Quite often, archaeological finds baffle scientists: for a long time none of the scientists could understand how Stonehenge was created, or how the pyramids were built. Yet another discovery made by Egyptologists fell into this category. Scientists argued that the knife found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is of extraterrestrial origin. A deep analysis showed that this is indeed true.
In 1925, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered two daggers hidden under the pharaoh's funeral robes. For a long time, the find was not recognized in the world scientific community, since such items simply did not occur in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh Tutankhamun was mummified over 3,300 years ago, and the technology to obtain similar materials was developed only in the Middle Ages.
And so …
… in 2016, scientists from Italy and Egypt studied the knife with which Pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled in 1332-1323 BC, was buried. As a result, it was found that the knife was made of an iron-nickel meteorite, most likely, by the cold forging method.
To study the knife, the scientists used the method of fluorescence X-ray spectroscopy. With its help, it was possible to show that the knife contains almost 11% nickel. This excludes its smelting from ordinary iron ore: the content of nickel in products made from it without the process of alloying with nickel, which was inaccessible in that era, cannot exceed 4%. In addition, a significant amount of cobalt was found in the knife. A high concentration of cobalt in metallic meteorites is typical for bodies that were formed in the early solar system and did not experience temperature differentiation, due to which the cobalt content in the earth's iron is low.
October 1925. Carter examines Tutankhamun's sarcophagus
Researchers tried to compare the chemical composition of Tutankhamun's knife with known samples of Egyptian meteorites. It turned out that one of them, Kharga, has a very similar composition of elements and can be the starting material for creating the pharaoh's weapon.
Tutankhamun's knife was found in his tomb at the beginning of the 20th century. It differs sharply visually from the usual iron weapons of that time. In the XIV century BC, iron smelted from ore was extremely rare, and they knew how to make it only in the Hittite kingdom - on the territory of modern Turkey. Due to the imperfect technological process, it was either too soft or (with an increased carbon content in the form of steel) very brittle.
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The meteoric iron of Tutankhamun's knife appears to be devoid of these shortcomings. Due to its high nickel content, it does not rust and shines even thousands of years after the knife was forged. Plus, nickel makes it pretty hard despite its low carbon content, which in turn makes the weapon less fragile. Despite the high quality of individual samples of meteorite iron, mass production of items from it was impossible due to the narrowness of the raw material base. Therefore, in the era before 1200 BC, iron was several times more expensive than gold, and products made of especially high-quality meteorite metal were available only to the rulers of rich states. Previous finds of ancient Egyptian artifacts made from this material related to jewelry, not weapons, which consumed much more precious metal.