Meteoric Blades on Bronze Age Weapons
 

Greetings folks,

Here is a link to a short article discussing the new finding that iron blades on bronze age weaponry were not from smelting but from meteorites:

https://newatlas.com/bronze-age-iron...eorites/52474/


Here is a picture of the actual burial dagger of the Pharaoh Tutankamun. Notice the iron blade:

Yes it is nearby, that this early iron blades were made from meteorites.
In this case the humans must have had a giant genius, because the Tut-dagger is pretty obviously differential hardened and how in all the world had they found out this technique with small amounts of iron from meteorites? Differential hardening is a completely different world compared to bronce.
Maybe they had larger ammounts of iron than we think. Iron from vulcanic activities?

Roland

Hello Roland,

Can you please substantiate the asertion that Tutankhamon's blade was differentially hardened?

Regards,

Marius

PS: I attach a couple of example of blades that display a difference in oxidation around the edge and are NOT differentially hardened (if you take a Magbetu knife from the photos below and clean a little bit more the forging oxidation from the surface of the blade, you may end up exactly with the type of visual effect you noticed on Tutankhamon's blade).

Hello Marius,

I can only judge by the pictures, I never had King Tuts dagger in my hands.

But almost every picture of this particular dagger shows a brighter area around the edges, which is normally a sign for a complex heat treatment.

King Tuts dagger is fully polished, your examples only have a grinded/polished cutting edge, typical for Africa. The upper curved blades are artificially blackened.

To be 100% sure, I need to polish and etch this dagger :).

My personal theory is very simple. I believe, that there was a unknown sophisticated culture like the fictional Atlantis, which brought the knowledge to Egypt and other parts of the world.


Regards,
Roland

There are instances of Inuit peoples making iron spear/harpoon points etc from fallen meteorites (beaten out cold)...

Yes, many collectors including myself have a tendency to underestimate the capabilities of ancient or native cultures.

But compared to the King Tut dagger Inuit people iron works are cold hammered, realtively simple and not much bigger than a thumb nail.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...s-weapons.html

King Tuts dagger is an evidence for sophisticated working on steel 1000 years before the use of steel was wide spreaded.

As with the pyramids the Egyptians startet a new technology at an extraordinary high level. I think this a very strange fact.

Roland

More than spearpoints and harpoons, the Tlingit supposedly forged this "Killer Whale" dagger (really more a short sword) out of meteorite back in the 17 century. That's certainly not pre-iron age for much of the world, but pretty advanced technology for these northern tribes way back then.
http://juneauempire.com/art/2015-05-...hidden-history
That said i must say that i am really not completely convinced that the method with which the King Tut dagger was determined to be made from meteorite is 100% fool proof. The make-up of this blade is still all of elements that can be found terrestrially. That it is similar to the make-up of know meteoric blades makes this more a maybe for me than a sure thing.

sorry double post

Hello Roland,

I believe that your theory is based on wrong and unsubstantiated assumptions, therefore it is quite susceptible to be wrong.

First not substantiated assumption is that Tutankhamon's knife is made of meteoritic iron.

Second not substantiated assumption is that the knife shows evidence of advanced iron processing (namely differential hardening).

Last, but not least while Tutankhammon has lived about 1000 years before the use of iron was widely spread, he also lived at least 100 years after the first iron blades were made (in central Anatolia and in India; while some claim the earliest smelted iron blades were made around 1800 BC, namely around 500 years before Tutankhamon lived).

But in the end we all believe what we want to believe. ;)

Regards,

Marius

Very interesting and valid argument.

Hello Ariel,

I wrongly added one extra "0" in my original posting but I corrected it now. I meant to say that he lived at least one hundred years later (not 1000) as the most consevative oppinions date the use of smelted iron around 1400 BC.

Anyhow, during his time, Iron blades were certainly available, albeit very scarce but he was the pharaon of Egypt.

And only about 100 years after his death (around 1200 BC), Iron Age officially begun... at least in parts of Asia.

This idea of the King Tut dagger being of meteoritic origin is not a new idea, from my recollection it has been floating around for at least 50 years.

It might well be true that the KT dagger has its origins in meteoritic material, but this examination carried out by Albert Jambon does not, in my opinion, confirm meteoric origin of the material, what it does is to confirm possibility or meteoric origin of the KT dagger material, as well as virtually all other ferric material used in early iron artifacts. This possibility seems to be based upon the percentages of nickel and cobalt present in the KT dagger, which align with the median composition of a group of iron meteorites. We have a possibility, we do not have proof. Jambon has presented a hypothesis, it is not yet even a theory.

I will be very interested in any peer reviews that Jambon's findings may generate.

Personally, I do not find the KT dagger such a remarkable object.

The best authenticated early iron object comes from the burial find at Alaca Huyuk in Turkey, this dates from between 2500 to 2300 BC. It is a 30cm overall length dagger with an iron blade.

The Hittites were present in Asia Minor before 1700BC, they were at their peak of power in about 1400BC, they had developed viable iron weapons by about 1500BC. I am unclear on the form of iron that Hittites used in their production, but the sheer volume of iron of Hittite manufacture seems to indicate it was not of meteoritic origin. I think it was probably limonite in one form or another, a form of iron ore that can be turned into useable weapons and tools, and which was used as a source of ferric materials by early --- and not so early --- iron workers from Africa to Sweden. It would not have been likely to be haematite because of the requirement for smelting, and I think Hittite culture was a bit early for the smelting process, so they needed a source that can be worked in the forge, and limonite can be worked with forge technology.

Interestingly, in limonite we find iron in combination with nickel and with cobalt.

Even more interestingly, the Royal Houses of Egypt and of the Hittites were connected by marriage.

Hittite iron weapon technology in place by 1500BC.

King Tut dagger dated to +/- 1300BC.

Egyptian court and Hittite court with diplomatic and marital connections.

Where is the big mystery?

The KT dagger blade is Hittite in origin, mounted in Egypt.

Hittite iron technology was probably forge technology and rested on the refinement of limonite.

Limonite is an iron ore that contains both nickel and cobalt.

Some iron meteorites contain both nickel and cobalt.

I am not a metallurgist, everything I have written above is simply common knowledge for anybody who has a broad general interest in history, archaeology and the history of iron use. It is all in the public domain and can be verified by relevant research. I have not bothered to check any of this before writing this post, it is stuff that is common knowledge and I have been aware of for a long time.

Jambon has identified cobalt and nickel in early iron artifacts, he has identified the percentages of these elements as corelevant to median percentages of the same elements in a group of iron meteorites. This is not proof of origin of the material, it is the basis for a hypothetical origin of the material, however logical analysis would seem to disallow this hypothesis.

The Alacahöyük (in Anatolia, present day Turkey) dagger, overall 18.5 cm, gold mounted iron blade, about second half of 3rd millenium BC. Currently in the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara.

I got the photo from Wiki Commons and the information from the museum guide book.

Yes, that's the dagger.

I had two measurements in mind for this, one was 20cm, one was 30cm.

I took the 20cm as blade length, the 30cm as overall length.

My source was probably one of several books I have somewhere on the European Iron Age, I cannot remember correct titles or authors and I do not know where they are, and its not important anyway.

As for dating, I'd guess that as with many archeological finds, opinions can vary, and in this present case it is of no moment, the important thing is that iron technology was around a long time before KT played with his dagger.

This pic is the dagger I was talking about.

Hi all,
A nice thread with many learned comments. The use of meteorite iron in pre-iron age cultures is not new and has been known for decades from Syria, Asia Minor, China and pre-Colombian America. The real mistery here has however not been discussed.
How they worked this meteorite iron into usable objects? Forging iron into blades is very different than working bronze, so how did they manage that at all?
.

Where ferric material from a meteoritic source is involved, the only technology necessary is forge technology, same as with limonite.

Smelting is necessary with haematite, and smelt technology for iron appears not to have been available until around 1200BC, but smelt technology for copper had been used from around 5000BC.

So:-
meteorites:- forge
limonite:- forge
haematite:- smelt

To A.G. Maisey
 

I am aware of development of metal working from the Chalcolithic through to the iron age in general lines. I do not know whether forging was used also as part of bronze working.
Most bronze objects were made by casting, and that is very different than forging, so they had to do something completely different and non-obvious in order to work meteorite iron.

Bronze usually cast, maybe hammered to work harden edges, However gold, silver and copper were all hammer worked at this time, heated to anneal and soften the metal. I can see early metal workers trying the same techniques on their new wonder material.

Yes, a type of forging was used in bronze blade production. It is "cold" forging, where the blade is first cast, then the edges are cold forged down to a very thin edge, bronze has the quality of fast and (relatively) easy work hardening, so by cold forging the blade edges down to a feather edge hardening and edge sharpening were achieved at the same time.

True forge technology is necessary to work meteoritic material, it needs to be brought to a weld heat and brought together into a homogenous mass, this is then forged out, turned back upon itself and rewelded, something in excess of 7 welds usually need to be taken before the impurities have been washed out of the material, when the material is clean it can be forged to shape and cold worked to the finished product.

Bronze is usually an iron/tin alloy that melts at about 1700F, iron melts at about 2800F and will forge weld at a little below this temperature, nickel melts at about 2600F. The 1700F necessary to melt bronze for casting can be brought up to the necessary temps for welding iron and nickel, the nickel will stick first then the iron. The 1700F needed to melt bronze is what I would call a "high cherry red", and is more than adequate to forge iron. Introduction of oxygen will raise the fire temperature to the necessary heat for welding.

Meteoritic material was used in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it was worked in primitive forges; the original Javanese/Balinese forges were not much more than a depression in the ground with air delivered to the fire through bambu tubes from feather bellows. You do not need high technology to weld iron. In fact, the traditional type of "hole in the ground" forge is still in use in some parts of Jawa, and probably is still in use in some parts of Bali.

The progression from bronze working to iron working in both Europe and in SE Asia was not a cessation of one type of production, and commencement of another, the two technologies and the two materials continued side by side for a long time, the "Bronze Age" and the "Iron Age" overlapped one another. In fact, I believe that investigation would demonstrate that bronze swords were in fact at no disadvantage at all when compared to early iron swords.

However, to return to the question of whether or not the KT dagger is of meteoritic material. My personal opinion is that the Jambon hypothesis still needs to be accepted for what it is:- a possibility.

EDIT

I probably should mention that early iron blades would have been cold forged along the edges and work hardened, not quenched like a steel blade. It took a long time before smiths discovered that adding a little bit of carbon to the iron made it hardenable. In fact even in the Middle Ages in Europe, some swords were still iron, not steel, and what they called steel then was often what we would call "mild steel", ie, low carbon steel.

The chinese qing dynasty (17c) traded with the tlingit and their coins are found sewn onto tlingit armour. not a far stretch to consider chinese iron/steel being used in their blades. the chinese were selling 'native' design blades all over their trade areas. (phillipines as another trade partner comes to mind).

Trade routes were much farther afield and well developed much further back than we think, and we find they were even further back the more we discover new evidence. heck, even the early romans preferred silk clothes.

A very famous and highly professional and talented bladesmith from Russia by the name Leonid Arkhangelski described in his book “ Damascus Steel” his attempts to make a knife blade out of a meteorite. It was an abject failure: whether cold or hot, it crumbled under the hammer. Eventually, he had to mix regular iron with small quantities of meteorite pieces, melt it completely and only then was he able to make a blade with a very symbolic meteorite content.
AFAIK, bladesmiths from Java also added tiny amounts of the Prambanan meteorite to their krises.

Thus, I doubt the pure meteorite origin of the Tut’s blade. IMHO, it is a single example imported from a society wth available iron ores.
Although we do not know composition of the purported Tut’s meteorite, Occam usually rules.

Hello Ariel,

Maybe Mr. Arkhangelski experimented with the wrong type of meteorite. I have a couple of meteorite fragments from the Campo del Cielo meteorite and they are almost pure iron-nickel alloy (93% Iron, about 7% Ni and the rest a mixture of Co, P, Ge, etc. in negligible quantities). I don't see how such meteorite cannot be worked hot or even cold.
:shrug:

You are correct, and I mentioned this point in the last sentence.
Still, with iron weapons available within the trading area, potentially including even the Philistines, I still think that Occam rule is likely applicable.

With nickel wouldn’t it exhibit something resembling Indonesian pamor?

Wayne, there is little doubt that there was indeed trade with the Tlingit from outside sources, including the Chinese, however, if you read the article i link to you will see that the Tlingit have a long oral history attached to this blade that includes the name of the person who forged it and the actual place of the meteorite fall that they gathered the material to make the blade from. While oral histories can indeed be incorrect at times the one surrounding this very important sacred object seems likely to be true.
This photo from the Alaska State Library Historical Collections is part of the Vincent Soboleff Photograph Collection, ca. 1896-1920. The description of the photo reads "The man holding the dagger is Gusht'eiheen (Spray Behind the Dorsal Fin) of the Killerwhale House of the Dakl'aweidí Clan in Angoon. The dagger he is holding was made by a man named Kucheesh, from a meteorite that fell near Klukwan. When it's brought out in public the words to announce its arrival are "This came to us from the sky."

Oral history sometime leaves out bits. I don't disagree that the blade could have been made with major additions of a sky metal. it would have been easier to include it with some chinese supplied stock during the forging, the inclusion of the source of the chinese sources into the story would have detracted from it's traditional spirital message. It's a big No-No to try to shave off a bit for testing tho.

That dagger is gorgious by the way, they had quite good skill and artistry.

Ariel & Marius.

I know a little bit about working with meteoritic material because I have worked with it.

Using fragments of the Arizona meteorite, I have made small billets of clean ready to use meteoritic iron, these small billets could have been made bigger if I had had sufficient meteorite, or they could have been made into very small blades as they were.

However, I used this refined meteoritic material to make damascus blades by incorporating it with iron and steel.

Two small billets of meteoritic material that I made were given to a Pande Keris in Solo with instructions to make two keris. The first keris he made was unsatisfactory and it was sold, the second keris he made is a part of my collection.

I worked with pure meteorite and the product I produced was pure meteorite, which was later combined with other material. There is an easier way to work with meteorite than the one I chose, but I worked with the pure material because I considered this to be a matter of work ethic.

The easier way to work with meteorite is detailed in a text book that was prepared at the request of the Surakarta Karaton. We are uncertain exactly which ruler of Surakarta ordered its preparation, but it was probably Pakubuwana X, and the Empu providing the information was probably Jayasukadgo.

In this text book, the meteoritic material being addressed is the Prambanan Meteorite. The method detailed involves making a small, thin-walled iron packet, putting small pieces of meteoritic material into the packet, closing the packet, bringing it to weld heat and then taking the weld. This initial weld will unite the pieces of meteorite, after which the material can be cleaned (refined) in the usual way.

It would be possible to weld two pieces of meteorite in a charcoal forge, but they would need to be fairly large pieces, it would be virtually impossible to weld small pieces of meteorite in a charcoal or coke forge. If a single large piece of meteor was available, this would be easier still. I had only very small pieces of meteorite to work with, and when I was working with this material in the late 1980's, it was very, very expensive material. I used a gas forge to weld and refine it.

To return to the question of what raw material was used in early iron blades, and how it was processed.

Meteoritic material will break up under the hammer. It is necessary to bring the pieces of meteorite together while they are still in the fire, they will then stick together. Then it is necessary to tap them together on the anvil until the adhesion is firm. If you hammer in a normal fashion they will simply fly into a thousand pieces. Once the first weld has been taken it becomes progressively easier. You add a small piece of meteorite at a time until you have a good sized lump, then fold and weld until there are no little star-like sparks generated at weld heat. It is not rocket science, it is simply application of logic, together with a smidgen of knowledge.

There was an overlap of bronze working technology and iron working technology. There can be no doubt of this. Since there was an overlap, it seems reasonable to assume that early iron artifacts, whether blades or something else, might have been produced by casting technology similar to that used in bronze production.

However, bronze production rested firmly upon the ability of potters to produce vessels capable of withstanding temperatures of 1700F.

To me, the big question is if the potters at this time in history were able to produce vessels capable of withstanding temperatures of 2800F.

However, a small fire in an earth depression and given a continuous infusion of air by the use of bellows can reach +2800F without a great deal of difficulty.

As Ariel has noted:- Occam rules.

The easiest, most obvious way to do something is usually the way something is done.

Very interesting explanations!

Do you have any idea what makes meteoritic iron so hard to work? May it be the high Nickel content?

With respect to Tut's blades, I also believe it is much more likely to be an imported present for the Pharao from somewhere where iron working was already known.

Meteoritic material is not hard to work, it is no more difficult to work than ordinary iron, but as I explained, if you do not take the very first weld very gently it will break up under the hammer, so the first weld is taken as gently as possible, and you need to bring the pieces to be welded, together in the forge, if you have more than a single piece of material, after that first weld, the following welds are easier and towards the end of the cleaning process, it is just like welding ordinary iron.

Pure nickel welded together with iron is also easy to weld, but when you want weld steel, say a simple high carbon steel like 01, together with iron, or with iron and nickel, you have a quite small weld window, so you need to be able to judge the weld temperature pretty accurately.

Material that is hot short is perhaps more difficult to weld that meteorite, but again, it is a matter of taking the first couple of welds very gently, as you get more welds into the billet you wash out more of the impurities and it becomes easier to weld.

From Wikipedia entry on the Iron Age:
The earliest-known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering.[1] Meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its native metallic state, required no smelting of ores.
The Iron Age proper supposedly started around 1200 BC. or so, but obviously people were aware of and working with iron in some form for up to 2000 years before they had enough of a command of the material to make it commonplace.
it would seem that iron was known to the Egyptians longer than perhaps anyone else in the world. If the earliest known iron artifacts indeed come from Egypt, why would you assume the King Tut dagger would need to come from some other origin than Egypt itself? :shrug:

David, I do not understand what is meant by "the Iron Age Proper", however the Hittites were the first technologically advanced people to produce iron tools, artifacts and weapons in any considerable number, and the Hittites had developed viable iron tools and weapons by about 1500BC.

The Hittite Empire collapsed in about 1200BC, and immediately after this collapse the rise of iron technology occurred in Cyprus and Greece. With the rise of iron technology in Greece there was a leap in production of iron artifacts. Also from about 1200 BC we have the first evidence from Cyprus of iron with a carbon content --- ie, steel --- that has been quenched.

It appears that although iron with a carbon content has been found from earlier dates, there was no consistency in the carburisation process, it was an accidental carburisation that had resulted from carburisation in the forge, rather than carburisation in a bloomery. However, carbon content of iron by itself is not enough to produce a tool or weapon that is markedly superior to bronze, that iron with the carbon content needs to be heated and quenched. It would seem that this did not occur until after about 1200BC, so maybe that is what is meant by "Iron Age Proper" .

While it is true that the Ancient Egyptians did cold forge meteoritic material to produce talismans, they did not begin to produce iron tools and weapons until about 500-600BC, when iron smelting technology became available.

Egypt at the time of Tutankhamen did not possess the technology to produce a blade like the KT dagger, but the Hittites did, and there were diplomatic and marriage ties between the Egyptian court and the Hittite court.

An Afterthought

For those of us who come from a European cultural background, our idea of the Iron Age tends to focus on the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin, however, it should not be forgotten that evidence of iron working that could date back to 1800BC has been found in Uttar Pradesh in India, where it seems to be associated with the migrations of the Vedic People. The evidence includes slag, tuyeres and remains of furnaces.

If we think of the "The Iron Age" in terms of the entire world, I really do think that that the opinion that the Iron Age began with Greece and Cyprus is a rather limited point of view.

the chinese coins appeared in the 19th century and are not due to any chinese trading there is no chiense junk ever crossing the pacific.. the russians and spanish were the people trading and these chinese coins manchurian coins had little value. considering all of the russian furs from the pacific coast were headed to the manchu upper class. korea and japan.. id imagine they had huge amount of these practically worthless coins.. and used them in a cunning way as trade with the natives. just as beads and glass were also used.
russians were very active and them and the spanish took people form hawaii to the american continant to work.. hudsons bay company recruited some of these guys and the had hawaiian workers in the pacific.. also russians took natives from siberia and the took natives from alaska to southern california.. much of the russian crews were siberians.. i think yakutians made up a large part as well as other far eastern groups.
many of these guys were skilled metal workers in their own culture.
although it seems russians mainly took goods to trade mostly vorsma ect made blades. kondrat (a german migrant family involved in knife production) being a common marker of the trade blades (now the previously state owned company "trud")


additionally the natives of the pacific always had had metal- both copper and meteorite iron and had their own pre-contact bladed weapons.. the antenna daggers are a good example being of a specific design.. i.e one side of the blade is flat like some japanese weapons..
in that time the spanish and later the americas were bringing a lot of goods form china as well. furniture. trinkets, ceramics ect
whaling ships were very active up the coas. and in fact the americas were also very active in the russia far east with Sakhalin island having american whaling bases and in fact shantar islands with particularly big shantar island being pretty much occupied only by americans and natives. these people couldnt trade in the Manchurian empire at the time with the russians having that special agreement between them and the manchus and a monopoly in that region.
so as they were sealing and trading furs as well in the 18th centuary and early 19th centuray. and the closest furm market was manchuria korea and japan.. i have no dount that they traded for mostly chinese korean and japanese goods to the russian and chinese japanese and korean traders in the area and then took those good back to north america with their cargos of whale seal ect and would probably bring sea otter and beaver to asia from the north east on the way there.
so they too could be a source of the coins. the americans got around.. they were also active in parts of the northern siberian coast in that period. ..
..

Alan, i was not trying to create an new or confusing terminology by referring to the "Iron Age proper". It is simply that 1200 BC is the date that most historians seem to agree on for the beginning of the Iron Age. I believe i was quite clear that knowledge of forging iron was in existence for at least hundreds of years before this date, but i suppose that historians tend to not mark us as being fully into the Iron Age until the process became more commonplace rather than a technology held by just a single civilization.
Now, i am still not convinced that the process described here for determining the origins of the material for the KT dagger is fool proof or accurate, but if we are to assume that the dagger is indeed made from meteoric ore then i see no reason why it could not have been made by Egyptians in 1300 BC since forging with a big chunk of iron meteorite apparently does not require the use of smelting technology.
This, of course, does not count out the possibility that it might have been a gift from the Hittites. There was know communication between these two great civilizations and apparently King Tut's widow sought to marry a Hittite prince soon after her husband's death.
"A crisis of succession gripped the royal court. With power plays and intrigues surely seething around her, Tut's widow, Ankhesenamun, appears to have launched a coup of her own, sending desperate letters to the king of the Hittites in Anatolia. "My husband is dead," she wrote. "Send me your son and I will make him king." It was an unprecedented request, but understandable. "Her grandmother was Queen Tiye, one of the most powerful queens Egypt ever saw," Ray Johnson explained. "Her mother was Nefertiti. They ruled as living goddesses, so of course Ankhesenamun felt she had the same power. And she found out that she didn't."
A Hittite prince, Zannanza, was eventually sent south to marry her, but he was killed—by a hit squad, some speculate—as he entered Egyptian territory. An elder courtier named Aye, possibly Ankhesenamun's grandfather, then became pharaoh."
But there is a reason the move that King Tut's widow attempted is considered "unprecedented".
It was the era from about 1500-1200 BC that Egypt had the most contact with the Hittites. However, they were for much of that time an adversary if not an outright enemy of the Egyptians. The Hittites were more likely to desire planting such a dagger into the heart of the Egyptian pharaoh rather than gifting it to him. It was Ramses II who brokered the first peace treaty with the Hittites in 1258 BC, but that was not until nearly a century after the death of King Tut. It is actually acknowledged by many historians as the first peace treaty ever recorded by both sides. He did indeed marry a Hittite princess a few years later. I am not aware of any particular diplomatic relationship during King Tut's time or before where the Hittites would be likely to gift a beautiful dagger such as this one to the Egyptian pharaoh, nor any intermarriages between these courts before Ramses II. :shrug:

Thanks for your further comments David.

I was not suggesting that you originated the "Iron Age Proper" terminology, it is a term that is fairly commonly encountered in texts that deal specifically with the Iron Age, and in texts that take a broad general view of history. It represents one point of view of the academics who are specialists in these fields, it is not a universal opinion.

I am not specialist in either Iron Age history or general history, I have only a slight knowledge of both, but I have read over many years many texts dealing with both fields, and I have formed the opinion that I tend to agree with the people who place the beginning of the Iron Age quite a bit earlier than the point at which Greece and Cyprus became involved.

Some historians adopt one point of view, some historians adopt a different point of view.
Two different opinions.
I incline towards one of these opinions, and question the validity of the other.

Thus, when I wrote that "--- I do not understand what is meant by "the Iron Age Proper"---", this is exactly what I meant. It was not an oblique comment, it can be taken at face value, and it refers only to my personal understanding.

However, what historians do seem to agree on is that Egypt did not begin to work with ferric material until iron smelting technology became widely available around 600BC.

It is true that a piece of meteoritic material can be cold forged into a reasonably compact form, it is also true that a piece of meteoritic material can be worked in a forge.

However, the technology required to do this, and the skill needed to apply that technology does not come out of a clear blue sky, it leaves evidence of its development, and in the case of Ancient Egypt this evidence is not present.

The Iron Age came to Egypt when iron smelting technology became widely available, and that was around 600BC.

The KT dagger can be dated to around 1300BC.

We have in the KT dagger a particular artefact, that required a particular technology and a particular skill to produce.

There is no evidence of that technology and skill existing in Egypt at or prior to the date of the KT dagger.

There is evidence of the technology and skill existing in Anatolia at the date of the KT dagger, and for a considerable time before this date.

The raw material used in Anatolia was probably haematite, it might have been magnetite, it could have been limonite, it was almost certainly not generally meteorite, but in very early items, it might have been.

The reason for the rise of iron technology is often misunderstood. Quite simply the ingredients needed to produce bronze were localised and difficult to obtain, on the other hand sources of ferric material are widespread and can be found almost everywhere. People turned to iron because of availability and then developed the technology needed to work it. Early iron artefacts were not really superior to bronze, it was only when carburisation was understood that ferric materials became a better product than bronze.

In fact, we are not talking about the dagger as a whole, we are only talking about the blade, the mounts are Egyptian. Dagger blades were recognised as acceptable gifts between rulers at this time in history.

The core question here is the way in which the Jambon findings are to be understood. In my opinion Jambon has produced a hypothesis, he has not produced a theory, and he has not produced proof of meteoritic origin of the KT dagger.

On the last note Alan i believe i have made it clear that we are in agreement.
I have certainly not ruled out that the KT blade may have come from a source outside of Egypt, however, if we are looking for evidence, i don't believe we can find much evidence that the Hittites would have gifted such a blade to any of the pharaohs of Egypt as they were in a rather continuous adversarial state previous to the peace treaty brokered by Ramses II in 1258 BC. Perhaps it may have been a war capture and seeing how iron in Egypt was seen at that point as a metal associated with royalty and power it may have found its way to the pharaoh. I just see no evidence that these two super powers of their day were giving gifts to one another at this point in history.

Yes, I think we are largely in agreement David, however, you misunderstand me if you believe that I am claiming that the KT dagger was a gift from the Hittite court to the ruler of Egypt.

How could I possibly make such a claim? This would be pure supposition and I do try my best not get involved in such nonsense.

What I do claim is that manufacture of the KT dagger blade required an advanced level of iron working skill and technology.

In 1300BC this skill and technology did not exist in Egypt, but it did exist in Anatolia. the people who inhabited Anatolia were Hittites, the Hittite people were the ones who at this time in history did have the skill and the technology to make the KT dagger blade.

The Hittite court had connections with the court of Egypt.

At this time in history iron dagger blades were considered to be suitable gifts for royalty.

How the KT dagger blade got from Anatolia to Egypt I have no idea at all, but I do posit that it was of Anatolian origin.

Hello everybody,

Coincidentally, early last month a guy in YouTube uploaded his experiment in forging meteorite. Campo del Cielo meteorite to be exact. What I can say is that it looked very very difficult. The presentation can be annoying at times but the content is very interesting. We can finally witness the difficulties in forging this material if we do not know how to do it.

Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr_5tIPP3dM

Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-QWol38NA0

Other videos showing successful attempts are also available in Youtube.

Rasdan

Yes Rasdan, you said it :- "---if you don't know how to do it---"

Well, not quite all, because I never had a failure, I couldn't afford to, it was so horribly expensive. I didn't know how to do the first time I tried, I learnt as I worked, but my first attempt was not a failure.

This bloke is trying to weld too cold, he simply does not understand forge welding. He is forging too cold for this material too. Meteorite needs to be forged close to weld temperature, if you do not and you forge too cold, it comes unstuck, and that is exactly the problem he's having.

Secondly he is not washing the material before trying to forge it:- minimum of 7 fold + weld is necessary.

The material itself looks excellent, he reckons it is terrible material? Oh yeah? I wish I could have got stuff like that when I was doing this.

Meteorite is no more difficult to weld than a bloom, or middle quality wrought iron, and it is probably easier than hot short iron.

He'd probably do a wee bit better if somebody taught him how to hold and use a hammer:- you do not hold a hammer like a club, you hold it with your thumb along the top of the handle, this aids control, increases force.

Most of all you need to understand the nature of the material, and coax it to do what you want it to do. This bloke obviously thinks that brute force and ignorance will get results. It will not.

Edit

Something else I just noticed too:- most of the time he's choking his hammer, as the video progresses his hand moves down the hammer handle, the hammer is too heavy for him.

G'day Alan

Yes I agree with you. If we spend some time thinking/studying about it just a bit more before starting a work the outcome would be much better. This person looks as if he is in a hurry to achieve something. Or probably he is only after the number of views of his video. Perhaps he will come up with another video when he has got the necessary skills/knowledge for this type of work.

Hello David,
King Tut's dagger being a gift from the Hittites is just one of many possibilities. It can very well be a booty from an earlier confrontation or simply a blade smuggled by some unscrupulous merchant.
Anyhow, as we know so little about this blade, everything is open to speculation.
Regards,
Marius

Agreed Marius. I just don't see much evidence of any positive diplomacy between these two great empires at this early date. Some things we will never know for sure.