Latest news with #PharaohTutankhamun
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Science
- Time of India
Treasure from the stars? 3000-year-old iron artefact may not be from Earth-- Suggests study
Ancient artefacts often conceal stories that reveal facts about civilisations, as well as some unbelievable secrets that one can't imagine to be a reality for those times. While gold and precious jewels tend to steal the spotlight in archaeological discoveries, it's often the overlooked items considered less important that reveal the most surprising truths. Among some of these discoveries, some artefacts contain truths that stretch back to the cosmos. New research suggests that two relatively dull-looking artefacts from one of Europe's most stunning Bronze Age treasures may have origins in space. A study has revealed that two unexpected and corroded-looking objects have proven to be of great value. A 3000-year-old treasure holds metal from the stars among the 66 gold items discovered in the 1963 Treasure of Villena in Alicante, Spain. A bracelet and a hollow hemisphere, unlike the rest of the golden hoard, appeared to be made of iron. After all, the Iron Age in the Iberian Peninsula didn't begin until around 850 BCE, and the Villena gold is dated between 1500 and 1200 BCE, which is almost 650 years later. Researchers, led by Salvador Rovira-Llorens, now-retired head of conservation at Spain's National Archaeological Museum, decided to dig deeper. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Saiba o passo a passo de como colocar assinatura digital em PDF ZapSign Leia mais Undo They proposed that the iron might not be from Earth at all. Instead, it could be meteoritic iron, a metal from space, known to have been used in rare Bronze Age artefacts like Pharaoh Tutankhamun's dagger. To test this, the team obtained permission from the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Villena to take tiny samples from the bracelet and the cap. Using mass spectrometry, they analysed the metal's composition and found signs of high nickel content, which is an important clue for its meteoritic origin. According to the researchers, 'The available data suggest that the cap and bracelet from the Treasure of Villena would currently be the first two pieces attributable to meteoritic iron in the Iberian Peninsula, which is compatible with a Late Bronze chronology, prior to the beginning of the widespread production of terrestrial iron,' as published in Trabajos de Prehistoria. While corrosion on the artefacts limits how definitive the findings can be, the results strongly support the theory that these pieces were crafted from metal that fell from the sky. The team also suggests newer, non-invasive analysis could provide even clearer evidence.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Strange Metal From Beyond Our World Found in an Ancient Treasure Stash
Amidst a cache of glittering golden treasures from the Iberian Bronze Age, a pair of corroded objects might be the most precious of all. A dull bracelet and a rusted hollow hemisphere decorated with gold are forged, researchers have found, not out of metal from beneath the ground, but with iron from meteorites that fell from the sky. The discovery, led by now-retired head of conservation at the National Archeological Museum Spain, Salvador Rovira-Llorens, was revealed in a paper published last year, and suggests that metalworking technology and techniques were far more advanced than we thought in Iberia more than 3,000 years ago. The Treasure of Villena, as the cache of 66 mostly gold objects is known, was discovered more than 60 years ago in 1963 in what is now Alicante in Spain, and has since come to be regarded as one of the most important examples of Bronze Age goldsmithing in the Iberian Peninsula, and the whole of Europe. However, determining the age of the collection has been somewhat difficult to do, thanks to two objects: a small, hollow hemisphere, thought to be part of a scepter or sword hilt; and a single, torc-like bracelet. Both have what archaeologists have described as a "ferrous" appearance – that is, they seem to be made of iron. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Iron Age – where smelted terrestrial iron began to replace bronze – didn't start until around 850 BCE. The problem is that the gold materials have been dated to between 1500 and 1200 BCE. So working out where the ferrous-looking artifacts sit in the context of the Treasure of Villena has been something of a puzzle. But iron ore from Earth's crust is not the only place source of malleable iron. There's a number of pre-Iron Age iron artifacts around the world that were forged from the stuff of meteorites. Perhaps most famous is the meteoritic iron dagger of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, but there are other Bronze Age weapons made of the material, and they were very highly prized. There is a way to tell the difference: iron from meteorites has a much higher nickel content than iron dug out of Earth's ground. So researchers obtained permission from the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Villena, which houses the collection, to carefully test the two artifacts, and determine just how much nickel they contained. They carefully took samples of both artifacts, and subjected the material to mass spectrometry to determine their composition. In spite of the high degree of corrosion, which alters the elemental makeup of the artifact, the results strongly suggest that both the hemisphere and the bracelet were made from meteoritic iron. This neatly solves the dilemma of how the two artifacts align with the rest of the collection: they were made around the same period, dating back to around 1400 to 1200 BCE. "The available data suggest that the cap and bracelet from the Treasure of Villena would currently be the first two pieces attributable to meteoritic iron in the Iberian Peninsula," the researchers explain in their paper, "which is compatible with a Late Bronze chronology, prior to the beginning of the widespread production of terrestrial iron." Now, because the objects are so badly corroded, the results aren't conclusive. But there are more recent, non-invasive techniques that could be applied to the objects to obtain a more detailed set of data that would help cement the findings, the team suggest. The findings were published in Trabajos de Prehistoria. An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024. 3,500-Year-Old Pharaoh's Tomb Found in Egypt Is First Since Tutankhamun's Scientists Put a Human Language Gene Into Mice And Changed Their Voice Scientists Sniffed Ancient Egyptian Mummies And Got a Surprise
