According to a new study, these ancient Egyptian beads found in a 5,000-year-old tomb were made from iron meteorites that fell to Earth from space. The beads, which are the oldest known iron artifacts in the world, were crafted roughly 2,000 years before Egypt's Iron Age.
The beads were excavated in 1911 from an ancient cemetery near the village of el-Gerzeh, which is located about 3,100 miles south of Cairo. The tomb dates back to approximately 3200 B.C. Inside the tomb, which belonged to a teenage boy, the iron beads were strung together into a necklace alongside other exotic materials, including gold and gemstones. Early tests of the beads' composition revealed curiously high concentrations of nickel, a telltale signature of iron meteorites. But there was not sufficient proof of the beads cosmic origins.
Recent tests scanning the iron beads with beams of neutrons and gamma rays detected high concentrations of cobalt, phosphorous and germanium; these elements were present at levels that only occur in iron meteorites. The X-ray technology also revealed that the beads had been hammered into thin sheets before being meticulously rolled into tubes.
Meteoritic iron is very hard material. Unlike softer and more pliable metals like gold and copper, working with solid iron required the invention of blacksmithing, which involves repeatedly heating metals to red-hot temperatures and hammering them into shape. This is a process previously believed to have been invented and developed in the Iron Age, which started maybe 3,000 years ago — not 5,000 years ago. The earlier invention of this process makes the beads an important discovery.
The Egyptian beads are the earliest known instance of meteors being used for jewelry. Fast forward to the present and meteors will again be used in the crafting of jewelry. This winter, at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, gold medals given to winners on February 15, 2014 will receive medals that include meteorite fragments. The date commemorates the one-year anniversary of the meteor strike that injured over a thousand people in central Russia.
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