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Or 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 d
by madaxe_again 3y ago
Or 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_...