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I just finished reading The Empty Quarter by St John Philby, which has bit about trying to find the lost city of Wabar, now associated with the Wabar meteor cra
by karaterobot 3y ago
I just finished reading The Empty Quarter by St John Philby, which has bit about trying to find the lost city of Wabar, now associated with the Wabar meteor crater. The Bedouin guides talk about a chunk of iron the size of a camel, which some of them had seen personally. At the time of the expedition, they couldn't t find it anymore, presumably because the sand had covered it up. This was 1932. In 1966, the sands had shifted again and the iron was visible to a National Geographic expedition. By 1982, it had nearly disappeared again. I have no trouble believing the remains of a meteor could exist in the sands near Mauritania, and not happen to be locatable at the moment.
- madaxe_again 3y agoOr it’s been harvested - historically, meteoritic iron was a significant source of iron in the Sahara, and the techniques for dismantling a meteorite, and the desirability of the readily accessible metal, were well known to local blacksmiths. The fact that he was shown to it in the dead of night, possibly blindfolded, indicates that it was a valuable resource that they wanted to keep hidden. They might do well to do a metallurgical analysis of old pots, pans, and other iron objects in nearby towns.
- alwa 3y agoI’d be interested to learn more about pre-power-tool techniques for dismantling a meteorite of that size. Do you have any reading recommendations? I’m having trouble getting much further than https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron
- madaxe_again 3y agoHonestly, I don’t know - but meteoritic iron tends to be fairly ductile, so I’d imagine hard rocks used to bash at it to gradually pinch a piece off. Actually, here’s a source - that does indeed seem to be the case. https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa_2_4.html https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/aa...
- Archelaos 3y ago> meteoritic iron was a significant source of iron in the Sahara This was especially true before iron smelting was perfected. The perhaps most famous ancient artifact of this kind is Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger from around 1330 BC. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_...
- pacman128 3y agoThis Philby story (father of the infamous double agent Kim Philby) is a key plot point in Tim Powers' book _Declare_. It's a mash up of a John le Carre spy novel with Lovecraft. One of Powers' best novels.
- karaterobot 3y agoI love Declare, that's why I read The Empty Quarter (and Kim).
- 23B1 3y agoThat's quite an obscure reference and book; how did you stumble upon such a thing?
- karaterobot 3y agoThere's another comment in this thread that mentions the book Declare by Tim Powers. St John Philby is an important (offscreen) character in that book, and certain details from The Empty Quarter are cast in a different light by the plot of the Powers book. I also just love reading travel narratives, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.
- morpheos137 3y agoNowadays with the internet it is not hard to find a map. FYI Mauritania is more 3000 miles from Wabar or the empty quarter.