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How did the ancient Egyptians know it came from the sky?

gus_massa 10y ago
IANAA. They probably see it. Let's make up a story without any proof that it's real: In some place in the countryside, they see a light moving in the sky and a not very far explosion. (The ones that see a nearby explosion are dead.) Imagine something like the meteorite at Russia a few years ago. (From the videos it looks like a nice show if it doesn't land on your head.) The local governor/priest/whatever heard about it and send a crew to the site, let's say 5-10 persons. They found some molten glass and a strange metal stone, that is like bronze but has a weird color. They share the story for generations, if you are lucky someone they wrote an inform for the pharaoh. Everyone think they are nuts, but a they have this weird stone. Wait a few centuries, and repeat this a few times, and now you have a collection of weird stones and/or the weapons/tools made with them, and they share a similar story. So the story is not long so weird. Anyway, the knife made with the stone is better than the usual knives, and it has a nice story, so someone send it to the pharaoh.
- keville 10y ago
  One could also imagine an event where a small cluster of meteorites moving through the solar system did not get pulled into the asteroid belt, but instead showered the Earth for a few decades, or even a century, with a few impressive streaks in the sky every year. Even if only one landing site in ten was identified, you may have dozens of sources of pure ore.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Or it's special because it literally came from the heavens (to them) so it must be to make the weapons for the kings, possibly even sent by the gods for just that purpose, especially if it happened to blow up some people the people in power didn't like in the process of smashing into the ground. All of that is pure speculation on my part, but it'd be really interesting to find out how far off my guess is.

IANAA. They probably see it. Let's make up a story without any proof that it's real: In some place in the countryside, they see a light moving in the sky and a not very far explosion. (The ones that see a nearby explosion are dead.) Imagine something like the meteorite at Russia a few years ago. (From the videos it looks like a nice show if it doesn't land on your head.) The local governor/priest/whatever heard about it and send a crew to the site, let's say 5-10 persons. They found some molten glass and a strange metal stone, that is like bronze but has a weird color. They share the story for generations, if you are lucky someone they wrote an inform for the pharaoh. Everyone think they are nuts, but a they have this weird stone. Wait a few centuries, and repeat this a few times, and now you have a collection of weird stones and/or the weapons/tools made with them, and they share a similar story. So the story is not long so weird. Anyway, the knife made with the stone is better than the usual knives, and it has a nice story, so someone send it to the pharaoh.

keville 10y ago
One could also imagine an event where a small cluster of meteorites moving through the solar system did not get pulled into the asteroid belt, but instead showered the Earth for a few decades, or even a century, with a few impressive streaks in the sky every year. Even if only one landing site in ten was identified, you may have dozens of sources of pure ore.
seanp2k2 10y ago
Or it's special because it literally came from the heavens (to them) so it must be to make the weapons for the kings, possibly even sent by the gods for just that purpose, especially if it happened to blow up some people the people in power didn't like in the process of smashing into the ground. All of that is pure speculation on my part, but it'd be really interesting to find out how far off my guess is.