Researchers find that several Egyptian beads are made from pieces of meteorites

Aug 20, 2013 20:11 GMT  ·  By

Several Egyptian beads dug out from an ancient cemetery originate in outer space, a new paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science argues.

More precisely, it appears that whoever made these iron artifacts forged them using bits and pieces of meteorites as their raw material.

Scientists estimate the beads were created about 5,000 years ago. This means that they are some of the oldest iron artifacts to have ever been discovered.

Researchers believe that, in those days, Egyptian craftsmen were familiar with meteoric iron and knew how to make this material take a certain shape.

“The shape of the beads was obtained by smithing and rolling, most likely involving multiple cycles of hammering, and not by the traditional stone-working techniques such as carving or drilling which were used for the other beads found in the same tomb,” Professor Thilo Rehren explains, as cited by Science News.

“This is very different technology from the usual stone bead drilling, and shows quite an advanced understanding of how the metal smiths worked this rather difficult material,” he further details.

By the looks of it, the 5,000-year-old beads used to be part and parcel of a necklace. What's more, it is likely that they were strung together with pieces of gold and even gemstones.

The beads were discovered back in 1911 by archaeologists excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery. At that time, they were fairly corroded.

Hence the fact that it took researchers a considerably long time to pin down their make-up and conclude that they were made from meteoric iron.

To prove that the beads originate in outer space, scientists used beams of neutrons and gamma rays to scan them.

It was thus revealed that the beads contained high concentrations of nickel, cobalt, phosphorus and germanium, and therefore the iron used to forge them must have come from outer space.

“The really exciting outcome of this research is that we were for the first time able to demonstrate conclusively that there are typical trace elements such as cobalt and germanium present in these beads, at levels that only occur in meteoritic iron,” Professor Thilo Rehren says.

The beads are presently kept at the UCL Petrie Museum in London.