In 1974, near the Romanian city of Ayuda, a group of workers found an artifact, which was later attributed to the OOPART (Out Of Place ARTifact) facility. This is the designation of the found objects, the dating of which does not correspond to current historical knowledge. Such finds, as a rule, are hushed up or "forgotten". So it happened with the "Ayud hatchet". After several mentions of it, they "forgot", because the conclusions that suggest themselves when studying the artifact are too inconsistent with current ideas about the development of life.
What did the workers find
The work was carried out in a sandy quarry located on the banks of the Mures River. In the fine-grained sand raised from a depth of 10 meters, workers found 3 unusual objects. The finds were handed over to archaeologists. In 2 of them, the researchers immediately recognized the remains of the animal, while the third find caused some confusion. It was a wedge-shaped object, at first it was defined as a "stone hatchet".
All artifacts were sent to the Institute of Archeology for further research. There they were cleared of sand and centuries-old plaque. Two artifacts were identified as parts of the chewing teeth of mastodons, the oldest ancestors of elephants,
For the third find, a chemical analysis was needed, which helped to determine that the "stone hatchet" was not at all stone, but made of metal and not just by human hands, but with the use of technical means. According to historical time, these could only be representatives of Homo habilis, a man of skill, who, according to the information available at the moment, were just starting to make primitive stone tools.
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Why is the "hatchet" so interested in scientists
The length of the "hatchet" is slightly more than 20 cm, and the weight is 2.2 kg. The complex shape and 2 holes located at right angles to each other indicate that this object is part of some kind of complex mechanism. At the same time, they were produced using a lathe or similar unit. Mechanical damage and traces of surface wear give away its active use.
The chemical composition of the Ayud "hatchet".
For a more thorough study of the find, metallurgical samples were carried out at the Mining Institute of Scientific Research. The result was puzzling again. It turned out that the hatchet is made of a complex alloy of metals based on aluminum (total volume 89%), which includes 12 elements. Among them are tin, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, cadmium, zirconium, cobalt and bismuth, as well as a very small amount of gallium impurities.
Let us recall that the "hatchet" is several million years old, and aluminum was discovered only in 1825. It does not occur in nature in its pure form, the production technology, which is very laborious and complex, was discovered only at the end of the 19th century. To obtain aluminum, electrolysis of ores melted at temperatures above 950 degrees is carried out. It is hard to believe that such high-tech manufacturing was available in the days of the mastodons. Therefore, the presence of aluminum in the composition of the hatchet, whose age is determined by millions of years, seems more than strange.
Skeptics expressed the opinion that the Ayud find is a falsification, allegedly it was thrown into the excavation to the ancient bones in order to laugh at academic science. But scientists have refuted such an assumption: the "hatchet" is not a joke, since oxide was found on top of it. This property of aluminum over time becomes covered with a special film that prevents corrosion. On the "Ayud hatchet" such an oxide coating appeared to be more than a millimeter thick. If it were a modern fake, the film would be only a few microns. The thick layer of oxide film shows that the artifact is hundreds of thousands of years old. It is impossible to forge the oxidation layer of non-ferrous metals.
Erich von Daniken with the Ayud "hatchet".
If it's not a hatchet, then what?
The Ayud find outwardly resembles a hatchet, hence it got its name. But experts still cannot come to a consensus about its origin and purpose. An interesting hypothesis was expressed by one of the aeronautical engineers who happened to study the subject. He suggested that this is the landing support of some kind of aircraft, similar to the one that descends on the lunar surface. This is indicated by the material from which the artifact is made, and its shape, and traces of damage on the surface.
Based on this hypothesis, they recreated events that are millions of years old. A certain space probe, flying over the territory of modern Romania, crashed. The torn off support survived due to the fact that it was covered with sediment, like the remains of the mastodons, and all other parts were washed away with water.
According to another version, this is not an alien object, but made by the hands of an earthly man. Then, presumably, millions of years ago there was still an intelligent civilization, and high technologies were available to it, which we learned about only a couple of hundred years ago.
