstorm into the use of the term " smoothing iron " by ancient Egyptians , the researchers say . In the 19th Dynasty — the one after Tut’s — a new composite hieroglyphic was enclose that integrate the hieroglyph for " branding iron . " Its literal version is “ iron of the sky , " they pen : " The introduction of the Modern composite term indicate that the ancient Egyptians , in the wake of other ancient people of the Mediterranean surface area , were cognisant that these rarefied chunks of branding iron return from the sky already in the 13th C. BCE , anticipating Western civilization by more than two millennium . "
[ h / tDiscovery ]
