Scientists found something buried with King Tut that isn’t from this planet.

When King Tut was mummified, a dagger was concealed in his wrappings, but when archaeologists found the tomb and the dagger in 1925 they did not have the technology available to completely analyze the artifacts. The dagger puzzled scientists for years because ironwork was very rare in ancient Egypt, and was over 3,000 years old with no signs of rust.  But thanks to new technology we can finally learn the answer to this Egyptian mystery! Using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (a method of finding out what elements something is made of), archaeologists were able to determine that this very special dagger was made from the iron of a meteorite! And they didn’t stop there. The team analyzed the composition of all the meteorites that had been discovered in the area of the Red Sea, and found one near Mersa Matruh, Egypt that matched the dagger.

What’s so amazing about this discovery is that it shows that the ancient Egyptians understood that these hunks of metal fell from the sky long before Western society caught on. It is also impressive that they were able to make something so beautiful from a metal they had so little experience with. I would like to get to meet those craftsmen!

Want to learn more? Visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/king-tut-knife-meteorite_us_574f586ee4b0c3752dcc7014

June 7, 2016