King Tut knife made from meteorite

I'm sure the practice of forging weapons from meteorites goes back even farther than tut. This is just the first one of significance to make headlines.
Still awesome.

a reply to: chelsdh

your welcome. i love watching all these build shows.

I think my favorite one of theirs was when they made a japanese sword the old fashioned way. It's a replica of the kill bill hanzo sword. very fascinating

Reminds me of the Viking Ulfberht sword, (Nova: Secrets of the Viking sword)

a reply to: UnBreakable

That is in remarkably great condition, considering it's made of Iron. I would have thought it would be a flakey, pitted, oxidized mess, barely resembling a knife at all after all this time.

Since it had a Gold scabbard or sheath, i would have thought they would have had that Iron blade dipped in gold to preserve it and make it more 'royal' looking...i would have done, if i were making it for a king.

How exactly does one break off chunks of a solid Iron meteorite, in order to work it into knives or other objects...without having Iron tools with which to do so in the first place?

a reply to: strongfp

. . . if it got wet and not dried off it would rust away . . .

I've seen a meteorite knife several times. It fascinated me so much one time I called there it was just to see the knife. The metal looked like crystalized oil on water. Part of it's recent history at that time was to have been lost for a year then discovered in the compost. No rust.

a reply to: FamCore

This is someone else's story. I know it has great significance for the family, I hope they're happy with me sharing it.


I was told the meteorite was seen to crash during a ceremony. They sought out the spot and dug it up. It was many years ago I was told the story, I can't remember if just one or more blades were made. He taught the mother of his children to use the knife defensively and left it with her. She kept it in her cabin and used it for general duties, including kitchen tasks. The handle was a coyote leg bone. There had been a crystal in the end of the handle but it had become detached and lost.


Other than that I believe meteorite metal was used for knives in the distant past when the almost impossible task of finding it was actually easier than mining and smelting without the necessary knowledge.

originally posted by: the owlbear
I'm sure the practice of forging weapons from meteorites goes back even farther than tut. This is just the first one of significance to make headlines.
Still awesome.

The crystal is really beautiful too.

The handle has a finely embossed gold handle with a crystal pommel while the sheath was decorated with a floral motif, feather patterns and a jackal's head.

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a reply to: EnigmaAgent

And the Nepalese would make phurbas from the same.

Story, as I heard it, goes that nothing from this earth could harm a demon, but metals from heaven on the other hand....

or The Egyptians actually forged this with those metal elements
, And just to happen that it it resembles the properties of the claimed Meteorite

Dont forget The Egyptians have Greenish Glass Stone as Jewelry
( found in Tuts Tomb )

that has the Same Like , Properties of the Glass that
was produced after the first Atomic bomb went off too ( Trinity )

Trinitite
en.wikipedia.org...
Tut's gem hints at space impact

Tutankhamun's Pectoral with desert glass scarab, Egyptian Museum (TV6/BBC)
Thing of beauty: Tutankhamun's Pectoral with desert glass scarab

Tutankhamun's gem
In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun's necklaces.
news.bbc.co.uk...
Ancient meteor impacts presume around 12,000 years ago...

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
Im not sure they actually knew the meteorite fell put of the sky. They probably just went "hey this is a neat rock or chunk of ore. It looks different and it appears rare. Lets make a decorative dagger out of it for the boy king." Thats probably the extent of what they knew about the rock

The Egyptians called iron, "metal from heaven".

I think they knew

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: UnBreakable

That is in remarkably great condition, considering it's made of Iron. I would have thought it would be a flakey, pitted, oxidized mess, barely resembling a knife at all after all this time.

The knife, along with another of gold, were placed next to the body within the wrappings. I doubt anyway that such a precious and rare object ever saw any action, or even much light of day. There were also, I have read, two iron armlets. It is likely that all three, and the gold dagger, were tributes from the Hittites.

originally posted by: MysterX
How exactly does one break off chunks of a solid Iron meteorite, in order to work it into knives or other objects...without having Iron tools with which to do so in the first place?

A good heavy rock, and you use it to hit the meteor, pretty much continuously, for several months until you have driven out most of the impurities. Heating it and cooling it, in between. Iron was more valueable than gold because there was no easy or quick way to produce workable iron until around 1850.

Neat, but really, hasn't every bit of material on this planet started out as a meteorite, asteroid or comet? That or the Earth was "blinked" into existence.

a reply to: Anaana

Like from heaven meaning not necessarily from the sky but interpreted as from the gods, being that it was so rare n all. Always possible too. Hey folks thought way back when that a normal not so unusual element gold was from the gods too and of heavenly merit.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

bia-n-pet translates to "metal from the sky". Sky and heaven, in most ancient languages, are relatively interchangeable. The sky itself was a god, to all intents and purposes, so from the sky would still mean it was a part of god to a lesser or greater extent depending upon local beliefs and how frequently rocks fell from the sky which from around the 3rd to 2nd millenium BC was fairly frequently it seems. Sumerian and Chaldean also called it "metal from heaven/sky".

So yeah, I think to those who marketed iron, the Hittites, there was a fairly clear cause and effect that was translatable to their customer/tribute base.

originally posted by: UnBreakable
So the ancient Egyptians knew meteorites had iron properties that could be forged, a couple of thousand years before

I'd like to correct an impression here - Tutankamun lived during the end of the Bronze Age when iron smelting became more common in the Levant. If memory serves, India had smelting before this. The Egyptians smelted copper and bronze... there are actually Egyptian iron smelted artifacts from earlier than Tut.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: UnBreakable
So the ancient Egyptians knew meteorites had iron properties that could be forged, a couple of thousand years before

I'd like to correct an impression here - Tutankamun lived during the end of the Bronze Age when iron smelting became more common in the Levant. If memory serves, India had smelting before this. The Egyptians smelted copper and bronze... there are actually Egyptian iron smelted artifacts from earlier than Tut.

Smelting iron? Yes. But the gist of this story says Egypt specifically knew that meteorites could be harvested for this purpose before other western cultures.

Dude I want that knife. Imagine what that knife would sell for.

You cant forge Iron meteorites because they are not steel but nickel Iron. If you heat it in a forge and strike it with a hammer it will shatter into hundreds of fragments. King tuts knife was not forged it was ground out of a solid iron meteorite.

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: UnBreakable

That is in remarkably great condition, considering it's made of Iron. I would have thought it would be a flakey, pitted, oxidized mess, barely resembling a knife at all after all this time.

Since it had a Gold scabbard or sheath, i would have thought they would have had that Iron blade dipped in gold to preserve it and make it more 'royal' looking...i would have done, if i were making it for a king.

Meteorites are rust resistant because they contain nickel, Iron, cobalt and no carbon. A popular type of meteorite people use for making things is the Gibeon meteorite and that fell in prehistoric times in Namibia.

originally posted by: MysterXHow exactly does one break off chunks of a solid Iron meteorite, in order to work it into knives or other objects...without having Iron tools with which to do so in the first place?

Hard work! you have to scrape a lump back and forth on stone using grit and water to gradually wear it flat.

a reply to: Wolfenz

They did not make that green glass though they found it in the desert and ground it into the scarab design. That green glass is made when a burning meteorite punches into sand making green glass under the high heat and pressure.