June 7, 2025 • 49 mins
Before the dawn of the iron age, ancient humans had but one source of workable iron for their artifacts and weapons: meteorites. In this classic and very-metal episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss various examples of meteoric metal artifacts, including several precious sky-weapons of antiquity. (originally published 5/16/2024)
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is
Robert Lamb. We have another vault for you. This is
going to be part three in our series from last year.
Originally published five sixteen, twenty twenty four Meteoric Metal and
Alien Iron, Part three. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
And we're back with part three of our series on
human uses of iron from space. I think we had
a little interlude there where. On Tuesday of this week
we ran an unrelated interview, But today we're back to
finish off the series with Part three. Now, if you
haven't heard the first two parts yet, you should probably
(00:59):
go back check those out first, But to do a
quick recap. In Part one, we focused largely on the
iron dagger of Tutin Common, a blade found wrapped up
with the pharotutin Common inside his coffin from before the
time of large scale smelting of iron in Egypt, and
we discussed chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger
(01:20):
was almost certainly made out of iron that came not
from Earth, but from a piece of iron meteorite that
fell from space. And it turns out that a lot
of iron artifacts like ambulets, beads, tools, and trinkets. A
lot of these iron artifacts from before the various regional
iron ages have this in common. They come from meteorites.
(01:43):
So ancient peoples were taking alien metal that fell from
the sky and shaping it to their uses. In Part two,
we talked about a few more specific artifacts believed to
be made from meteorite iron, such as the Shang Dynasty
axes from ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known
as the Iron Man or sometimes in the media as
the Space Buddha, which was at one point alleged to
(02:06):
be a Tibetan depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism
known as vice Ravana, but according to some experts in
Buddhist art, was actually a twentieth century European design, amounting
to a forgery or at least a crude imitation of
Tibetan imagery. And then I ended up getting into some
of the speculation about who could have actually made this sculpture,
(02:27):
which is a somewhat wild story if true, Big if true.
We also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites
come from space. So it took scientists of the European
Enlightenment until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to
really agree on this, But there is some evidence that
people in ancient China, in ancient Egypt and other cultures
(02:48):
knew that this metal came from above. And some of
the indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the
fact that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention
to refer to iron as iron of the sky or
metal of the sky. And so today we're back to
talk about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology
and artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing
(03:11):
that's interesting this has sort of come up a little
so far, is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power,
a sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after
the spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron.
So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane,
(03:32):
and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from
the earth and we use it to make all kinds
of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably
appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's right, and that's why in this next section I
want to get out of the Bronze Age and get
into the post Bronze Age Islamic world, where we see
various mentions of what may be meteoric iron. So a
lot of this is going to concern swords at least
(04:07):
in the outset here. Swords have of course played a
significant role in human history and take on various meanings
across various cultures that use them, which is pretty much
any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've
discussed on Stuff to Blow your Mind and the Artifact
the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before, we
see sword like weapons in cultures that did not have
(04:30):
access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality is
ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here about
you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that are
that to the untrained eye might look like a sword.
May even be you may even have bits of stone
embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance,
(04:53):
So there is something like even when you cannot make
swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials. There is
something about the form and to the extension of the
human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up
in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known,
the sword increasingly took on various literal, symbolic, metaphorical meanings.
(05:15):
And this of course means that swords factor into various
religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance,
in Christianity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict,
and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to
refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like
anything in a religious text, people will take it and
(05:38):
apply whatever meaning they want to it.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, there are a lot of ways you could read
I come not to bring peace, but a sword.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah. Now you'll find swords, even flaming swords, and Buddhist
iconography and Hinduism, and the sword of course also factors
into Islam. And I bring up these other religious examples
in part because, based on some of the sources I
was looking at, it does that there is often a
Western bias in interpreting sword iconography and references in Islam.
(06:05):
As more overtly tied to armed conflict than perhaps in
other religions. This is not to say that the sword
in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures, it
doesn't always refer to armed conflict or violence.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Could be literal, could be metaphorical exactly so.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Islamic swords may stand for religious or political authority, they
may stand for mystical knowledge and more in addition to
military victory. But moving on to specific swords, there are
a number of them of note from Islamic history. The
prophet Muhammad is held to have possessed nine swords during
his life, and the most famous of which is the
(06:45):
Dul Fakhari or dual Fakhar, and may be pronouncing this incorrectly.
If so, I apologize, But the name's meaning is largely uncertain,
but may relate to concepts of splitting, and is often
depicted as a wronged, split or double bladed sword. You
can look up images of various images of the sword
(07:07):
in iconography, and depending on how it's presented, the blade
may split near the tip or I've seen examples of
the blade splitting close to the hilt, so I guess
it kind of runs the gamut from like the highly
symbolic to the believable and practical. And again we're talking
about largely about imagery here. Actual symbolic swords have been produced.
(07:33):
But the sword in question here, the dual fora car,
is I think, largely understood to be a mystical and
or mythological item. The story goes, however, that the prophet
acquires the sword at the Battle of baut in six
twenty four, and then ultimately passes the sword onto his
son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph now Califf's by
(07:56):
the way, if you're not familiar, these were the Muslim
civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad. So the sword
in question here, the Dulafakar, is strongly associated with Ali.
There are various legends about his military exploits with this
mystical weapon and its ability to cut through his enemies.
Though it is also a symbol of political and spiritual authority.
(08:18):
It is in many ways said to be the sword
of swords, as Islamic blades were traditionally inscribed with the
phrase there is no sword but dul Fokar, and there
is no hero but Ali.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Okay, some superlatives right.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Right, and you can find examples of this. I was
looking around and like, various museums inevitably have swords of
Islamic origin that have that do mention the Dulfakar on them,
So you can find examples of this, perhaps even in
your own museum within your own region. Now, some say
that the actual sword in question here, among other relics,
(08:56):
is currently in the possession of the Tope Copy Museum
in Turkey. But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism,
the sword is believed to be in heaven and or
in the possession of Muhammad Almabi, the Imam believed to
return at the end of time. So again there's this
idea that, again a highly mystical sword that is held
(09:20):
in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore.
Now I say all this to sort of going to
get into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is
not the sword that I wanted to talk about in
connection to today's episode. Like, I've seen no discussion that
this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to
(09:42):
this sword containing meteoric iron. And I guess we should
also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings
not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However,
we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric
iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example
(10:02):
in just a second, but you know, we should remember
that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the
rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs
depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the
rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition
of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed
(10:24):
toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on
religion for better charting of time and location. Thus, you know,
there's a reason to focus more on the movements of
the stars, and this ends up helping to foster a
more robust cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions
(10:44):
in the ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now,
on the other hand, I was reading a survey of
Muslim materials on comets and meteors by David Cook. According
to Cook, comets and meteors during the for a very
long time, traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were
held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial,
(11:09):
so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions
would still be found in other forms of literature, especially
when they were held as portents or lined up with
important deaths or events, such as the death of the
Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in
the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in
(11:31):
the past, I think this was when I was writing
for How Stuff Works and I was writing or applying
some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and
I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had
been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back,
(11:51):
I tried to get into this because I really wanted
to figure out where is this coming from, what specifically
is this referring to? What are the sources? And the
initial source was a nineteen forty one paper published in
the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard,
and at one point in the text he discusses the
(12:13):
possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for
the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going
to read a quote here from it. In later times
we read that Attila, timur Antar and other devastating conquerors
had swords from heaven. So also the caliphs, whose swords
(12:33):
were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone
that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an
Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords
were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that
fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to
the show for a while, you know that we did
in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca
(12:56):
a while back, probably a few years at this point.
And one of the things that we did cover there
that maybe wasn't as apparent to the author of this
paper is that the origins of the Cobbastone are far
from a settled matter.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I
don't remember exactly what we concluded there, but it seemed
like there was still plenty of room for uncertainty there,
though there were suggestions of reasons for thinking it may
have been a stone created by an impact of some sort,
whether it came from above, or maybe whether it was
(13:28):
created of like one of those types of glasses created
by impacts.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think ultimately it's just all observational
because it's a sacred relic. It's not going to be
scientifically analyzed, which is the case with many relics around
the world. In getting into this whole business about the sort,
so that was what I really wanted an answer to,
and I've got to admit that I was able to
find out precious little about Islamic swords alleged to have
(13:55):
been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British
geologists Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through nineteen
twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by this author,
I didn't really find any answers to my questions either.
I did consult a couple of sources about the history
of metallurgy in the region, and it is key to
(14:16):
note that we've already touched on islam arises after the
end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East and
the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any
meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of
the past, and they clearly had access to what is
often held up is the best steel of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right, steel being a product of iron, So it would
not be a question like we talked about with the
King tut example, with this being a product from before
the regional iron age, from before people before there was
large scale smelting of iron in the area. There's plenty
of smelting of iron and production of iron artifacts. These
would just be iron from a different source in a
(14:58):
place that was already rich with iron, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah. Now, interestingly enough, interestingly enough here, I don't know
to what extent, or any extent this ends up coloring
these older writings by Western writers, if this factors into
the analysis at all. But there is actually a line
in the Quran fifty seven twenty five that refers to
(15:22):
iron in a way that is sometimes interpreted as having
some connection to meteoric iron. I'm going to read the
passage here. This is of course in translation. Indeed, we
sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we
sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so
that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron
(15:43):
with its great might, benefits for humanity and means for
Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for
him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is
all powerful, almighty ah.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So I imagine some interpretation is hinging there on the
phrase we sent down iron, with the idea of iron
somehow coming from above exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. I was reading paper talk titled Basic Concepts of
Physics and the Perspective of the Quran by M. M. Karashi.
This was in a nineteen eighty nine edition of Islamic Studies,
and the author here rights that quote the implication of
the words has become fully apparent only through historical investigation
of the earliest use of meteoric iron. So I could
(16:29):
be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction
or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these
lines in the Quran reference on historical understanding of iron
media rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again as we've
touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world
in different parts, and to different degrees, that there was
(16:50):
a connection between iron and Metea rights between iron and
the sky. Again, it makes perfect sense given everything we've discussed,
but isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem
to interpret this verse as just stating that iron in
the earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of
(17:12):
meteors doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation.
You know, it was sent down just a way of
saying it came from God, which you know fair enough,
you can say anything was sent down. You could, I
guess you could say a giraffe was sent down, but
that doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into
the Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Well, everything in this passage is said to be sent down,
and the other cases of sent down here don't necessarily
seem to imply a physical dissent from space.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Right, So again I invite direction or clarity on these points,
especially from anyone who has Garonic knowledge and so forth.
But I did find it interesting that in this passage
we see a possible reference to meteoric iron, and then
we also have these other like more perhaps dubious mentions
(18:01):
in Western ridings about meteoric swords meteoric iron swords that
were used by the Klobs.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
All right, Well, I wanted to begin this next section
by looking at how big chunks of meteorc iron arrive
on Earth. Already we've mentioned several examples of meteoroids that
at some point entered Earth's atmosphere and fragmented or shattered
in the air, separating into a series of smaller meteorite
(18:39):
fragments which can be found across an impact field. For example,
in the last episode, we talked about the Chinga meteorite,
one piece of which was probably used to make the
so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And
while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect,
the physical origin are not. Really it does seem to
(19:01):
be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite.
So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found
in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia,
since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early
nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a
large area is the result of some original object coming
(19:24):
apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten
to twenty thousand years ago.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
There are different ways for meteoroids to come apart or
lose their structural integrity in the atmosphere. In some cases
they land roughly intact, in some cases they split up
into some number of smaller pieces from the original, and
in some cases they basically just explode or vaporize, and
(19:53):
on the explosion end of the scale, the explosions before
the meteoroids reach the ground these explode are referred to
as air bursts. In many such cases, the entire object,
or nearly the entire object, is burned up or reduced
to dust in the process. In the case of the
relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which exploded over Russia in February
(20:17):
twenty thirteen, an asteroid that was originally like twenty meters
or sixty five feet in diameter when it entered the
Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few tens of kilometers above
the ground. For some reason, I've seen different estimates about
the altitude. Some say twenty three kilometers up, others say
thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was, this explosion released
(20:38):
a huge amount of energy, expressed in the hundreds of
kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred or five hundred
kilotons of T and T. The explosion way up there,
damaged thousands of buildings on the ground, blew out glass,
and sent some fifteen hundred people to the hospital, though
thankfully no deaths were reported.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The footage of this, like the ashboard footage that was
going around, is quite incredible, so if you haven't seen it,
definitely seek it out.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Absolutely that is worth looking at. It is awe inspiring,
and this is a particularly big air burst in the
modern era, not of course the biggest that can happen,
but very big and recent memory, though, I was reading
if the object had impacted the ground instead of exploding
high up in the atmosphere, if it had hit the
ground or exploded lower in the atmosphere, the damage the
(21:27):
damage could have been much much worse. So in a way,
the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that
the Cheliubinsk metioroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the
size of a house, I've read estimates that well below
one percent of its mass reached the ground in the
form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've
seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero
(21:50):
point one percent of its mass or like zero point
zero five percent of its mass. Some very small percent
of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks,
and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as
the object broke apart and burned up. So this got
me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to
(22:11):
just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key
factor is speed. So the original object, which might be
a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a
few meters in diameter, maybe up to tens of meters,
typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the
American meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going
(22:33):
anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers
per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this
variability that you might not think about it first. The
speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not
only on the speed of the comet or the asteroid's
(22:54):
orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own
intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also
affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously
orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second, and
is also though this is less important, rotating at about
one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course,
(23:16):
speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer.
So even though we use language like the speed at
which a meteor enters our atmosphere, that could give the
false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media
is moving, in reality, both are moving, and they're moving
in their own directions, and so the speed of entry
is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to
(23:39):
each other, you know. So it could be kind of
trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere
it hits, or it could be like slamming into more
kind of a head on kind of collision with the
part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course,
other things about other things about the way a meteor
enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fail
(24:00):
whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so
that would include things like the angle of entry anyway,
whatever the speed is. At that incredible speed, the air
directly in front of the meteoroid once it enters the
atmosphere becomes greatly compressed. It's squeezing a lot of atmospheric
gas in its path into a very small space, very rapidly.
(24:25):
So you can imagine it kind of like a like
a pneumatic piston that is moving so fast it doesn't
need a cylinder to squeeze the air in front of it.
If you're traveling a dozens of kilometers per second, you're
going to squeeze a lot of air into a thin
layer at your bow before it has the chance to
move out of the way. And as a result of
being so violently compressed, this air gets extremely hot, and
(24:50):
then this layer of hot compressed gas flows around the
sides of the object as it travels. This fast movement
not only compresses the gas in front, but it also
creates a relative vacuum in the space directly behind the meteoroid,
and these forces put a lot of stress on the object,
heating it up by thousands of degrees celsius, melting or
(25:11):
vaporizing parts of it, causing pieces of it to break off.
As just a huge amount of stress on a solid
chunk of material, These pieces that might be broken off
of the object are in turn subjected to extreme forces
of heat and pressure, and a sudden breakup of the
main mass of the meteoroid can release just a lot
(25:31):
of energy quite suddenly and resemble an explosion. Also, in
addition to all this, I came across a paper from
twenty eighteen adding another interesting mechanism, another piece of information
to the puzzle here. So this paper was by Tabita
and Malash published in Mediaridtics and Planetary Science in the
(25:51):
Air twenty eighteen, and the paper is called Air Penetration
Enhances Fragmentation of Entering Meteoroids. So this paper is discussing
an attempt to model the physics of a fragmenting meteoroid
with reference to the example of Chellibinsk and the authors
here argue that their model reveals a previously unrecognized but
very important mechanism in how this breakup occurs, and that
(26:14):
is the penetration of high pressure air inside the body
of the object through permeability of the material or through
tiny cracks and pores in the rock or the metal,
and as this air percolates into the solid body of
the meteoroid, it decreases its material strength. That weakens it
(26:35):
and makes it more likely to want to split apart.
One of the authors, Purdue University professor j. Malash, described
the process in a press release, saying, quote, there's a
big gradient between the high pressure air in front of
the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it. If
the air can move through the passages in the meteorite,
(26:56):
it can easily get inside and blow off pieces. So
air bursts are aided by this percolation, which every time
I say that, I do think of coffee as a
kind of kitchen first thinking. But this percolation of superheated
compressed gas into the body of the meteoroid through these
tiny holes and gaps in its structure. But not all
(27:20):
meteoroids are equally vulnerable to this process. Size and density
help protect a meteoroid from fragmentation and vaporization. Iron meteoroids
are not completely immune, but since they are denser on
average than stony meteoroids, they are less likely to result
in an air burst, and thus it is more likely
(27:42):
that large solid chunks reach the Earth's surface intact, and
so I would like to talk about one such meteorite,
iron meteorite that did reach the surface of the Earth
in several very large pieces, and that is the inogenic meteorite,
also known as the Cape York meteorite, three large pieces
(28:03):
of which are now on display at the American Museum
of Natural History in New York. There's one that is enormous,
you know, it's like sort of car sized, and even
the other two that are smaller are very big. So
some thousands of years ago, we don't know exactly when
a meteoroid weighing possibly like two hundred tons about one
(28:24):
hundred and eighty metric tons, but we don't know for sure,
entered the atmosphere and fragmented into pieces in the Arctic
over North America. But as several still very large pieces
of iron meteorite did make it to the ground. They
landed in what is today northwestern Greenland, probably before it
was inhabited by people, after people first arrived in the area.
(28:49):
Again we don't know for sure when this was. They
found these large caches of solid iron and began using
them to make iron tools through a process called cold forging.
Essentially using heavy objects such as stones to hammer pieces
of the iron meteorite until they broke off, and then
(29:10):
you would hammer these pieces until they reached the shape
you wanted, such as a knife blade or a harpoon tip.
And this cold forging process was very energy intensive. It
took a lot of human labor. These sources of meteorite
iron became a vital mineral resource for the Inuit peoples
of the region.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It is telling that once more we're talking about a
culture that would often be interacting with a landscape upon
which little bits of meteorites would potentially show up a
lot easier and be easier to find, you know, in
this case the snowscape, but in other cases we've been
(29:51):
talking about desert environments.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Ice is actually a great surface for finding meteorites. This
came up in that documentary that watched by the Verner
Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer documentary where they are looking for
meteorites on the surface of ice sheets by helicopter in Antarctica,
and it was a great place to look for them
(30:13):
because otherwise, you know, you not expecting to see rocks
on the top of these ice sheets.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That is, fireball visitors from Darker Worlds from twenty twenty,
and yeah, we actually interviewed Herzog and Oppenheimer for the show.
I believe it it was an anticipation of this, right,
or was it about their volcano documentary. I'm blanking because
I watched them both around the same time. At any rate,
(30:38):
we talked to Verner Herzog and it was.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Terrifying, though I do want to have a caveat there.
I've seen some pictures, I believe, of how these particular
iron meteorites were as they were originally in the places
where the Inuit people's found them, and from what I
recall seeing, it seemed like they were not just like
on top of bare ice sheets, but they were positioned
(31:02):
among a landscape more like nestled in among rocks and earth.
So I think they still would have really stood out.
They would have looked weird because they were iron meteorites,
but not just not so much like the things that
these scientists were looking for in Antarctica, where it's just
like a black rock on otherwise unbroken white ice sheet.
Right right, Anyway, the tools made out of these cold
(31:26):
forged chunks of iron meteorite were they entered circulation They
were sourced from these locations and then eventually traded with
the communities surrounding the Inuit peoples of northwestern Greenland. Eventually
they made it even farther. There's some evidence that some
iron tools made out of pieces of this meteorite were
(31:46):
traded with Norse Vikings sometime before in the eleventh century
or before. But by the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, explorers
from Europe started to make repeated contact with various Inuit
peoples in voting. The Inhuit of the Far North and
the Inuit are a group of Inuit people also known
(32:07):
sometimes as the polar Inuit. They speak a language called
Inukton and their homeland is in northwestern Greenland. These European
and US explorers, such as the Scottish naval officer John Ross,
recorded that in speaking to these people, they were told
about some kind of mountain of iron that the Inhuit
(32:27):
were using to make their iron tools, but for a
long time they never saw. The explorers never saw these
iron sources for themselves. This was until the expeditions led
by the US explorer Robert Peiri beginning around eighteen ninety four.
Piri is mainly known for trying to reach the North Pole.
There's some dispute about whether Pery ever actually did make
(32:51):
it to the geographic North Pole. He certainly claimed he
did in April nineteen oh nine, but it's difficult to
verify since the ice would have been over water and
his constantly moving, so the marker he placed in the
ice can't confirm it. Also, some later analysis of the
records of the expedition cast doubt on the physical plausibility
of their journey and also if Pieri did make it
(33:14):
to the geographic North Pole. There's an account from Matthew Henson,
an African American explorer who lived from eighteen sixty six
to nineteen fifty five and served on multiple expeditions with Peery,
indicating that he was actually the one who made it
there first. If they did make it so, a lot
of questions remain about that, but anyway, after living among
(33:35):
the Inuit and learning from them and trading with them,
Pieri eventually removed three large chunks of iron meteorite from
Inhuit lands, the largest of which is known as Anihito,
or the tent, and this one is more than thirty
metric tons and it required the construction of a rail
system just to get it to his ship in order
(33:58):
to be transported to New York. But there were also
two other smaller but still quite sizable iron masses, known
as the Woman and the Dog. Later and Pieri's plan
was to sell these objects in order to finance his
future expeditions to the Arctic, and they remain on display
today at the American Museum of Natural History. Now, in
(34:19):
addition to taking away these meteorites that were so important
to the Inhuit, not just practically as tools. More on
that in a minute, there is also an incredibly tragic
story of how Peery took away six Inuit people and
delivered them back to the American Museum as well, under
the false pretense that they would soon be sent back
home with many gifts and supplies. But in crowded New York,
(34:43):
they were quickly exposed to unfamiliar pathogens and most of
them died of respiratory diseases. So in the end that
story is very sad. I think one man from the
group was able to return to Greenland, and there was
a boy among the group named Minic who did grow
up in the United States for some time. And then
I believe it. Sometime later tried to return to Greenland
(35:05):
and then also at some point came back to the
United States, but he passed away in the nineteen eighteen
flu pandemic. But regarding the Inuit beliefs about these meteorites
that had provided them with iron tools for so many
(35:28):
hundreds of years, I wanted to mention a really interesting
episode of another podcast that I came across while researching
this subject. So this other podcast is called Endless Thread
and it's put out by Boston's public radio station WBUR.
I previously wasn't familiar with it, but this one episode
I listened to was really great. And this podcast generally
discusses uses of meteorite among the Inuit people. But my
(35:52):
favorite thing about it is that it includes interview material
with an Inuit shaman named his Shoe, and it's definitely
worth checking out that episode in full. I think the
main title before a colon and subtitle is a meteorite
in Greenland, But I wanted to mention one interesting and
important thing that sort of comes up in it. So
Hisshu is from a place in northwestern Greenland called hira Paluk,
(36:16):
where the Inuit people have this long relationship with meteorite
fragments and in hisshu says that in their language these
are known as the excrement of the stars.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
That sounds like an entirely different take on.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
What these are, but it doesn't have the connotations you
might bring to it thinking of it as excrement, because
these objects are quite sacred. In fact, I've read in
other contexts that a justification given for Peri's removal of
the iron meteorites from Inuit lands is that the Inhuit
acquired other sources of iron and steel for practical uses
(36:57):
through trade and so forth. So the thinking is like, oh,
they can get iron from other sources now, so they
don't really need these meteorites anymore. Now, I think there
are even if they were. Even if these meteorites were
only significant for practical uses as a source of iron,
I think there would be reasons for doubting that that
way of thinking that justification. But in this interview Hisshue
(37:20):
makes clear that these meteorites have significance beyond simply being
utilitarian sources of metal. Though they were that as well,
their significance was sacred, and he mentions that cutting off
a piece of metal from the source involves a ritual.
There is a ritual to that sort of giving the
people access to the metal from this sacred object. And
(37:44):
the tools made from it are not simply viewed as tools.
He calls them partners because in a way, he says,
everything in their view of the world is life. Everything
is infused with life. So a tool made from this
meteorite is not just simply a dead object to get
some use out of it is a partner in your work.
So anyway, if you want to check out that other
(38:06):
podcast episode again, the show is called Endless Thread. The
title of the episode is a meteorite in Greenland. But
to continue on this subject, I was reading around and
I found other accounts of Inuit people explaining that they
view these meteorites as having a sacred power and that
in fact, religious significance and material utility are not mutually
(38:28):
exclusive in their view. So just one example I came
across was a paper published in the journal Meteoritics by
Mardin at All called Contemporary Inuit Traditional Beliefs concerning Meteorites.
This is from the year nineteen ninety two and it
records what was said about meteorites by Inuit elders in
the High Canadian Arctic in nineteen eighty eight, so a
(38:51):
few details of what the authors here were told. They
were told that Inuit people have long come across rocks
in the landscape that the interpret as being not natural,
sort of not the same as everything else around them,
and in some cases these are meteorites, and meteorite pieces
that are discovered or possessed by a person can give
(39:14):
people special powers in some cases, or have some kind
of special link to the fate of the person who
owns them. They mentioned that these iron meteorites have been
sources of metal for the fashioning of effective tools and weapons,
but contrary to what might be a common Western assumption,
this does not mean that they are not viewed as
sacred or spiritual objects. Quote. The one evident thing that
(39:38):
became clear to the author is that the Inuit distinctly
believed that these meteorites are religious objects of the highest order,
and it brings into question the current academic practice of
sending meteorites south to research institutes. Any seeming conflict with
the traditional use of meteoric iron is more apparent than real.
The animals, the hunt, the active, all being bound up
(40:01):
in the mystic patterns of animistic belief. So what I
take from this is it's sort of pushing back against
an assumption that many Westerners might have that, oh, if
people are just using this metal to make tools that
they use for everyday chores, you know, for hunting and
other things that must be done to survive, and you know,
and maybe if you compensate them by trading with them
(40:23):
some other objects that are useful for survival, then there's
nothing wrong with taking this stuff away. And you might
not feel the same way about an artifact that is
that has religious significance but maybe was crafted by humans
and kept in a sacred special place and has no
role in the ongoing work of everyday life. But I
(40:45):
think they're saying that's wrong. Even though this is used
to make materials that are used in regular work, it
still is also sacred. And that kind of raises questions
for me about like, why would we have the contrary
assumption to begin with? Why would we naturally assume that
if a material is broken off of a mother load
and hammered into blades or harpoon tips or other tools
(41:07):
used for everyday survival, that material is not sacred or
is not a religious object. The conclusion doesn't actually follow
from that premise. It implies there's some other unstated premise
that is driving the intuition, and that premise could be
something like things you see every day aren't sacred, or
things you use to accomplish work are not sacred, which, again,
(41:32):
like where would such a belief come from?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, there's a lot to unwrapped there, because on one hand,
you could see this kind of viewpoint being rooted in
like clear examples of highly ornate objects that were non
intended for actual functional use, such as some sort of
a ritualistic weapon that was clearly not intended for use
on the battlefield, or some sort of ritualistic item that
(41:55):
essentially has the role of a scepter where it becomes
a symbol of power, but it is some divorced from
practical applications that it may have had in its sort
of artifact based history, like for instance, the traditional traditional
scepters and Chinese tradition. I've seen some discussion that they
(42:15):
they may have in origin been backscratchers. It's one theory,
you know. So it's like, Okay, you have a practical
item that then ultimately becomes a thing that is completely
divorced from that tradition. And so if you're looking for
those kinds of like clear examples like Okay, well this
is clearly a sacred item because it doesn't look like
it could be used every day. So you have that
(42:37):
going on. But then yeah, I don't know. It is
weird to think about this idea of thinking that everyday items,
every day things cannot be held up as sacred because
I think, for one thing, you can see various plenty
of examples from history where things people encountered every day
still took on sacred meaning. One example that comes to
(42:57):
mind is the horse. Like the horse is you know,
during times of its domestication to be clear here, you know,
it takes on sacred connotations, mystical connotations. Like the horse.
The skull of the horse is often held up in
different societies, is having some sort of a you know,
peculiar meaning or are to it. And yet the horse
was every day. The horse was something that that was
(43:20):
just part of your daily life and you depended upon.
And then on the other end of things, like there's
just our personal experience, like a beloved tool. We may
not really be in the mindset of thinking about things
in our immediate vicinity as being you know, mystical or
magical or sacred, because maybe we just don't apply that
mindset to our immediate world. But I don't think that
(43:42):
the way we consider our tools and consider our our
knickknacks are completely divorced from that thinking either. I mean,
just think about, like, whatever, if you do engage in
some sort of a craft or a handy work, like
do you have a beloved tool? And and how much
would you have to lean into the idea of it
(44:03):
being important to get to the level of it being sacred.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Or the source of the material from which it is
made being sacred. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, this also comes back to It reminds me we
were talking earlier about excrement in the idea of meteoric
iron as being the excrement of the sky or so forth.
This brings me back to something that came up in
our episodes on Dust about how there's sort of like
a modern understanding of excrement. You know, it's just pure waste, right,
(44:32):
But for people that were actually engaged in like working
the land and all like, there would have been more
of an understanding that this is not like a valueless byproduct.
This is something that then can be used to grow
something new. You know, it can be used as a fertilizer.
There are various traditions where of course it's also used
(44:54):
and typically you know, I think we're dealing with animal
excrement in these cases, but it can be used also
as fuel for fire, So you don't have to like
lean far in that direction to see this is something
that can be that new life can be breathed.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Into, you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
But again, just coming back to the idea of sacred
items in everyday life. I mean, yeah, I think most
of us can easily admit that we very easily imbue
physical items with meaning. I mean, it becomes a problem
for people. So it's they're not necessarily, you know, hoarders
are not making everything sacred, I guess necessarily, But you know,
(45:30):
I don't I don't think it's you know, beyond the
realm of of our understanding that that a tool, especially
when you depend upon could could you know, take on
a sacred quality. Now as we begin to close out
these episodes, I guess we're closing out these episodes on iron,
I don't know, do you think you have another one
in you, Joe.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Well, there certainly are plenty more examples we could talk about,
but I feel like maybe we're ready to move on
for for our purposes, but we could come back to it,
I guess, yeah, yeah, come up again.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there. I
would love to hear from listeners about it. I mean,
for ins as we didn't touch on much in the
way of modern meteoric weapons that have been produced very
much with the understanding that these are meteors, these meteorites
and this this is metal from the sky, and you
see various examples of this. The late Terry Pratchett, for example,
(46:23):
had a meteoric blade forged for himself using I believe
bits of meteorite that he himself had collected. This was
for when he was knighted.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
He wanted to make sure you had the right sword.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
For it, really making it an occasion.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, yeah, make a feast of it, there's all. There
are also various other blades. I was reading about a
Japanese blade. This is a Japanese Samurai sword forged by
modern day swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshiwara. It is called the Tintatsuto
or the Sword of Heavenly Iron. And this particular sword
(47:01):
which you can see is on display. It uses iron
from the Gibeon meteorite that fell in Namibia during prehistoric times.
You can look up images of it. Looks pretty cool
and I also read that fragments of this meteorite were
also traditionally used by the Nama people of Namibia for
(47:23):
many centuries in tools and in weapons. And you'll find
various meteoric swords in fiction. I don't believe this is
in the core books, this may be in the additional matter,
but apparently a couple of these blades show up in
the works of J. R. Tolkien and also on Avatar
the Last Airbender. I'd totally forgotten about this, but a
(47:43):
meteoric sword does come into play on that show as well.
Those are just a couple of the fictional examples, but
I'm sure there are plenty more. So yes, we would
love to hear from you out there. Write in with
your favorite examples of fictional meteoric weapons, as well as
various examples or potential examples. With that huge caveat you
(48:04):
know that we get into in the first episode regarding
actual weapons that may include iron of meteoric origin. Please do.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
We're gonna get a lot of the fictional ones, Robin,
I think this is a rich vein to exploit here.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, let's have it all right, We're gonna go ahead
and close out the show here. But hey again, we'd
love to hear from everyone out there, and if you
would like to help us out, if you want to
support the show, I tell you, one of the best
things you can do is make sure that you are
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be it Apple, various other places, just make sure that
(48:40):
you've hit subscribe if you have the power.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
To do so.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Above and beyond that, throw us some ratings, you know,
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Speaker 3 (48:52):
You know, that's right to invoke a cliche. We depend
upon the support of listeners like you, But all you
got to do is listen and share it. So huge
thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello. You
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
(49:15):
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is
Robert Lamb. We have another vault for you. This is
going to be part three in our series from last year.
Originally published five sixteen, twenty twenty four Meteoric Metal and
Alien Iron, Part three. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.
And we're back with part three of our series on
human uses of iron from space. I think we had
a little interlude there where. On Tuesday of this week
we ran an unrelated interview, But today we're back to
finish off the series with Part three. Now, if you
haven't heard the first two parts yet, you should probably
(00:59):
go back check those out first, But to do a
quick recap. In Part one, we focused largely on the
iron dagger of Tutin Common, a blade found wrapped up
with the pharotutin Common inside his coffin from before the
time of large scale smelting of iron in Egypt, and
we discussed chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger
(01:20):
was almost certainly made out of iron that came not
from Earth, but from a piece of iron meteorite that
fell from space. And it turns out that a lot
of iron artifacts like ambulets, beads, tools, and trinkets. A
lot of these iron artifacts from before the various regional
iron ages have this in common. They come from meteorites.
(01:43):
So ancient peoples were taking alien metal that fell from
the sky and shaping it to their uses. In Part two,
we talked about a few more specific artifacts believed to
be made from meteorite iron, such as the Shang Dynasty
axes from ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known
as the Iron Man or sometimes in the media as
the Space Buddha, which was at one point alleged to
(02:06):
be a Tibetan depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism
known as vice Ravana, but according to some experts in
Buddhist art, was actually a twentieth century European design, amounting
to a forgery or at least a crude imitation of
Tibetan imagery. And then I ended up getting into some
of the speculation about who could have actually made this sculpture,
(02:27):
which is a somewhat wild story if true, Big if true.
We also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites
come from space. So it took scientists of the European
Enlightenment until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to
really agree on this, But there is some evidence that
people in ancient China, in ancient Egypt and other cultures
(02:48):
knew that this metal came from above. And some of
the indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the
fact that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention
to refer to iron as iron of the sky or
metal of the sky. And so today we're back to
talk about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology
and artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing
(03:11):
that's interesting this has sort of come up a little
so far, is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power,
a sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after
the spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron.
So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane,
(03:32):
and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from
the earth and we use it to make all kinds
of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably
appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's right, and that's why in this next section I
want to get out of the Bronze Age and get
into the post Bronze Age Islamic world, where we see
various mentions of what may be meteoric iron. So a
lot of this is going to concern swords at least
(04:07):
in the outset here. Swords have of course played a
significant role in human history and take on various meanings
across various cultures that use them, which is pretty much
any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've
discussed on Stuff to Blow your Mind and the Artifact
the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before, we
see sword like weapons in cultures that did not have
(04:30):
access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality is
ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here about
you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that are
that to the untrained eye might look like a sword.
May even be you may even have bits of stone
embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance,
(04:53):
So there is something like even when you cannot make
swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials. There is
something about the form and to the extension of the
human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up
in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known,
the sword increasingly took on various literal, symbolic, metaphorical meanings.
(05:15):
And this of course means that swords factor into various
religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance,
in Christianity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict,
and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to
refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like
anything in a religious text, people will take it and
(05:38):
apply whatever meaning they want to it.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, there are a lot of ways you could read
I come not to bring peace, but a sword.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah. Now you'll find swords, even flaming swords, and Buddhist
iconography and Hinduism, and the sword of course also factors
into Islam. And I bring up these other religious examples
in part because, based on some of the sources I
was looking at, it does that there is often a
Western bias in interpreting sword iconography and references in Islam.
(06:05):
As more overtly tied to armed conflict than perhaps in
other religions. This is not to say that the sword
in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures, it
doesn't always refer to armed conflict or violence.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Could be literal, could be metaphorical exactly so.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Islamic swords may stand for religious or political authority, they
may stand for mystical knowledge and more in addition to
military victory. But moving on to specific swords, there are
a number of them of note from Islamic history. The
prophet Muhammad is held to have possessed nine swords during
his life, and the most famous of which is the
(06:45):
Dul Fakhari or dual Fakhar, and may be pronouncing this incorrectly.
If so, I apologize, But the name's meaning is largely uncertain,
but may relate to concepts of splitting, and is often
depicted as a wronged, split or double bladed sword. You
can look up images of various images of the sword
(07:07):
in iconography, and depending on how it's presented, the blade
may split near the tip or I've seen examples of
the blade splitting close to the hilt, so I guess
it kind of runs the gamut from like the highly
symbolic to the believable and practical. And again we're talking
about largely about imagery here. Actual symbolic swords have been produced.
(07:33):
But the sword in question here, the dual fora car,
is I think, largely understood to be a mystical and
or mythological item. The story goes, however, that the prophet
acquires the sword at the Battle of baut in six
twenty four, and then ultimately passes the sword onto his
son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph now Califf's by
(07:56):
the way, if you're not familiar, these were the Muslim
civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad. So the sword
in question here, the Dulafakar, is strongly associated with Ali.
There are various legends about his military exploits with this
mystical weapon and its ability to cut through his enemies.
Though it is also a symbol of political and spiritual authority.
(08:18):
It is in many ways said to be the sword
of swords, as Islamic blades were traditionally inscribed with the
phrase there is no sword but dul Fokar, and there
is no hero but Ali.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Okay, some superlatives right.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Right, and you can find examples of this. I was
looking around and like, various museums inevitably have swords of
Islamic origin that have that do mention the Dulfakar on them,
So you can find examples of this, perhaps even in
your own museum within your own region. Now, some say
that the actual sword in question here, among other relics,
(08:56):
is currently in the possession of the Tope Copy Museum
in Turkey. But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism,
the sword is believed to be in heaven and or
in the possession of Muhammad Almabi, the Imam believed to
return at the end of time. So again there's this
idea that, again a highly mystical sword that is held
(09:20):
in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore.
Now I say all this to sort of going to
get into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is
not the sword that I wanted to talk about in
connection to today's episode. Like, I've seen no discussion that
this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to
(09:42):
this sword containing meteoric iron. And I guess we should
also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings
not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However,
we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric
iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example
(10:02):
in just a second, but you know, we should remember
that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the
rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs
depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the
rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition
of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed
(10:24):
toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on
religion for better charting of time and location. Thus, you know,
there's a reason to focus more on the movements of
the stars, and this ends up helping to foster a
more robust cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions
(10:44):
in the ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now,
on the other hand, I was reading a survey of
Muslim materials on comets and meteors by David Cook. According
to Cook, comets and meteors during the for a very
long time, traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were
held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial,
(11:09):
so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions
would still be found in other forms of literature, especially
when they were held as portents or lined up with
important deaths or events, such as the death of the
Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in
the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in
(11:31):
the past, I think this was when I was writing
for How Stuff Works and I was writing or applying
some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and
I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had
been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back,
(11:51):
I tried to get into this because I really wanted
to figure out where is this coming from, what specifically
is this referring to? What are the sources? And the
initial source was a nineteen forty one paper published in
the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard,
and at one point in the text he discusses the
(12:13):
possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for
the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going
to read a quote here from it. In later times
we read that Attila, timur Antar and other devastating conquerors
had swords from heaven. So also the caliphs, whose swords
(12:33):
were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone
that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an
Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords
were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that
fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to
the show for a while, you know that we did
in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca
(12:56):
a while back, probably a few years at this point.
And one of the things that we did cover there
that maybe wasn't as apparent to the author of this
paper is that the origins of the Cobbastone are far
from a settled matter.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I
don't remember exactly what we concluded there, but it seemed
like there was still plenty of room for uncertainty there,
though there were suggestions of reasons for thinking it may
have been a stone created by an impact of some sort,
whether it came from above, or maybe whether it was
(13:28):
created of like one of those types of glasses created
by impacts.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think ultimately it's just all observational
because it's a sacred relic. It's not going to be
scientifically analyzed, which is the case with many relics around
the world. In getting into this whole business about the sort,
so that was what I really wanted an answer to,
and I've got to admit that I was able to
find out precious little about Islamic swords alleged to have
(13:55):
been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British
geologists Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through nineteen
twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by this author,
I didn't really find any answers to my questions either.
I did consult a couple of sources about the history
of metallurgy in the region, and it is key to
(14:16):
note that we've already touched on islam arises after the
end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East and
the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any
meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of
the past, and they clearly had access to what is
often held up is the best steel of the day.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right, steel being a product of iron, So it would
not be a question like we talked about with the
King tut example, with this being a product from before
the regional iron age, from before people before there was
large scale smelting of iron in the area. There's plenty
of smelting of iron and production of iron artifacts. These
would just be iron from a different source in a
(14:58):
place that was already rich with iron, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah. Now, interestingly enough, interestingly enough here, I don't know
to what extent, or any extent this ends up coloring
these older writings by Western writers, if this factors into
the analysis at all. But there is actually a line
in the Quran fifty seven twenty five that refers to
(15:22):
iron in a way that is sometimes interpreted as having
some connection to meteoric iron. I'm going to read the
passage here. This is of course in translation. Indeed, we
sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we
sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so
that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron
(15:43):
with its great might, benefits for humanity and means for
Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for
him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is
all powerful, almighty ah.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
So I imagine some interpretation is hinging there on the
phrase we sent down iron, with the idea of iron
somehow coming from above exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. I was reading paper talk titled Basic Concepts of
Physics and the Perspective of the Quran by M. M. Karashi.
This was in a nineteen eighty nine edition of Islamic Studies,
and the author here rights that quote the implication of
the words has become fully apparent only through historical investigation
of the earliest use of meteoric iron. So I could
(16:29):
be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction
or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these
lines in the Quran reference on historical understanding of iron
media rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again as we've
touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world
in different parts, and to different degrees, that there was
(16:50):
a connection between iron and Metea rights between iron and
the sky. Again, it makes perfect sense given everything we've discussed,
but isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem
to interpret this verse as just stating that iron in
the earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of
(17:12):
meteors doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation.
You know, it was sent down just a way of
saying it came from God, which you know fair enough,
you can say anything was sent down. You could, I
guess you could say a giraffe was sent down, but
that doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into
the Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Well, everything in this passage is said to be sent down,
and the other cases of sent down here don't necessarily
seem to imply a physical dissent from space.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Right, So again I invite direction or clarity on these points,
especially from anyone who has Garonic knowledge and so forth.
But I did find it interesting that in this passage
we see a possible reference to meteoric iron, and then
we also have these other like more perhaps dubious mentions
(18:01):
in Western ridings about meteoric swords meteoric iron swords that
were used by the Klobs.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
All right, Well, I wanted to begin this next section
by looking at how big chunks of meteorc iron arrive
on Earth. Already we've mentioned several examples of meteoroids that
at some point entered Earth's atmosphere and fragmented or shattered
in the air, separating into a series of smaller meteorite
(18:39):
fragments which can be found across an impact field. For example,
in the last episode, we talked about the Chinga meteorite,
one piece of which was probably used to make the
so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And
while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect,
the physical origin are not. Really it does seem to
(19:01):
be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite.
So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found
in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia,
since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early
nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a
large area is the result of some original object coming
(19:24):
apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten
to twenty thousand years ago.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
There are different ways for meteoroids to come apart or
lose their structural integrity in the atmosphere. In some cases
they land roughly intact, in some cases they split up
into some number of smaller pieces from the original, and
in some cases they basically just explode or vaporize, and
(19:53):
on the explosion end of the scale, the explosions before
the meteoroids reach the ground these explode are referred to
as air bursts. In many such cases, the entire object,
or nearly the entire object, is burned up or reduced
to dust in the process. In the case of the
relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which exploded over Russia in February
(20:17):
twenty thirteen, an asteroid that was originally like twenty meters
or sixty five feet in diameter when it entered the
Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few tens of kilometers above
the ground. For some reason, I've seen different estimates about
the altitude. Some say twenty three kilometers up, others say
thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was, this explosion released
(20:38):
a huge amount of energy, expressed in the hundreds of
kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred or five hundred
kilotons of T and T. The explosion way up there,
damaged thousands of buildings on the ground, blew out glass,
and sent some fifteen hundred people to the hospital, though
thankfully no deaths were reported.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The footage of this, like the ashboard footage that was
going around, is quite incredible, so if you haven't seen it,
definitely seek it out.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Absolutely that is worth looking at. It is awe inspiring,
and this is a particularly big air burst in the
modern era, not of course the biggest that can happen,
but very big and recent memory, though, I was reading
if the object had impacted the ground instead of exploding
high up in the atmosphere, if it had hit the
ground or exploded lower in the atmosphere, the damage the
(21:27):
damage could have been much much worse. So in a way,
the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that
the Cheliubinsk metioroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the
size of a house, I've read estimates that well below
one percent of its mass reached the ground in the
form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've
seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero
(21:50):
point one percent of its mass or like zero point
zero five percent of its mass. Some very small percent
of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks,
and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as
the object broke apart and burned up. So this got
me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to
(22:11):
just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key
factor is speed. So the original object, which might be
a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a
few meters in diameter, maybe up to tens of meters,
typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the
American meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going
(22:33):
anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers
per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this
variability that you might not think about it first. The
speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not
only on the speed of the comet or the asteroid's
(22:54):
orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own
intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also
affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously
orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second, and
is also though this is less important, rotating at about
one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course,
(23:16):
speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer.
So even though we use language like the speed at
which a meteor enters our atmosphere, that could give the
false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media
is moving, in reality, both are moving, and they're moving
in their own directions, and so the speed of entry
is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to
(23:39):
each other, you know. So it could be kind of
trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere
it hits, or it could be like slamming into more
kind of a head on kind of collision with the
part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course,
other things about other things about the way a meteor
enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fail
(24:00):
whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so
that would include things like the angle of entry anyway,
whatever the speed is. At that incredible speed, the air
directly in front of the meteoroid once it enters the
atmosphere becomes greatly compressed. It's squeezing a lot of atmospheric
gas in its path into a very small space, very rapidly.
(24:25):
So you can imagine it kind of like a like
a pneumatic piston that is moving so fast it doesn't
need a cylinder to squeeze the air in front of it.
If you're traveling a dozens of kilometers per second, you're
going to squeeze a lot of air into a thin
layer at your bow before it has the chance to
move out of the way. And as a result of
being so violently compressed, this air gets extremely hot, and
(24:50):
then this layer of hot compressed gas flows around the
sides of the object as it travels. This fast movement
not only compresses the gas in front, but it also
creates a relative vacuum in the space directly behind the meteoroid,
and these forces put a lot of stress on the object,
heating it up by thousands of degrees celsius, melting or
(25:11):
vaporizing parts of it, causing pieces of it to break off.
As just a huge amount of stress on a solid
chunk of material, These pieces that might be broken off
of the object are in turn subjected to extreme forces
of heat and pressure, and a sudden breakup of the
main mass of the meteoroid can release just a lot
(25:31):
of energy quite suddenly and resemble an explosion. Also, in
addition to all this, I came across a paper from
twenty eighteen adding another interesting mechanism, another piece of information
to the puzzle here. So this paper was by Tabita
and Malash published in Mediaridtics and Planetary Science in the
(25:51):
Air twenty eighteen, and the paper is called Air Penetration
Enhances Fragmentation of Entering Meteoroids. So this paper is discussing
an attempt to model the physics of a fragmenting meteoroid
with reference to the example of Chellibinsk and the authors
here argue that their model reveals a previously unrecognized but
very important mechanism in how this breakup occurs, and that
(26:14):
is the penetration of high pressure air inside the body
of the object through permeability of the material or through
tiny cracks and pores in the rock or the metal,
and as this air percolates into the solid body of
the meteoroid, it decreases its material strength. That weakens it
(26:35):
and makes it more likely to want to split apart.
One of the authors, Purdue University professor j. Malash, described
the process in a press release, saying, quote, there's a
big gradient between the high pressure air in front of
the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it. If
the air can move through the passages in the meteorite,
(26:56):
it can easily get inside and blow off pieces. So
air bursts are aided by this percolation, which every time
I say that, I do think of coffee as a
kind of kitchen first thinking. But this percolation of superheated
compressed gas into the body of the meteoroid through these
tiny holes and gaps in its structure. But not all
(27:20):
meteoroids are equally vulnerable to this process. Size and density
help protect a meteoroid from fragmentation and vaporization. Iron meteoroids
are not completely immune, but since they are denser on
average than stony meteoroids, they are less likely to result
in an air burst, and thus it is more likely
(27:42):
that large solid chunks reach the Earth's surface intact, and
so I would like to talk about one such meteorite,
iron meteorite that did reach the surface of the Earth
in several very large pieces, and that is the inogenic meteorite,
also known as the Cape York meteorite, three large pieces
(28:03):
of which are now on display at the American Museum
of Natural History in New York. There's one that is enormous,
you know, it's like sort of car sized, and even
the other two that are smaller are very big. So
some thousands of years ago, we don't know exactly when
a meteoroid weighing possibly like two hundred tons about one
(28:24):
hundred and eighty metric tons, but we don't know for sure,
entered the atmosphere and fragmented into pieces in the Arctic
over North America. But as several still very large pieces
of iron meteorite did make it to the ground. They
landed in what is today northwestern Greenland, probably before it
was inhabited by people, after people first arrived in the area.
(28:49):
Again we don't know for sure when this was. They
found these large caches of solid iron and began using
them to make iron tools through a process called cold forging.
Essentially using heavy objects such as stones to hammer pieces
of the iron meteorite until they broke off, and then
(29:10):
you would hammer these pieces until they reached the shape
you wanted, such as a knife blade or a harpoon tip.
And this cold forging process was very energy intensive. It
took a lot of human labor. These sources of meteorite
iron became a vital mineral resource for the Inuit peoples
of the region.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It is telling that once more we're talking about a
culture that would often be interacting with a landscape upon
which little bits of meteorites would potentially show up a
lot easier and be easier to find, you know, in
this case the snowscape, but in other cases we've been
(29:51):
talking about desert environments.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Ice is actually a great surface for finding meteorites. This
came up in that documentary that watched by the Verner
Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer documentary where they are looking for
meteorites on the surface of ice sheets by helicopter in Antarctica,
and it was a great place to look for them
(30:13):
because otherwise, you know, you not expecting to see rocks
on the top of these ice sheets.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That is, fireball visitors from Darker Worlds from twenty twenty,
and yeah, we actually interviewed Herzog and Oppenheimer for the show.
I believe it it was an anticipation of this, right,
or was it about their volcano documentary. I'm blanking because
I watched them both around the same time. At any rate,
(30:38):
we talked to Verner Herzog and it was.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Terrifying, though I do want to have a caveat there.
I've seen some pictures, I believe, of how these particular
iron meteorites were as they were originally in the places
where the Inuit people's found them, and from what I
recall seeing, it seemed like they were not just like
on top of bare ice sheets, but they were positioned
(31:02):
among a landscape more like nestled in among rocks and earth.
So I think they still would have really stood out.
They would have looked weird because they were iron meteorites,
but not just not so much like the things that
these scientists were looking for in Antarctica, where it's just
like a black rock on otherwise unbroken white ice sheet.
Right right, Anyway, the tools made out of these cold
(31:26):
forged chunks of iron meteorite were they entered circulation They
were sourced from these locations and then eventually traded with
the communities surrounding the Inuit peoples of northwestern Greenland. Eventually
they made it even farther. There's some evidence that some
iron tools made out of pieces of this meteorite were
(31:46):
traded with Norse Vikings sometime before in the eleventh century
or before. But by the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, explorers
from Europe started to make repeated contact with various Inuit
peoples in voting. The Inhuit of the Far North and
the Inuit are a group of Inuit people also known
(32:07):
sometimes as the polar Inuit. They speak a language called
Inukton and their homeland is in northwestern Greenland. These European
and US explorers, such as the Scottish naval officer John Ross,
recorded that in speaking to these people, they were told
about some kind of mountain of iron that the Inhuit
(32:27):
were using to make their iron tools, but for a
long time they never saw. The explorers never saw these
iron sources for themselves. This was until the expeditions led
by the US explorer Robert Peiri beginning around eighteen ninety four.
Piri is mainly known for trying to reach the North Pole.
There's some dispute about whether Pery ever actually did make
(32:51):
it to the geographic North Pole. He certainly claimed he
did in April nineteen oh nine, but it's difficult to
verify since the ice would have been over water and
his constantly moving, so the marker he placed in the
ice can't confirm it. Also, some later analysis of the
records of the expedition cast doubt on the physical plausibility
of their journey and also if Pieri did make it
(33:14):
to the geographic North Pole. There's an account from Matthew Henson,
an African American explorer who lived from eighteen sixty six
to nineteen fifty five and served on multiple expeditions with Peery,
indicating that he was actually the one who made it
there first. If they did make it so, a lot
of questions remain about that, but anyway, after living among
(33:35):
the Inuit and learning from them and trading with them,
Pieri eventually removed three large chunks of iron meteorite from
Inhuit lands, the largest of which is known as Anihito,
or the tent, and this one is more than thirty
metric tons and it required the construction of a rail
system just to get it to his ship in order
(33:58):
to be transported to New York. But there were also
two other smaller but still quite sizable iron masses, known
as the Woman and the Dog. Later and Pieri's plan
was to sell these objects in order to finance his
future expeditions to the Arctic, and they remain on display
today at the American Museum of Natural History. Now, in
(34:19):
addition to taking away these meteorites that were so important
to the Inhuit, not just practically as tools. More on
that in a minute, there is also an incredibly tragic
story of how Peery took away six Inuit people and
delivered them back to the American Museum as well, under
the false pretense that they would soon be sent back
home with many gifts and supplies. But in crowded New York,
(34:43):
they were quickly exposed to unfamiliar pathogens and most of
them died of respiratory diseases. So in the end that
story is very sad. I think one man from the
group was able to return to Greenland, and there was
a boy among the group named Minic who did grow
up in the United States for some time. And then
I believe it. Sometime later tried to return to Greenland
(35:05):
and then also at some point came back to the
United States, but he passed away in the nineteen eighteen
flu pandemic. But regarding the Inuit beliefs about these meteorites
that had provided them with iron tools for so many
(35:28):
hundreds of years, I wanted to mention a really interesting
episode of another podcast that I came across while researching
this subject. So this other podcast is called Endless Thread
and it's put out by Boston's public radio station WBUR.
I previously wasn't familiar with it, but this one episode
I listened to was really great. And this podcast generally
discusses uses of meteorite among the Inuit people. But my
(35:52):
favorite thing about it is that it includes interview material
with an Inuit shaman named his Shoe, and it's definitely
worth checking out that episode in full. I think the
main title before a colon and subtitle is a meteorite
in Greenland, But I wanted to mention one interesting and
important thing that sort of comes up in it. So
Hisshu is from a place in northwestern Greenland called hira Paluk,
(36:16):
where the Inuit people have this long relationship with meteorite
fragments and in hisshu says that in their language these
are known as the excrement of the stars.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
That sounds like an entirely different take on.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
What these are, but it doesn't have the connotations you
might bring to it thinking of it as excrement, because
these objects are quite sacred. In fact, I've read in
other contexts that a justification given for Peri's removal of
the iron meteorites from Inuit lands is that the Inhuit
acquired other sources of iron and steel for practical uses
(36:57):
through trade and so forth. So the thinking is like, oh,
they can get iron from other sources now, so they
don't really need these meteorites anymore. Now, I think there
are even if they were. Even if these meteorites were
only significant for practical uses as a source of iron,
I think there would be reasons for doubting that that
way of thinking that justification. But in this interview Hisshue
(37:20):
makes clear that these meteorites have significance beyond simply being
utilitarian sources of metal. Though they were that as well,
their significance was sacred, and he mentions that cutting off
a piece of metal from the source involves a ritual.
There is a ritual to that sort of giving the
people access to the metal from this sacred object. And
(37:44):
the tools made from it are not simply viewed as tools.
He calls them partners because in a way, he says,
everything in their view of the world is life. Everything
is infused with life. So a tool made from this
meteorite is not just simply a dead object to get
some use out of it is a partner in your work.
So anyway, if you want to check out that other
(38:06):
podcast episode again, the show is called Endless Thread. The
title of the episode is a meteorite in Greenland. But
to continue on this subject, I was reading around and
I found other accounts of Inuit people explaining that they
view these meteorites as having a sacred power and that
in fact, religious significance and material utility are not mutually
(38:28):
exclusive in their view. So just one example I came
across was a paper published in the journal Meteoritics by
Mardin at All called Contemporary Inuit Traditional Beliefs concerning Meteorites.
This is from the year nineteen ninety two and it
records what was said about meteorites by Inuit elders in
the High Canadian Arctic in nineteen eighty eight, so a
(38:51):
few details of what the authors here were told. They
were told that Inuit people have long come across rocks
in the landscape that the interpret as being not natural,
sort of not the same as everything else around them,
and in some cases these are meteorites, and meteorite pieces
that are discovered or possessed by a person can give
(39:14):
people special powers in some cases, or have some kind
of special link to the fate of the person who
owns them. They mentioned that these iron meteorites have been
sources of metal for the fashioning of effective tools and weapons,
but contrary to what might be a common Western assumption,
this does not mean that they are not viewed as
sacred or spiritual objects. Quote. The one evident thing that
(39:38):
became clear to the author is that the Inuit distinctly
believed that these meteorites are religious objects of the highest order,
and it brings into question the current academic practice of
sending meteorites south to research institutes. Any seeming conflict with
the traditional use of meteoric iron is more apparent than real.
The animals, the hunt, the active, all being bound up
(40:01):
in the mystic patterns of animistic belief. So what I
take from this is it's sort of pushing back against
an assumption that many Westerners might have that, oh, if
people are just using this metal to make tools that
they use for everyday chores, you know, for hunting and
other things that must be done to survive, and you know,
and maybe if you compensate them by trading with them
(40:23):
some other objects that are useful for survival, then there's
nothing wrong with taking this stuff away. And you might
not feel the same way about an artifact that is
that has religious significance but maybe was crafted by humans
and kept in a sacred special place and has no
role in the ongoing work of everyday life. But I
(40:45):
think they're saying that's wrong. Even though this is used
to make materials that are used in regular work, it
still is also sacred. And that kind of raises questions
for me about like, why would we have the contrary
assumption to begin with? Why would we naturally assume that
if a material is broken off of a mother load
and hammered into blades or harpoon tips or other tools
(41:07):
used for everyday survival, that material is not sacred or
is not a religious object. The conclusion doesn't actually follow
from that premise. It implies there's some other unstated premise
that is driving the intuition, and that premise could be
something like things you see every day aren't sacred, or
things you use to accomplish work are not sacred, which, again,
(41:32):
like where would such a belief come from?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah, there's a lot to unwrapped there, because on one hand,
you could see this kind of viewpoint being rooted in
like clear examples of highly ornate objects that were non
intended for actual functional use, such as some sort of
a ritualistic weapon that was clearly not intended for use
on the battlefield, or some sort of ritualistic item that
(41:55):
essentially has the role of a scepter where it becomes
a symbol of power, but it is some divorced from
practical applications that it may have had in its sort
of artifact based history, like for instance, the traditional traditional
scepters and Chinese tradition. I've seen some discussion that they
(42:15):
they may have in origin been backscratchers. It's one theory,
you know. So it's like, Okay, you have a practical
item that then ultimately becomes a thing that is completely
divorced from that tradition. And so if you're looking for
those kinds of like clear examples like Okay, well this
is clearly a sacred item because it doesn't look like
it could be used every day. So you have that
(42:37):
going on. But then yeah, I don't know. It is
weird to think about this idea of thinking that everyday items,
every day things cannot be held up as sacred because
I think, for one thing, you can see various plenty
of examples from history where things people encountered every day
still took on sacred meaning. One example that comes to
(42:57):
mind is the horse. Like the horse is you know,
during times of its domestication to be clear here, you know,
it takes on sacred connotations, mystical connotations. Like the horse.
The skull of the horse is often held up in
different societies, is having some sort of a you know,
peculiar meaning or are to it. And yet the horse
was every day. The horse was something that that was
(43:20):
just part of your daily life and you depended upon.
And then on the other end of things, like there's
just our personal experience, like a beloved tool. We may
not really be in the mindset of thinking about things
in our immediate vicinity as being you know, mystical or
magical or sacred, because maybe we just don't apply that
mindset to our immediate world. But I don't think that
(43:42):
the way we consider our tools and consider our our
knickknacks are completely divorced from that thinking either. I mean,
just think about, like, whatever, if you do engage in
some sort of a craft or a handy work, like
do you have a beloved tool? And and how much
would you have to lean into the idea of it
(44:03):
being important to get to the level of it being sacred.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Or the source of the material from which it is
made being sacred. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, this also comes back to It reminds me we
were talking earlier about excrement in the idea of meteoric
iron as being the excrement of the sky or so forth.
This brings me back to something that came up in
our episodes on Dust about how there's sort of like
a modern understanding of excrement. You know, it's just pure waste, right,
(44:32):
But for people that were actually engaged in like working
the land and all like, there would have been more
of an understanding that this is not like a valueless byproduct.
This is something that then can be used to grow
something new. You know, it can be used as a fertilizer.
There are various traditions where of course it's also used
(44:54):
and typically you know, I think we're dealing with animal
excrement in these cases, but it can be used also
as fuel for fire, So you don't have to like
lean far in that direction to see this is something
that can be that new life can be breathed.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Into, you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
But again, just coming back to the idea of sacred
items in everyday life. I mean, yeah, I think most
of us can easily admit that we very easily imbue
physical items with meaning. I mean, it becomes a problem
for people. So it's they're not necessarily, you know, hoarders
are not making everything sacred, I guess necessarily, But you know,
(45:30):
I don't I don't think it's you know, beyond the
realm of of our understanding that that a tool, especially
when you depend upon could could you know, take on
a sacred quality. Now as we begin to close out
these episodes, I guess we're closing out these episodes on iron,
I don't know, do you think you have another one
in you, Joe.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Well, there certainly are plenty more examples we could talk about,
but I feel like maybe we're ready to move on
for for our purposes, but we could come back to it,
I guess, yeah, yeah, come up again.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there. I
would love to hear from listeners about it. I mean,
for ins as we didn't touch on much in the
way of modern meteoric weapons that have been produced very
much with the understanding that these are meteors, these meteorites
and this this is metal from the sky, and you
see various examples of this. The late Terry Pratchett, for example,
(46:23):
had a meteoric blade forged for himself using I believe
bits of meteorite that he himself had collected. This was
for when he was knighted.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Oh boy.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
He wanted to make sure you had the right sword.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
For it, really making it an occasion.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, yeah, make a feast of it, there's all. There
are also various other blades. I was reading about a
Japanese blade. This is a Japanese Samurai sword forged by
modern day swordsmith Yoshindo Yoshiwara. It is called the Tintatsuto
or the Sword of Heavenly Iron. And this particular sword
(47:01):
which you can see is on display. It uses iron
from the Gibeon meteorite that fell in Namibia during prehistoric times.
You can look up images of it. Looks pretty cool
and I also read that fragments of this meteorite were
also traditionally used by the Nama people of Namibia for
(47:23):
many centuries in tools and in weapons. And you'll find
various meteoric swords in fiction. I don't believe this is
in the core books, this may be in the additional matter,
but apparently a couple of these blades show up in
the works of J. R. Tolkien and also on Avatar
the Last Airbender. I'd totally forgotten about this, but a
(47:43):
meteoric sword does come into play on that show as well.
Those are just a couple of the fictional examples, but
I'm sure there are plenty more. So yes, we would
love to hear from you out there. Write in with
your favorite examples of fictional meteoric weapons, as well as
various examples or potential examples. With that huge caveat you
(48:04):
know that we get into in the first episode regarding
actual weapons that may include iron of meteoric origin. Please do.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
We're gonna get a lot of the fictional ones, Robin,
I think this is a rich vein to exploit here.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yeah, let's have it all right, We're gonna go ahead
and close out the show here. But hey again, we'd
love to hear from everyone out there, and if you
would like to help us out, if you want to
support the show, I tell you, one of the best
things you can do is make sure that you are
subscribed to the show. So wherever you get your podcasts,
be it Apple, various other places, just make sure that
(48:40):
you've hit subscribe if you have the power.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
To do so.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Above and beyond that, throw us some ratings, you know,
give us a nice collection of stars, maybe say a
few kind words, and you know, share the share the show,
share a word of the show with people.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
You know, that's right to invoke a cliche. We depend
upon the support of listeners like you, But all you
got to do is listen and share it. So huge
thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
topic for the future, or just to say hello. You
can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
(49:15):
Mind dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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