Ancient Egyptians Used Meteorites as Symbolic Jewelry and Accessories

When you think of meteorites, you may think of planetary debris streaking across the sky or hurtling toward Earth. In fact, some of these meteorites end up on our planet in the form of iron. Now, researchers have discovered that in the past, Ancient Egyptians used meteorites in order to make symbolic accessories.

How did the archaeologists discover this? They found strings of iron beads that were excavated in 1911 at the Gerzeh cemetery, a burial site that's located several miles south of Cairo. The site was actively used from 3350 to 3600 BC, thousands of years before Egypt's Iron Age. The question became: Where did this iron come from?

When the beads were first discovered, researchers proposed that they were from a meteorite due to the composition of nickel-rich iron. Yet this particular hypothesis was challenged in the 1980s. At that time, academics proposed that much of the early worldwide examples of iron use originally thought to be of meteorite-origin were actually early smelting attempts.

So what's the answer? The Gerzeh bead was loaned to the Manchester Museum for further testing. Using a combination of the Open University's electron telescope and Manchester University's X-Ray CT scanner, researchers were able to confirm the nickel-rich chemical composition of the bead, which meant that it originally came from space.

"This research highlights the application of modern technology to ancient materials not only to understand meteorites better but also to help us understand what ancient cultures considered these materials to be and the importance they placed on them," said Diane Johnson, the researcher who led the study, in a news release.

The Ancient Egyptians probably believed that this iron had a celestial origin, and the meteorite probably had a profound impact on their perception of the metal. In addition, the iron probably influenced early metallurgy attempts.

"Today, we see iron first and foremost as a practical, rather dull metal," said co-author Joyce Tyldesley in a news release. "To the ancient Egyptians, however, it was a rare and beautiful material which, as it fell from the sky, surely had some magical/religious properties. They therefore used this remarkable metal to create small objects of beauty and religious significance which were so important to them that they chose to include them in their graves.

The findings are published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.