King Tut's dagger--a blade of meteroritic iron

[Timo Nieminen]

Two questions:

Originally Posted by Roland_M

The picture with the red arrow clearly shows signs of a lamination process.

Are you including iron repeatedly folded on itself (e.g., to remove slag, for homogeneity, etc.) in "laminated"? This would be normal if it's hot-forged. And since, apparently, it's not cold-forged like the other iron objects from the tomb, it's presumably hot-forged.

Laminated, in the sense of being welded together from different irons, is possible (and might explain why the 1995 XRF measurements gave a much lower nickel content - I should look where the recent XRF measurements were taken on the blade (it's in the supplementary material for the paper)).

Originally Posted by Roland_M

The other picture looks like that the dagger is differential hardened.

Would you happen to know the carbon content of the blade? The recent XRF measurements appear to have included measurement of the carbon content, but that result isn't given in the paper (other than the statement of "minor quantities").

I'd be really surprised if the carbon content is high enough for differential hardening. A lamination line would be a more likely explanation.

Originally Posted by Roland_M

The blade is much too perfect for the first few footsteps with a completely new technology.

Compared with other Egyptian iron-working of the time, yes, it's "too perfect". To me, this suggests foreign origin, or at least foreign worker(s).

Perhaps not a completely new technology. The Alacahöyük dagger (from Anatolia) is about 1000 years older than Tutankhamun's dagger. Too corroded to know if the workmanship is similar. High nickel -> meteoric iron.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...Alacahoyuk.jpg