SSRN Id4113311

January 16, 2024
Meteoric Iron in Ancient Egyptian and Chinese Cultures,

from Pyramids to Circumpolar Stars
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna

Dipartimento di Scienza Applicata e Tecnologia, Politecnico di Torino
Before the Iron Age, that is before the advent of iron smelting, the main source of the metal was
meteoric iron. Here we propose a discussion about the use of this iron to make artifacts by
people of ancient Egypt and China. For Egypt, we will report as the meteoric iron appeared,
according to the British writer Alan Alford, in the Pyramid Texts. It is also told that of iron was
made one of the ritual tools used during the “opening of the mouth ceremony”, an ancient
Egyptian ritual described in funerary texts. One of the shapes of this tool resembled the
asterism of the circumpolar stars of the Big Dipper. The iron of Tutankhamun’s dagger and of
the Kamil Crater will be discussed too. Then, we will consider China, where meteoric iron was
forged onto the blades of bronze weapons. We will discuss also the Hongshan Culture, famous
for its jade artifacts. Modern artifacts, defined as Hongshan iron meteorites, show asterisms
(the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia) carved on them, but the literature that we will mention here,
about this Chinese neolithic culture, is not stressing any use of meteorites. In any case, it is true
that the Nine Stars of the Big Dipper have been represented by Neolithic China. For what
concerns the meteorites, as in the ancient Egypt, people of China considered the heavens as the
source of meteoric iron.
Torino, May 18, 2022
Contents: Sidereus Nuncius - Sign N41 and the Pyramid Texts – Bja – Akhet Khufu - The big
void in Akhet Khufu – In the secret repository - Whatever it is - Caliph Al Ma’mun and his
father - Shafts and Heaven’s Doors - Iron throne and sceptre – Charlemagne – The body - The
Pindar’s iron throne – During the Early Iron Age - From the Guide of British Museum (1904) –
Horus - Glittering in the nightly sky - The Bull’s Leg - The metal of Seth - ‘Opening of the
Mouth and Eyes’ ritual - The second Khufu solar boat – Black-market and Kamil Crater - Other
non destructive analyses – A gift from Mitanni? - Kharga Oasis origin - The necklace from
Gerzeh - Origin of the words – Stone and Fire – Benben and Bennu, the Phoenix - Meteoric
Iron? - Iron or copper? - Emperor Jahangir's meteorite blade - From Egypt to China – Layers on
the bronze blades - Shang and Zhou - Meteoric Iron and Amulets - Hongshan Meteorite Iron? -
The Nine Stars of the Big Dipper – Navigating in Religious Life – Mizar and Alcor - Supernova
- Pig-dragon - The “secret” Hongshan culture - The C-dragon – Rituals – Dream Pool Essays -
Additional Information: Latin literature about meteorites - Sacred meteorites - “Black iron of
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4113311

January 16, 2024
heaven from sky” in the treasure of a Hittite king - Artifact of Meteoric Iron - About Copper
in Egypt – Sword and ring from celestial iron (J. R. R. Tolkien) - Meteoric iron talismans in
Shangshung - An expert’s guide to meteorites
When in 1925 the British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb,
he found within the king's burial equipment a dagger. The dagger has its blade made of
iron. This iron is coming from a meteorite as it has been confirmed recently by means of
a non-invasive X-ray technique [Comelli et al., 2016]. In fact, since the 1960s, the high
nickel content in the metal has been guessed as featuring a meteoric origin of the iron
[Bjorkman, 1973]. Moreover, no Egyptian archaeological evidence exists of iron
smelting until the 6th century BC [Schultz, 2013]. Actually, before the Iron Age, that is
before the advent of iron smelting, the main source of the metal was meteoric iron, apart
from the extremely rare telluric iron. The meteoric iron was used to make cultural
objects, tools and weapons [Waldbaum, 1980], which were luxury objects too, because
of the rarity of this material. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in the ancient Egypt
“iron was very strongly associated with royalty and power” [Marchant, 2013].
Jo Marchant, mentioning a study published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science [Johnson
et al., 2013], tells us that this research has explained “how ancient Egyptians obtained
iron millennia before the earliest evidence of iron smelting in the region”, and that the
study also hints that Egyptians “regarded meteorites highly as they began to develop
their religion”. “The sky was very important to the ancient Egyptians,” says Joyce
Tyldesley, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, UK, and also that what was
falling from the sky was “going to be considered as a gift from the gods” [Marchant,
2013]. As a consequence, we can tell that a dagger with a meteoric iron blade was a
dagger fit for a king, that is, the best gift for a king too.
Recently, in February 2022, it as been proposed that the dagger found in the
Tutankhamun's tomb was a royal gift from a neighboring kingdom to the king of Egypt
[Matsui et al., 2022]. However, as we will see, the iron of the blade seems being
identified as that of the Kharga Oasis meteorite, then of Egyptian origin.
Here we propose a discussion about meteoric iron in ancient Egypt and China. For
Egypt, we will start reporting how the iron is appearing in the Pyramid Texts. Then,
besides discussing the iron of Tutankhamun’s dagger and other ancient items, we will
search for its origin in the land of Egypt, remembering the recent discovery of Kamil
Crater, a crater created by an iron meteorite. We will also see that some scholars have
linked this iron from the sky to the circumpolar stars of the Big Dipper.

January 16, 2024
Through the Mughal Empire, we will pass from Egypt to China and its blades made of
meteoric iron too. In particular, we will see that in China the meteoric iron was forged
onto the blades of bronze weapons.
For what concerns the meteorites, as in the ancient Egypt, people of China considered
the heavens as the source of meteoric iron. We will consider in particular the Hongshan
jades and meteorites. Modern artifacts, defined as Hongshan iron meteorites, show
asterisms (the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia) carved on them, but the literature that we will
mention here, about the neolithic Hongshan culture, is not stressing any use of
meteorites. In any case, we will see that it is true that the Nine Stars of the Big Dipper -
nine, not seven - have been represented by Neolithic China.
Sidereus Nuncius
“Sidereus Nuncius” means Sidereal Messenger, or The Starry Messenger. This is the
title of a short astronomical treatise by Galileo Galilei, published in 1610. Galileo was
proposing the first scientific work based on observations made by means of a telescope.
In it, we find the Medicean Stars, that are circling Jupiter and that had been later defined
by Kepler as the Jupiter satellites [Sparavigna, 2016].
We are remembering the title of Galileo’s work, because it contains a Latin adjective -
sidereus – which is coming from sidus, sider- ‘star’. And meteorites look like Starry
Messengers indeed.
In en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sidus#Latin, etymology tells to compare “sidus” with Ancient
Greek σίδηρος (sídēros). “Some derive this from Proto-Indo-European sweid-, whence
Latin sūdor, Greek ἱδρώς (hidrṓs), English sweat”. In en.wiktionary.org/wiki/
σίδηρος#Ancient_Greek, it is told that etymology of the Greek term is “unclear and
debated. One view compares it with Latin sīdus (“constellation, meteorite”), with this
possibly related to Proto-Indo-European sweyd- (“to sweat”), whence Latin sūdor
(“sweat, moisture”), Ancient Greek ἱδρώς (hidrṓs, “sweat, perspiration”), English sweat.
Another theory compares it with Udi zido (“iron”), indicating a Northeast Caucasian
loanword. Finally, the word is very likely of Pre-Greek origin given its semantics,
which has been compared with Ancient Greek σίδη (sídē, “pomegranate”), linked to the
reconstruction sida "red" thereby giving the meaning of σίδηρος (sídēros) as "red metal"
(perhaps in relation to its red oxide ores and minerals)”. No references, in particular
about the Pre-Greek origin, are given. In any case, it seems that we are ranging from the
sweat (of the sky?) to the color of the metal.

January 16, 2024
Now, let us consider an Egyptian hieroglyphic sign. It is defined as the sign N41 in the
Gardiner's sign list.
Sign N41 and the Pyramid Texts

“Ancient Egyptians saw the sky as crumbling iron tub filled with water”, it is told by
New Scientist [Barras, 2020]. This is the title of news reporting about a study of
philology [Almansa-Villatoro, 2019], which is concerning a sign considered as
representing “iron” in Egypt. In [Almansa-Villatoro, 2019], about the Egyptian
hieroglyphic sign N41, it is told that it was used in a "constellation of words related to
women, water and metals".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Egyptian_hieroglyphs#N
The symbolic meaning of iron has a consistent relation with the sky in religious texts.
The "Egyptian cosmovision contemplated the sky as an iron container of water, pieces
of which fell to the earth in the shape of meteors and were used to produce ritual
objects. The indexicality of the N41 sign suggests that the relation between birth,
afterlife, and iron existed even before the first attested long religious texts in Egypt.
Finally, the lexical parallels between Egypt and Mesopotamia can be explained as a
common reaction to the phenomena of falling iron meteorites", tells the author of
[Almansa-Villatoro, 2019].
The meteoric iron was previously considered as the "Iron of Creation" [Alford, 2010]
and that of the "Iron Eggshell" [Alford, 2004], in the titles of two books by Alan F.
Alford, British writer and speaker that worked on ancient religion, mythology, and
Egyptology. Looking at N41, after reading the title of Alford’ book of 2004, we could
see in it a broken eggshell too. And pieces of this eggshell, sometimes, were coming
down from it in the form of meteorites. Coming from the vault of the sky populated by
stars and gods, these pieces, besides being rare, were precious relics of the sky. Alan

January 16, 2024
Alford proposed that the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid of
Giza, that is the pyramid of king Khufu, was actually used to enshrine iron meteorites
[Alford, 2010, 2004],[W-Alford]. Alford, referring to the Pyramid Texts, guesses that
this iron was put into the sky at the time of creation, “according to the Egyptians’
geocentric way of thinking. The King's Chamber, with its upward inclined dual
‘airshafts’, was built to capture the magic of this mythical moment" [W-Alford].
Let us remember that the Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts,
dating to the late Old Kingdom. These texts were carved onto the subterranean walls
and sarcophagi of pyramids at Saqqara from the end of the Fifth Dynasty, and
throughout the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, and into the Eighth Dynasty of the
First Intermediate Period. Khufu was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the
first half of the Old Kingdom period.
Old Kingdom. Table from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_of_ancient_Egypt
Bja
As we have seen before, the hieroglyphic sign N41 is rendered by bỉȝ, phonetic bja.
In the Chapter 10 of The Midnight Sun, 2004, Alford is telling that we have in the
Pyramid texts the ubiquitous presence of a substance called bja. Alford writes that this

January 16, 2024
word is usually translated ‘iron’. The ka1 of the king “lifts up his bones of bja, splits
open his egg of bja, sits on his throne of bja, splits or traverses the bja of the sky, comes
to rest on ropes of bja with which the sky-barque is towed, and exits the sky through
doors of bja”. And the theme continues in the Coffin Texts. And Alford mentions them.
Let us assume that the meaning is ‘iron’ and not ‘metal - and we will see that this
translation has been proposed too - the relevant question is the following. Why is bja
important? And, according to Alford, “What is the meaning of this? Why are the
Egyptian texts littered with references to iron?” According to E. A. Wallis Budge
(1904), the sky comprised a slab of iron resting upon four pillars. Alford is also
mentioning James P. Allen, who theorized that of bja was made the basin containing the
waters of sky: “one way or another, the consensus is that the iron was one of the
materials of which the sky was made”.
Akhet Khufu
About the Great Pyramid, in [W-Alford] it is also told that it was interpreted by Alford
"as a network of secret chambers in which religious relics were concealed – hence the
title of his book Pyramid of Secrets". Ref. W-Alford, Wikipedia on Alford, stresses that
this is "the weakest part of his case, as the textual support for the idea is thin and there is
no way of knowing what might have been contained in the chambers that we know of
today" [W-Alford], [Fortean Times Magazine]. "Alford's theory can be proven or
negated by future exploration, since it is central to his case that further secret chambers
exist. In this regard, his thoughts are guided by the scholar J.P. Lepre, who claimed that
anomalous patterns in the Pyramid's masonry joints might be signs to the existence of
hidden passages and chambers" [W-Alford].
Alford also proposed a role of sound in air-shafts of the pyramid. “The second key
component of the re-enactment was meteoritic iron – the seed of creation – which was
hermetically sealed inside the King’s Chamber sarcophagus… In a symbolic sense, the
sound spiritualised the iron and ejected it into the northern and southern skies, via the
shafts, thereby re-enacting the formation of the celestial bodies: the circumpolar stars in
the northern sky, and the Sun, the Moon, and the rising-and-setting stars in the southern
sky (in Egyptian myth, all of these bodies were said to be made of iron). The King’s
Chamber was therefore a ‘chamber of creation’, in keeping with the creational
symbolism of the Pyramid, as illustrated in the diagram to the right”. This is told by
Alford at https://old.world-mysteries.com/alford_GP.htm
1 About ka see please https://www.britannica.com/topic/ka-Egyptian-religion

January 16, 2024
Akhet
The Akhet in the Gardiner list N27 is an Egyptian hieroglyph that represents the sun rising over
a mountain. It is translated as "horizon" or "the place in the sky where the sun rises".
In [Alford, 2010], it is stressed that the name of the Great Pyramid is Akhet Khufu.
However, “Akhet did not refer simply to ‘the horizon’, but rather to ‘the land of spiritual
light’ – the proto-earth in its process of spiritual transformation”. Then, akhet was not
simply the horizon “upon which the Sun rose every day, but rather the primeval earth
from which all of the celestial bodies had risen at the beginning of time, initially in the
form of spiritualised iron seed”.
Akhet Khufu “is therefore to be translated ‘Khufu’s island (or mountain) of spiritual
light’, a name” which contains in it the king, the pyramid and the creator-god [W-
Alford].
Hong-Quan Zhang, 2023, has investigated the Akhet environment, as we can find
depicted by the Pyramid Texts, comparing it with the local hydrology during the Green
Sahara time. As Zhang tells in the abstract, "The Pyramid Texts contain vivid, specific,
and consistent details of the Akhet and its surrounding lakes, canals, and farmlands."
Using a climate change approach and hydrological profiles of the Green Sahara time,
Zhang's "insight provides a key to decipher many obscure words in the current English
translations. It also helps pinpoint the scattered environmental descriptions in the
Pyramid Texts into a coherent portrait". The article "examines the relevant original
hieroglyphs in the Pyramid Texts against their corresponding transliterations and
English translations".
Zhang writes:
So we have two hieroglyphs used for Akhet. Zhang tells also: "The Pyramid Texts
portray the Akhet as the gate between the Duat and the Sky, a focal point of the ancient
Egyptian religion. It is the place where the deceased becomes akh with the Sun. His akh

January 16, 2024
will rise from the Akhet with the gods to the Sky (PT217:3-4). The afterlife includes a
journey through the Field of Reeds to join the gods, specifically the Ennead from
Heliopolis and their associates, exclusive of gods from other cults. Then, the deceased
experiences a perpetual rebirth everyday with the Sun at the Akhet."
In Zhang, 2023, we can find two signs for the word "Akhet". Therefore, we can ask
ourselves, what it the sign used in the Pyramid Texts?
Akhet in the Gardiner list N27 resembles the sun between two hills. Robert Bauval
(Academia.edu) tells that, looking at sign N27, Mark Lehner in 1985 wrote: [a]
dramatic effect is created at sunset during the summer solstice as viewed, again, from
the eastern niche of the Sphinx Temple. At this time, and from this vantage, the sun sets
almost exactly midway between the Khufu and Khafre pyramids, thus construing the
image of the Akhet, ‘Horizon’, hieroglyph on a scale of acres". Bauval continues telling
that, "however, a fatal flaw [exists] with this idea: the hieroglyphic sign of the ‘sun disk
between two mountains’ did not exist when Khufu built his pyramid! And even if it did,
it was not used in the writing of the name ‘Akhet Khufu’. In 1997 Lehner did
acknowledged this fact: Khufu's pyramid was Akhet Khufu. Here, and in the Pyramid
Texts, Akhet is written with the crested-ibis and elliptical land-sign, not with the
hieroglyph of the sun disk between two mountains that was used later to write
'horizon'."
Robert Bauval also adds: "In fact sign N27 is not found in the Pyramid Texts, where the
word ‘Akhet’ is written with the crested-ibis sign G25, and the elliptical land-sign N18.
The same applies for the word ‘Akhet’ in the name ‘akhet Khufu’, where ‘Akhet’ is also
written with the crested-ibis sign G25 and elliptical land-sign N16. ... Amazingly, this
mistake in interpretation of the name of the Great Pyramid is still found in recently
published book. To be fair, Lehner [in his The Complete Pyramids, 1997, p. 29] did
recognize that ‘Akhet’ --- although erroneously translated as 'horizon' in many books ---
is written with the crested-ibis that also denotes the word Akh, meaning a 'spirit' who
lives in the Duat (afterworld), the latter often written with a star in a circle". Bauval
continues telling that Lehner offered another meaning for 'Akhet Khufu', that is, the
place where the deceased (king Khufu) becomes an Akh, a suggested translation is
“Spirit” or “Light” Land." According to James P. Allen, an expert on the Pyramid
Texts, ‘The Axt (Akhet) is the place in which the king, like the sun and other celestial
beings, undergoes the final transformation from the inertness of death and night to the
form that allows him to live effectively - that is as an akh - in his new world. It is for
this reason that the king and his celestial companions are said to "rise from the Axt
(Akhet)," and not because the Axt (Akhet) is a place on the horizon or - as some have

January 16, 2024
suggested - because it is a place of light.’ Akhet, therefore, must mean the ‘Place of
Becoming Akh’...". This is the interpretation provided by J.P. Allen, as reported by
Robert Bauval.
Fig.1 : The land and the pyramids in a topographic map provided by the web site https://it-
ch.topographic-map.com. Many thanks to Yamazaki D., D. Ikeshima, R. Tawatari, T.
Yamaguchi, F. O'Loughlin, J.C. Neal, C.C. Sampson, S. Kanae & P.D. Bates, 2017, [Yamazaki
et al., 2017], for their fundamental work on digital elevation data and models, and many thanks
to the excellent web site, which is fundamental for the maps. topographic map helps
understanding the local environment of Akhet Khufu.

January 16, 2024
The big void in Akhet Khufu

Alan Alford passed away in 2011. In November 2017, it has been announced that the
Great Pyramid of Giza is containing a hidden void, at least a hundred feet long. "The
space’s dimensions resemble those of the pyramid’s Grand Gallery, the 153-foot-long,
26-foot-tall corridor that leads to the burial chamber of Khufu, the pharaoh for whom
the pyramid was built. However, it remains unclear what lies within the space, what
purpose it served, or if it’s one or multiple spaces" [Greshko, 2017]. The Great Pyramid
was built during the reign of Khufu (Cheops) of the fourth dynasty. The reign lasted
from 2509 BC to 2483 BC. To understand its internal structure, as detailed in
[Morishima et al., 2017], muons, which are by-products of cosmic rays that are only
partially absorbed by stone, have been used. “The resulting cosmic-ray muon
radiography” allowed the authors of [Morishima et al., 2017], “to visualize the known
and any unknown voids in the pyramid in a non-invasive way”.
Are, in this single or multiple void, “sacred artefacts” or relics as given in the
framework of Alford’s theory? Let us remember once more Alan Alford, who told them
“concealed in the secret chambers, including iron meteorites in the King’s Chamber
sarcophagus”. The pyramid was a time capsule full of objects that, for the most part,
were intended for a future generation, for people able to “unseal the hidden passages to
access the secret vaults”. Grand Gallery, Queen’s Chamber and King’s Chamber were
robbed of their contents in antiquity, and then deprived of their religious relics
concealed in them [Alford, 2010]. And some sacred artifacts were made of iron too, like
the “bones” of the king, as we will see in the following of our discussions (see “Shafts
and Heaven’s Doors” section).
In the secret repository

“When a Horus-king died, he was assured a rebirth with Osiris, that is to say he became
at one with Osiris in the afterworld of the Duat – his astral self being transported to
Sirius or Orion through the energies of the Pyramid and the elaborate ritual he was
made to go through to achieve ‘eternal life’. … In the secret repository of the King’s
Chamber within the Great Pyramid the age-old tradition relates that the builders had
placed ‘instruments of iron, arms which rust not, glass which might be bended but not
10

January 16, 2024
broken, and strange spells’. But what did the first explorers find after having tunneled
their way into the secret chamber? The only furniture was a lidless, hollowed stone
coffer, containing not a body but a layer of a mysterious powdery substance. … 100%
platinum-group compound. The King’s Chamber was, therefore, apparently contrived
as a superconductor, capable of transporting the pharaoh into another dimension of
space-time – and it was here that his Rite of Passage was administrated in accordance
whit the Book of the Dead.” [Farley, 2011].
Here a comment is necessary. In Physics, the term “superconductor” has a specific
meaning. Its use for the King’s Chamber is odd. To become a superconductor, a
material needs low temperatures. Superconductivity at room temperature has been
obtained at high pressure.
“In 2020, scientists claimed the first evidence of room temperature superconductivity at
roughly 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). Now another group of researchers
claims to have achieved hot superconductivity at roughly 282 C (541 F), more than hot
enough to pop corn, research they detailed online March 4 in the journal Frontiers in
Electronic Materials. … Both the claims of room temperature and hot superconductivity
involve extremely high pressures, which apparently help superconductivity occur
despite the high temperatures. For instance, room temperature superconductivity
reportedly appeared at 267 gigapascals, more than 2,400 times the pressure at the
bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean” [Choi, 2022].
In any case, as told in [Raub, 1984], “Even extra purified palladium and platinum are
not superconducting. The lowest test temperature published is 0.1 K but according to a
private communication from A. C. Mota neither palladium nor platinum are
−3
superconducting, even if checked at temperatures as low as 10×10 K”. For more
details, see please Ref. [Raub, 1984].
“Superconductors are materials that, when cooled below a certain temperature, allow
electricity to travel through them without any resistance. … Researchers are constantly
on the lookout for inexpensive new materials that can become superconducting at higher
temperatures than currently possible” [MaterialsToday, 2016]. “A team of researchers
from Hokkaido University, along with colleagues at the Kyushu Institute of
Technology, NEC Corporation, Keio University and the National Institute for Materials
Science, have now developed a novel superconducting material based on platinum.
They have managed to do this even though until recently platinum was not thought to
have superconducting properties” [MaterialsToday, 2016, Fujioka et al., 2016]. The
novel material is made by mixing lanthanum (La), platinum (Pt) and arsenic (As)
11

January 16, 2024
powders in a ratio of 1:5:1. “At a pressure of 5GPa (gigapascals) – equivalent to 50,000

bars of pressure – this process produced a non-superconducting form of LaPt5As, but at
10GPa it produced a superconducting form, with another non-superconducting form at
15GPa”. Therefore, it is true that recently a material which is containing platinum
displayed superconductivity, but it happens at very high pressure.
“Recent superconductor experiments have often focused on high pressures because
previous research suggested that metallic hydrogen, which theoretically forms at
pressures as high as nearly 500 gigapascals, is a room temperature superconductor.
Given how extremely difficult metallic hydrogen is to create, superconductor
researchers have instead explored compounds rich in hydrogen. They conjecture the
other elements in these compounds may compress the hydrogen atoms within these
materials to help superconductivity occur at pressures lower than those needed with
metallic hydrogen” [Choi, 2022]. Actually, in 2018, superconductivity at roughly minus
13 C was obtained with lanthanum hydride at 150 Gpa.
For palladium hydride, see [Kawae et al. 2020].
Whatever it is
We have seen that the vault of heavens was imagined like a container made of bja ( bia)
The translation of bja was “iron”, specifically “meteoric iron”. However, and we will
show it, the term bja is also rendered in “metal”, “copper”, and “hematite”. Therefore,
the word bja can actually refer to a hard and dense material, by means of which tools
and containers could have been made.
Alford imagined that the King’s Chamber contained relics from heavens, the meteoric
bja. And he also proposed the existence of other secret chambers in which religious
relics were concealed. Following Alford, can we imagine them in the void in Akhet
Khufu? Whatever they are, the base assumption is that the void is a secret chamber or
vault. However, as told in [Hoare, 2020], a structural engineer, Peter James, described
the ancient Egyptian construction technique of pyramids telling that, besides the larger
blocks of foundation, out-side layer and internal ramps, smaller blocks had been used
inside it [Construction Specifier, 2018]. With the use of smaller stones, “you will get
many of these [voids]” inside. And Dr Zahi Hawass, concerning the news of the big
void detected by means of muons, tells that “The pyramid is full of voids and that does
not mean there is a secret chamber or a new discovery” [Frontier Post, 2018].
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Fig.2 - English: Inner structure of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, Deutsch: Innere Struktur der
Cheops-Pyramide, Français : Coupe et distribution interne de la grande pyramide de Khéops à
Gizeh,Русский: Поперечный разрез пирамиды Хеопса, Date 30 December 2015, Source Own
work based on: Cheops-Pyramide.png, Courtesy Author Юкатан for Wikimedia -Descriptions
had been added on the image.
Caliph Al Ma’mun and his father

In the previous Figure 2 showing what had been found inside the pyramid, it is possible
to see a “robber’s tunnel”. Then, who has explored the pyramid in the past?
“In the seventh century AD, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered Egypt, ending several
centuries of Romano-Byzantine rule. A few centuries later, in 820 AD, the Abbasid
Caliph Al-Ma'mun (786–833) is said to have tunneled into the side of the structure and
discovered the ascending passage and its connecting chambers.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza
Mike Dash in his “Inside the Great Pyramid”, 2011, is providing a detailed discussion.
“The evidence that the Great Pyramid was similarly plundered is more equivocal; the
accounts we have say two quite contradictory things. They suggest that the upper
reaches of the structure remained sealed until they were opened under Arab rule in the
13

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ninth century AD. But they also imply that when these intruders first entered the King's
Chamber, the royal sarcophagus was already open and Khufu's mummy was nowhere to
be seen. This problem is one of more than merely academic interest, … Given that, it's
important to know what was written by the various antiquaries, travelers and scientists
who visited Giza before the advent of modern Egyptology in the 19th century”.
Article [Dash, 2011] continues explaining that the pyramid possesses two distinct tunnel
systems. The lower one corresponds to those found in earlier monuments; the upper,
“which was carefully hidden and perhaps survived inviolate much longer”, “is unique to
the Great Pyramid”. After references to Herodotus and Strabo, Dash tells that “It is not
until we reach the 800s, and the reign of an especially curious and learned Muslim ruler,
the Caliph Ma'mun, that the record becomes interesting again. It's here that it becomes
necessary to look beyond the obvious. Most scholarly accounts state unequivocally that
it was Ma'mun who first forced his way into the upper reaches of the pyramid, in the
year 820 A.D.”
Ref. [Dash, 2011] stresses that the Arab chronicles are “collections of legends and
traditions needing interpretation. Indeed, the earliest, written by the generally reliable
al-Mas'udi and dating to no earlier than c. 950, does not even mention Ma'mun” but
“attributes the breaching of the pyramid to Ma'mun's father, Haroun al-Rashid, …
When, the chronicler writes, after weeks of labor Haroun's men finally forced their way
in, they found a vessel filled with a thousand coins of the finest gold, each of which was
a dinar in weight. … Al-Idrisi, writing in 1150, says that the caliph's men uncovered
both ascending and descending passages, plus a vault containing a sarcophagus which,
when opened, proved to contain ancient human remains. But other chroniclers of the
same period tell different and more fantastical tales. One, Abu Hamid, the Andalusian
author of the Tuhfat al Albab, insists ... that those who went up there in the time of
Ma'mun came to a small passage, containing the image of a man in green stone, which
was taken out for examination before the Caliph; when it was opened a human body
was discovered in golden armor, decorated with precious stones, and in his hand was a
sword of inestimable value, and above his head a ruby the size of an egg, which shone
like fire” [Dash, 2011]. A sword, or a meteoric iron dagger?
Shafts and Heaven’s Doors

Let us to consider again the Pyramid Texts. “As discussed in chapter ten [Alford, 2004],
iron (bja) is ubiquitous in the Pyramid Texts. The deceased king as Osiris has his mouth
split open with an adze of iron, and resurrects himself by lifting up his iron bones,
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splitting open his iron egg, splitting or traversing the iron in the sky, and sitting on his
iron throne.” "O king! Raise yourself, receive your head, gather your bones together,
shake off your dust, and sit on your iron throne", tells Alford reporting the Pyramid
Texts, adding that in sitting upon the iron throne, the king acquires power over the gods
- 'those whose seats are hidden’ – and the king “becomes the master of his own
resurrection”. “Sit on this iron throne, give commands to those whose seats are hidden.
The doors of the sky are opened for you” [Alford 2010, 2004]. This is a passage of the
resurrection of the King in the Pyramid Texts. What are these doors? Are doors existing
in the Great Pyramid?
Rowan Hooper (2011) wrote for the New Scientist that Akhet Khufu “is thought to have
been built as a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu, … It contains three main chambers: the
Queen’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery and the King’s Chamber, which has two air shafts
connecting it with the outside world. Strangely, though, there are two tunnels, about 20
centimetres by 20 centimetres, that extend from the north and south walls of the
Queen’s Chamber and stop at stone doors before they reach the outside of the pyramid”.
The author is also telling that the “function of these tunnels [shafts] and doors is
unknown, but some believe that one or both could lead to a secret chamber. Several
attempts have been made to explore the tunnels using robots. In 1993, a robot crawled
some 63 metres up the tunnel in the south wall and discovered what appeared to be a
small stone door set with metal pins. Metal is not part of any other known structure in
the pyramid, and the discovery ignited speculation that the pins were door handles, keys
or even parts of a power supply constructed by aliens”. Metal pins are made of copper,
as told in [Hawass, 2003].
Doors are therefore in shafts of the pyramid, those from the Queen’s Chamber.
“I believe – Dr Zahi Hawass tells in his “The Secret Doors Inside the Great Pyramid”,
2003 - that the shafts from the so-called Queen’s Chamber likely have no function, as
they were blocked from the inside. If they had a religious function, they should have
been left open, as were the shafts of the third burial chamber (the King’s Chamber).
Since these open outside of the pyramid, I believe that Khufu’s soul was meant to travel
through them. The south shaft was intended for Khufu to use as the sun god Ra. ... The
north shaft was made for the soul of Khufu as Horus to travel to the stars in order to
emerge from them as the sun god”.
The doors of the sky are opened for you.
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Fig. 3 - Diagram of the Great Pyramid, 2007. a work Courtesy by Jeff Dahl. On the diagram,
the void has been added as depicted by The Times, (Whipple, 207) - From [Bauval and
Gilbert, 1994]: “The northern shafts, like the two that point south, are set meridionally.
However, unlike their southern counterparts the northern shafts have a rather curious ...
"anomaly" that has long puzzled Egyptologists and, recently, Rudolf Gantenbrink who explored
them in 1992-3. During a conference given, on the 21 June 1993 … he reminded the
Egyptologists present that when he guided his robot up the northern shafts he came across the
junction where they meet up with the Grand Gallery .... Because of the Grand Gallery's
structural elements being in the direct path of the shafts, these had to be given a wide "kink" to
the west of their meridional direction in order to by-pass the structural obstacle”. Is the shaft
passing through the void or by-passing it?
Alan Alford tells, in his book of 2010, that “consensus has formed around the view that
the shafts of the King’s chamber had a religious purpose. Connected with the despatch
of king’s soul to the sky”. Alford does not agree. An immediate objection to the soul-
shaft theory is that the king’s soul can pass through solid masonry, according to
Egyptian religion. Moreover, only the Great Pyramid had shafts. “Why would Khufu
alone, among all the kings of the pyramid age, have felt it necessary to build hollow
shafts via which his soul might ascend to the heavens?” [Alford, 2010].
Metal pins of the shaft door are of copper and this is the only metal that had been
discovered in Akhet Khufu.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Egyptian_hieroglyphs#A
Suggested further reading: The Opening Of The Mouth Ceremony And The Northern
Shafts In Cheops’s Pyramid, by R. G. Bauval and A.G. Gilbert , available in
Discussions in Egyptology 28, 1994 [Bauval and Gilbert, 1994]. In this reference, it is
proposed a very interesting discussion about the air shafts in the pyramid.
Iron throne and sceptre

“The iron throne (khndu bjai) is mentioned twenty times in the Pyramid Texts” [Alford,
2004], and Alford gives the passages in the notes according to translations by
Faulkner/Eyre/Alford or Faulkner/Alford [Faulkner, 1969, Eyre, 2002]. “The king is
said to sit on it, whereupon he is giving offering of meat and jars of purifying water.
While seated on the iron throne, the king governs, judges, and gives orders to the gods –
both the gods in the duat (those whose seats are hidden) and the gods in the sky (the
spirits, the imperishable stars). His symbols of authority are the mace and the sceptre,
the latter allegedly being made of iron.” [Alford, 2004]. Then, besides the throne, also
the sceptre was made of iron, meteoric iron.
Charlemagne
Could we imagine a dead king on a throne in a secret vault? Well, let us remember
Charlemagne, because of a story about a hidden chamber in Aachen Cathedral. The king
died January 28, 814. “He was buried that same day”, in the Cathedral, “although the
cold weather and the nature of his illness made such a hurried burial unnecessary. … A
later story, told by Otho of Lomello, Count of the Palace at Aachen in the time of
Emperor Otto III, would claim that he and Otto had discovered Charlemagne's tomb:
Charlemagne, they claimed, was seated upon a throne, wearing a crown and holding a
sceptre, his flesh almost entirely incorrupt. In 1165, Emperor Frederick I re-opened the
tomb again and placed the emperor in a sarcophagus beneath the floor of the cathedral”.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne
It seems that it was not a throne but a curule seat, that is a usually foldable and
transportable chair, noted for its uses in Ancient Rome. It was a symbol of political or
military power.
Fig. 4 - Octavian, togate, seated on curule

chair.
“In the gallery of the Basilica he [Charlemagne] had erected his marble throne, covered
with plates of gold, studded with Greek cameos and astral gems from Nineveh or
Babylon. Before the throne were the stairs, straight down descending to the sepulcher
which Charlemagne had already dug deep for himself in the holy ground, even when he
raised that marble throne. Soon afterwards the huge broad flagstone which covers the
vault was heaved up, - there they reverently deposited the embalmed corpse, surrounded
by ghastly magnificence, sitting erect on his curule chair, clad in his silken robes,
ponderous with broidery, pearls, and orfray, the imperial diadem on his head, his closed
eyelids covered, his face swathed in the dead clothes, girt with his baldric, the ivory
horn slung in his scarf, his good sword Joyeuse by his side, the Gospel-book open on
his lap, - musk and amber, and sweet spices poured around, - his golden shield and
golden sceptre pendant before him” [Palgrave, 1851].
The body
The article “Egypt experts set sights on finding lost Pharaoh's remains in Great
Pyramid” [Hoare, 2019] tells that “EGYPT experts, including world-renowned
archaeologist Dr Zahi Hawass, believe Pharaoh Khufu’s body can finally be found in a
huge void discovered inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, Express.co.uk can reveal.” In
the article we can find again that Dr Zahi Hawass considers that the Great Pyramid has
'lots of voids’.
“Until recently, many Egyptologists had believed his plan had failed, due to the
discovery of an empty sarcophagus believed to have contained his body. However, that
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all changed in 2017, after a group of French archaeologists discovered a void near the
Queen's Chamber during the ScanPyramid project. Less than two years later, in August
2019, it was revealed a huge second chamber had also been found, this time to the right
of the King’s Chamber and it is safe to say Egyptologists are excited about the
discoveries to come”. Dr Zahi Hawass tells that “We asked them to give us more
specific data about this void so we can know more about what this space was used for.”
“Dr Hawass continued, expressing a belief that the body of Khufu could actually be
hiding in this void. He added: “If you know how the Great Pyramid was constructed,
then you know it has lots of voids.”. “We hope to find the body of Khufu could be
discovered, that something important could be discovered in these voids”.
Fig. 5 - KHUFU – Courtesy Osiritkos for Wikimedia.
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The Pindar’s iron throne

We are not surprised to imagine a king or a god in throne, but in ancient Greece we can
find a poet sitting on a throne, an iron throne.
“The states of Greece paid him honors that were almost divine: they admitted him to
share with the gods in their gifts and oblations; and the Oracle of Delphos commanded
the people to present to Pindar a proportion of their first-fruits. In the temple of Apollo,
at Delphos, there was an iron throne of Pindar, on which he sat whenever he visited that
city, and recited the verses he had composed in honour of Apollo. This throne was
preserved a long time after his death.” [Francis Lee, 1816].
Fig. 6 - A cut, polished and etched face of Toluca iron meteorite, displaying Widmanstätten
Pattern. Image Courtesy H. Raab for Wikipedia
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During the Early Iron Age

Here an excerpt from [Cesnola, 1914].
“Iron was known in Egypt as a great rarity from the earliest dynasties, but did not
supersede bronze for common use until the XXVI, after 664 BC. Tribute of iron was,
however, brought to Egypt from North Syria under the XIX Dynasty (1350-1200 B.C.)
and the Biblical description of Jabin, King of Hazor, with his "four hundred chariots of
iron" probably represents the state of things there in the Early Iron Age. The famous
iron-work of Damascus very likely had its origin in this period. On the other hand, the
Greeks ascribed an early iron- working industry to a people whom they called Chalybes
in Northeastern Asia Minor; and after the eighth century both they and the Phoenicians
of Tyre obtained iron from this district. Thirdly, in the Homeric Age, which represents a
period of transition, iron was being exported oversea from the Taphian country in the
northwest of Greece; other Greek traditions point to Chalcis in Euboea, and to the West
of Crete, as early centres of iron trade; so that there is some reason to believe that very
early Mediterranean iron workings lay in this direction. Probably when once the
discovery was made, how to produce iron on a commercial scale, iron-works sprang up
almost simultaneously in many separate regions. In Cyprus itself, iron was worked on a
considerable scale round Tamassos and also round Soloi on the northwest coast, from
an early period of the Iron Age. Iron was indeed known in the island, as in most parts of
the Minoan world, for a short period before this was regarded as a precious metal, and
used only for rings, sceptres. and fine inlaid work. Its magnetic properties, and the
rapidity with which it decays, probably caused it to be regarded in Cyprus, as elsewhere,
as something uncanny, and potent for good or harm: a belief which survived in modern
superstitions abot blacksmiths, and the "luck" of old horseshoes. Even after iron had
come into common use, and into exclusive use for a few specialized types of
implements and weapons, bronze was not wholly displaced in Cyprus, even for
weapons; spears, in particular, are found in bronze associated with swords and knives of
iron. For defensive armour and the arrow, bronze was still preferred all through the
Hellenic and Graeco-Roman ages”. (Link to the “Handbook of the Cesnola collection of
antiquities from Cyprus”).
From the Guide of British Museum (1904)

Let us return to the Egyptian antiquities.
From “A Guide to the First and Second Egyptian Rooms Predynastic Antiquities,
Mummies, Mummy-cases, and Other Objects Connected with the Funeral Rites of the
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Ancient “, British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, written

by Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, 1904. “The earlier predynastic antiquities belong to
the Neolithic age, when men in Egypt had no knowledge of the use of metal. In the
latter part of the predynastic period copper was introduced, and was used side by side
with stone. The antiquities of the later predynastic and the earlier archaic periods belong
then to the stage of human civilization which is commonly known as Aeneolithic, or
Chalcolithic, Under the IVth dynasty, i.e. at the end of the Archaic Period, we find the
first traces of the use of Bronze in Egypt, and henceforward the Egyptians remained
users of bronze, though, since Iron was always well known to them, it is impossible to
speak of a definite Bronze Age in Egypt.
It is certain that iron was known to the Egyptians from the earliest times, for the oldest
religious texts extant, which date from about BC 3500, and were copied from far older
archetypes, speak of the heavens being formed of a plate of iron, and the Deity is said to
sit upon a throne of iron, the sides of which are ornamented with the faces of lions, and
have four legs, the feet of which are in the form of hoofs of bulls.
The Egyptian word for "iron" B Ȧ A , or B Ȧ A EN PET i.e. “ B Ȧ A of
heaven," is of course meteoric iron, and this phrase is the exact equivalent of the old
Sumerian ideographic group
The Coptic word for "iron," BENIPE, which is a direct descendant of
B Ȧ A EN PET , conclusively proves that this expression means "iron," and iron
only. But, in order to avoid the conclusion that iron was known to the Egyptians at this
early period, it has been supposed that B Ȧ A meant "crystal" ; this, however, is
disproved by the fact that representations of weapons, knives, tools, etc., which are of a
blue colour, are found upon the monuments of all periods, and, as it is clear that they
cannot have been made of crystal, they must be iron”. The Guide is also telling that the
“oldest specimen of iron from Egypt was found in one of the air passages of the
Pyramid of Cheops (B.C. 3700), and may be seen in the Second Egyptian Room (Table-
case K, No. 29).”
The metal throne

Previously, we have seen that “iron” was the word used to translate the Pyramid Texts.
However, we can find also used the term “metal”. For instance in [Spence, 1917]: “Sit
on your metal throne. Receive your mace and your ames-staff and guide those-who-are-
in-Nu, give orders to the gods and establish the akh as his akh. Follow your course and
row your watercourse like Ra on the shores of the sky. O Pepi/O my father, raise
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yourself! Go as your akh! (PT spell)”. And also in [Jurewicz et al., 2020], and in
[Allen, 2007]. “You shall sit on a metal throne; with your face that of the great god;
Make for yourself your place at the fore of the west, make for yourself your control at
the fore of the gods. Watch over those [you] love, and they [will make] your festivals”.
“You sit on your metal throne and render judgment with the Dual Ennead. Ho, Neith!
You have received your head, you have your teeth, you have your hair.You open the
doors that bar people, stable for the course of eternity. Ho, Neith!”.
In [Spence, 1917], we can find again a metal throne. When talking about the The
Egyptian Heaven, [Spence, 1917] tells that its exact position “does not appear to have
been located”. “In heaven dwelt the great god Ra, who sat upon a metal throne , the
sides of which were embossed with the faces of lions and the hoofs of bulls”.
Were the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom distinguishing copper from iron, or used the
same word “metal” for both of them?
Fig. 7- Left: Head of a Lion, Egypt. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art - Creative Commons
CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication - https://picryl.com/media/head-of-a-lion-d3069b
– Right: Chair from tomb of Tutankhamun, reproduction in the Fitchburg Art Museum,
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, USA. This artwork is old enough so that it is in the public domain.
Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction. 14 June 2013, Work Courtesy
Daderot for Wikipedia
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About the iron plate in the air passage of Khufu’s pyramid, and mentioned above, we
have more details in “The Iron Plate in the Great Pyramid”, by Larry Orcutt, in
Catchpenny Mysteries, 2000. http://www.catchpenny.org/iron.html and
https://archive.is/Mwy8f
“It would seem, then, that the iron plate found by J.R. Hill in 1837 is not contemporary
with the construction of the pyramid, but rather dates to the post-medieval (Islamic)
period sometime between the 16th and 18th centuries. It would be a matter for
speculation just how such a plate might have found its way down a joint between the
pyramid stones, but after the Arab conquest there was much activity at the Giza
pyramids. Hill's report that the iron "was taken out by me from an inner joint, after
having removed by blasting the two outer tiers of the stones" and "that no joint or
opening of any sort was connected with the above-mentioned joint" was made ex post
facto, and one may well wonder how closely he examined the joints before blasting
considering he had no idea that he might find something there”.
Horus
The Pyramid Texts describe also the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as
both Horus and Osiris. In [Budge, 1988], we can find him as a star, and also the same
details, about the throne, that we have read in the previous section.
“He is the brother of the Moon, and the son of SOTHIS (SIRIUS); he revolves in
heaven like ORION; and he rises in his place like a star, being one of the everlasting
and never-setting stars of the northern sky. He is more resplendent that the AKHU,
more perfect than the perfect ones, more stable than the stable gods, and he sits on the
shoulders of RA. HORUS exchanges his Ka with him. … He is arrayed in white apparel
which is like unto the finest raiment of those who sit on the throne of living right and
truth, and the framework of his iron throne is decorated with the faces of lions, and its
legs have the feet of bull. On his head he wears the great Urerit Crown”.
Glittering in the nightly sky

The opening of the mouth ceremony, that we have mentioned before, was an ancient
Egyptian ritual described in funerary texts such as the Pyramid Texts. A specific
instrument was used for this ritual.
In www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/religion , 2003, by University College
London, in the translation of an episode in the tomb-chapel of Rekhmira, we can read “I
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open your mouth for you with the nua-blade, I have opened your mouth for you with the
nua-blade, the meskhetyu-blade of iron, that opens the mouths of the gods”.
In [Wainwright, 1932], it is told that the adze used in the ritual, was the earthly
representative of the original heavenly adze, made of mśhtyw of bi̓ӡ which opened the
mouth of the gods, with which Horus opened the mouth of his father, Osiris.
And the stars are made of iron, and pieces of them, sometimes, are falling down.
“In the Pyramid Texts, the imperishable stars are paralleled with the king’s iron bones,
as if to suggest that they were made of iron … The fact that the northern circumpolar
stars were represented by two adzes of iron provides support for this interpretation”
[Alford, 2004]. Alford is also telling that in the Coffin Texts, it is written that “the
deceased swallows magic in the form of ‘iron of a star’ (bja n sbat), which strongly
suggests that stars were made of iron”, meteoric iron.
See also http://www.joanannlansberry.com/fotoart/met-muzm/adze-mdl.html
The Bull’s Leg

In the article entitled “Ancient Egyptian temple reveals previously unknown star
constellations”, written by Laura Geggel, November 19, 2020, Live Science , we can
find an “ancient Egyptian depiction of the Big Dipper, seen here in the shape of a bull's
leg. It includes seven stars and is tied to a stake by a goddess in hippo form (right). The
Big Dipper is considered the manifestation of the evil god Seth, who murdered his
brother Osiris. The goddess prevents Seth from reaching Osiris in the underworld — a
myth made possible because the constellation never dips below the horizon”. During the
restoration of the Temple of Esna, researchers cleaned ancient scenes representing
constellations, “including the Big Dipper (known as Mesekhtiu) and Orion (known as
Sah). They also found inscriptions about previously unknown constellations, including
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one called "Apedu n Ra," or "the geese of Ra," who is the ancient Egyptian sun deity,
Leitz said. However, without an image to accompany these descriptions, there's no way
to know which stars in the night sky they describe, he said”.
The metal of Seth

“Ownership of the adze is credited to Wepwawet, while the iron itself is said to have
issued from Seth. What does this tell us? As regards Seth, it is likely that the text refers
to the meteoritic iron of which the adze was made; since the adze was modeled on the
northern stars and since Seth was held to dwell in those stars, the iron adze would have
been viewed as the metal of Seth” [Alford, 2004]. However, Alan Alford continues
remarking the role of Wepwawet, the jackal-god. He tells that the original form of the
god was a wolf. The name of the god means literally “ ‘the opener of the ways’ (Wp-
wawt), but he is also called ‘the opener of the body’. In the Pyramid Texts, he is said to
be on high in the sky, and he opens the ways for the ascent of the king.” [Alford, 2004].
Fig. 8 - Image Courtesy kairoinfo4u - “Abydos, Temple of Sety I - Second Hypostyle Hall,
Western Wall second limestone pier between the entrances of the Chapels of Ptah and Ra-
Horakhty - The jackal-headed God Wepwawet, also called Upuaut embraces King Sety. As lord
of the cemetery at Abydos Wepwawet was being seen as one who opened the ways to and
protects the deceased through the Underworld”.
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‘Opening of the Mouth and Eyes’ ritual

At the link digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk, University College London, we can find a detailed
description of the ritual. Let us report some sentences.
“The 'Opening of the Mouth and Eyes' (generally abbreviated to 'Opening of the Mouth')
is the ancient Egyptian title of a ritual attested from the Old Kingdom to the Roman
Period. In essence it might be described as a consecration ritual for images in human
form. It is known to have been performed on statues and, from the New Kingdom (about
1550-1069 BC) at least, coffins”. The site tells that “specially designated persons used
special ritual tools to touch the mouth and eyes of the image to enable a spirit to receive
food and drink, to breathe, and to see. Sustenance and light are the two key aspects of
life desired for the person for eternity”. It is also told “the ritual illustrates a concept of
sculpture as birth. This concept also finds expression in the Egyptian language, in its
vocabulary for sculpture: the fashioning of the image is 'giving birth', the sculptor is 'the
one who causes to live'.”
Among the tools for the ritual, the web site is mentioning a forked blade, named
peseshkaf, a word interpreted “in later periods as 'splitter of his ka-spirit' “, the serpent
blade, named werhekau which means 'Great of Power', and the adze-shaped blades,
named meskhetyu and nua.
Sources about the ritual range from Old Kingdom to Roman Period. E. Otto [Otto,
1960] collected them and proposed the following episodes: Episodes 1-9: preliminary
rites - Episodes 10-22: animation of the statue - Episodes 23-42: meat offerings aligned
with Upper Egypt - Episodes 43-46: meat offerings aligned with Lower Egypt -
Episodes 47-71: funerary meal - Episodes 72-75: closing rites.
The second Khufu solar boat

Near Akhet Khufu, that is the pyramid, some metal was found.
“A piece of wood recovered at a dig near the Great Pyramid of Giza shows for the first
time that ancient Egyptians used metal in their boats, archaeologists said Wednesday [in
2016]. Circular and U-shaped metal hooks were found in one of the components of a
boat, discovered the same year as Khufu's "solar boat", buried near the Great Pyramid.
Solar boats, buried in pits next to royal burial chambers, may have been used for a
pharaoh's funeral procession, while others were intended for travels in the afterworld”.
https://phys.org/news/2016-08-ancient-egyptians-metal-wooden-ships.html
And also “Last week, the team raised a beam from the eighth layer that is eight meters
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long, 40 centimeters wide and four centimeters thick. It was taken to the laboratory built
on the Giza Plateau for the Khufu Second Boat Project for it to be dried and stabilized.
Upon closer examination, the beam was found to have unique features: a number of U
and L-shaped metal hooks embedded in the surface of the wood. There are no such
metal elements in any of the beams from Khufu’s first solar boat. Archaeologists
believe the metal parts may have been the ancient version of oar locks. … The U-
shaped hooks were used “to place the paddles to prevent friction of wood against
wood”, said Sakuji Yoshimura, an Egyptologist from Japan”.
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/43967
Was the metal copper? Or iron, meteoric iron?
Fig. 9 - The Kamil crater in ACME Mapper. The crater has been created by an iron meteorite.
Black-market and Kamil Crater

In any case, where we can find iron or meteoric iron in Egypt? For meteoric iron, a site
– the Gebel Kamil Crater - was recently discovered and looted. In [Broad, 2011], The
New York Times remembers that a black-market, that is, an illegal market of meteoric
fragments exists. “The discovery of a rich and historically significant meteorite crater in
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southern Egypt, just north of the Sudanese border, has shown the voracious appetite for
new fragments. Just as scientists appeared to be on the cusp of decrypting the evidence
to solve an ancient puzzle, looters plundered the desolate site”. As previously told, the
site is that of the Kamil Crater [Folco et al., 2010].
“The mystery began thousands of years ago with Egyptian hieroglyphs, which refer to
the “iron of heaven.” Archaeologists have long debated whether the Egyptians made
artifacts from iron meteorites that fell to Earth in fiery upheavals. The main evidence
came from ancient knife blades of iron that had high concentrations of nickel — a rare
element in the Earth’s crust that was considered a signature of extraterrestrial origin.
But doubts grew as investigators found terrestrial sites rich in nickel that ancient
peoples could have mined. And scientists in Egypt never found an impact crater and a
nearby lode of meteorites” [Broad, 2011]. But in June 2008, Vincenzo de Michele,
Italian mineralogist and explorer, by means of Google Earth, discovered a crater. With
Mario Di Martino, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Torino, formed an
expedition that surveyed the site in February 2009. “To their delight, the desolate area
bristled with iron meteorites — more than 5,000 of them — and they named the crater
Gebel Kamil, after a nearby mountain” [Broad, 2011].
Article [Broad, 2011] tells that the team members put a bottle with a signed note inside
at the crater’s bottom. “A return expedition in February 2010, found that the bottle had
disappeared. The secret was out. A few months later, in June, meteorites from the crater
were for sale at a show in Ensisheim, France” [Broad, 2011].
The Kamil crater is estimated to be less than 5,000 years old [Folco et al., 2010] and
shows a well-preserved rayed structure. The crater is quite recent then, however it is in
the time range for being considered for a comparison of its iron with the iron of
Tutankhamun's dagger. In [Comelli et al., 2016], the iron of Kamil crater had been
included. “In order to investigate if known iron meteorites within the ancient Egyptian
trade sphere could be linked to the studied blade, [the authors] sorted all the known iron
meteorites found in the region from the MetBase [Meteorite Information Database].
Within an area 2000 km in radius arbitrarily centered in the Red Sea, Egypt (i.e.,
extending from central-eastern Sahara to the Arabic Peninsula, Mesopotamia, Iran, and
Eastern Mediterranean area), 20 iron meteorite finds are present in the database. Only
one, group IVA, the fine octahedrite, named Kharga (Egypt, 31°07′57″N, 25°02′50″E,
found 2000, May 8, 1 kg; Grossman and Zipfel 2001), has Ni and Co contents (11.77 wt
% and 0.437 wt%, respectively) within 10% of the composition of the studied blade”
[Comelli et al., 2016].
“Kharga meteorite - The meteorite, now called Kharga, was found in 2000, and contains
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a mixture of iron with 10.8 percent nickel and 0.58 percent cobalt — the same
composition as the dagger. None of the ten other meteorites found in or near Egypt
matched that particular composition.” In “King Tut’s Meteorite Dagger: It Came From
Outer Space”, written by Rick Robinson, 2020, link https://now.northropgrumman.com
“Common iron meteorite prices are generally in the range of US$0.50 to US$5.00 per
gram. Stone meteorites are much scarcer and priced in the US$2.00 to US$20.00 per
gram range for the more common material. It is not unusual for the truly scarce
material to exceed US$1,000 per gram”. http://www.meteorlab.com And we can find
“Gebel Kamil Iron Meteorites For Sale” - Find / Fall: Find – 2009 - Location: Al Wadi
al Jadid, Egypt - Total Known Weight: 1.6 Metric Tons. About $2 million.
Other non destructive analyses

In [CNRS.FR], we find told that the “Iron Age began in Anatolia and the Caucasus
around 1200 BCE. But nearly 2,000 years earlier, various cultures were already
fashioning objects out of iron. These items were extremely rare and always greatly
treasured. Iron ore abounds on the Earth's surface. So what made these artifacts so
valuable? Initial research had shown that some were made with iron from meteorites,
which led scientists to wonder how many others were. Albert Jambon (2017) gathered
the available data and conducted his own nondestructive chemical analyses of samples
using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer”. Jambon studied iron artifacts
including beads from Gerzeh, Egypt, 3200 BC, a dagger from Alaca Höyük in Turkey,
2500 BC, a pendant from Umm el-Marra in Syria, 2300 BCE, an axe from Ugarit, in
Syria too, 1400 BC, and several others from the Shang dynasty civilization, China, 1400
BC. He studied also the dagger, bracelet, and headrest of Tutankhamun. Not only the
dagger, analyses have also shown that Tutankhamun's bracelet and headrest “were made
from the iron of at least two different meteorites, suggesting that an active search was
carried out for valuable iron meteorites in ancient times, he said” [SCI-A].
A gift from Mitanni?

Before discussing the beads of the necklace from Gerzeh, let us consider recent news
about Tutankhamun’s meteoric iron dagger, according the results obtained by a Japan-
based research team, as reported by [Archaeology.wiki, 2022].
“Tutankhamun’s iron dagger … reached Egypt as an import from the ancient Empire of
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January 16, 2024
Mitanni, according to researchers from Japan’s Chiba Institute of Technology (CIT),

who published an article in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.” The article is
[Matsui et al. 2022]. “In February 2020, CIT researchers reached the Egyptian Museum
in Cairo to obtain new results concerning the dagger’s material and craftsmanship.
According to their published research paper, they conducted nondestructive and
noncontact chemical analyses of the meteoritic dagger blade at the Museum. For
comparison, they analyzed the Shirahagi iron meteorite, the source of the Japanese
historical sword Ryuseito which is housed in Toyama Science Museum; analysis in
Toyama took place in the same way and using the same analytical instrument and
techniques as in Cairo”. The researchers conformed the “iron meteorite (octahedrite) as
the source of the dagger’s iron”. They also noted some features of the dagger’s gold
handle, or hilt, which is also decorated with semi-precious stones and granulation. “The
hilt’s ornaments had been attached with quicklime, a material which did not reach Egypt
before the Ptolemaic period, instead of gypsum, the material normally used in Pharaonic
times. All these elements show that the dagger might have been manufactured outside of
Egypt, but where exactly?”
The article Archaeology.wiki, 2022, continues explaining that the populations of
Anatolia knew how to forge iron from meteorites already from at least around 2300 BC.
This date is that of the oldest meteoric iron dagger excavated at Alacahöyük, Turkey.
“Anatolia’s southeast end formed part of the Empire of Mitanni”. This empire had
diplomatic relations with Egypt of the 18th Dynasty. This relationship is well-
documented by 14 letters of the “Amarna Letters, the diplomatic correspondence
archive found in the Palace of Tell el Amarna, where Tutankhamun’s reign probably
started”. Archaeology.wiki, 2022, tells that “two of these letters (designated EA 22 and
EA 23), both sent from the Mitannian King Tushratta to Tutankhamun’s grandfather,
Amenhotep III, contain the description of iron-blade daggers with elements of gold and
precious materials”.
In [Matsui et al. 2022], the authors tells that the “evidence for iron in the Amarna letters
can be found almost exclusively in a list of gifts sent to Amenhotep III (1417–1379
B.C.) of Egypt by Tusratta, the king of Mitanni, … when he married the princess
Taduhepa to Amenhotep III (Lucas & Harris, 2012; McNutt, 1990; Morkot, 2010;
Rainey, 2014). In this document, habakin(n)u (ha-bal-ki-i-in-nu) is translated as “iron”
(Moran, 1992). According to the translation by W. L. Moran, on VS XII 199 = EA 22 I,
32–35 (p. 51 of Moran, 1992), a dagger is described: “1 dagger, the blade of which is of
iron, its guard, of gold, with designs; its haft of ebony with calf figurines; overlaid with
gold; its pommel is of … -stone; its (…) …, overlaid with gold, with designs, 6 shekels
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January 16, 2024
(= ca. 50 g) gold have been used on it.”. A similar description can be found in VS XII
199 = EA 22 III, 7–9 (p. 54 of Moran, 1992): “1 dagger, the blade, of iron; its guard, of
gold, with designs; its hilt, of …; an inlay of genuine lapis lazuli; its pommel, of hiliba-
stone. 5 shekels (= ca. 42 g) gold have been used on it.”
Archaeology.wiki stresses that the blades described in the Letters do not fit with
Tutankhamun’s dagger. However, the Mitannian King had access to “two iron daggers,
in an era where iron was a rare material, and Anatolia was part of Mitanni at the time of
Amenhotep III and Tushratta”. Due to these facts, the research team suggested that the
Tutankhamun’s iron dagger was a gift from the king of Mitanni to Amenhotep III. “At
that time in Egypt, iron was considered an element that fell from the sky on rare
occasions and was about 80 times more valuable than gold. Tutankhamun probably
inherited his grandfather’s iron dagger and it was placed in his tomb when he died at a
young age”, according to Takafumi Matsui, president of the Chiba Institute of
Technology.
Archaeology.wiki, 2022, notes that “the theory of the CIT team has already started to
receive criticism. In her personal blog, archaeologist Andrea Sinclair, an expert on
hybrid iconography and interconnections in Tutankhamun’s era, states that “most of the
archaeologically related claims from this paper are either hyperbole, incorrect or based
on out of date theories”, as, while “the chemical analyses employed by the authors were
professional and thorough, however the conclusions drawn from this data are flawed
and ignore the broader historical and archaeological context”. As Sinclair observes,
Mitanni was not in Anatolia, meteoric iron sources have been documented in Egypt’s
Kharga Oasis, and extensive and multifold contacts between states in the Late Bronze
Age allowed for a broad reach of technologies, so that it is impossible to claim a
particular place of origin for the dagger. Also, this dagger is a variation of a recorded
Egyptian type, while it is highly unlikely that a Pharaoh would have been buried with a
foreign gift. It is thus impossible to associate Tutanhamun’s iron dagger with Mitanni;
at least for the time being.” [Archaeology.wiki, 2022, Sinclair, 2022].
Kharga Oasis origin

“So what are their claims?” [Sinclair, 2022].
“…it has been known for years that the iron of this dagger is not of terrestrial origin.”
[Matsui et al., 2022].
“Yes, it has, the iron blade was published by Bjorkman in 1973, in ‘Meteors and
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January 16, 2024
Meteorites in the Ancient Near East’, but to be clear, the dagger blade was not unique to
this tomb as there were at least 18 other meteoric iron objects in the assemblage,
consisting of a model headrest, a wedjat eye and 16 model chisels, these are pretty
standard objects for an Egyptian burial, they are just made of meteoric iron instead of
copper or bronze. See also Broschat et al 2017, Himmlisch: Die Eisenobjekte aus dem
Grabe des Tutanchamun (for scientific examination of the iron objects from this tomb).”
[Sinclair, 2022].
“…Its extraterrestrial origin has again been confirmed by a Japanese research team from
the Chiba Institute of Technology. … It is therefore confirmed that the metal of the
dagger is made essentially of iron with between 10 and 12% nickel, which is not found
in terrestrial iron ore in these proportions but in octahedrites, famous iron meteorites.
We also find iron sulphide characteristic of these meteorites but above all the famous
structure known as Widmanstätten, with patterns indicating an alternation of different
iron-nickel alloys and which it is impossible to obtain on Earth, in any case in ordinary
metallurgical processes. In fact, the discovery of a so-called Widmanstätten structure is
considered proof that we are in the presence of a meteorite”. [Matsui et al., 2022].
“Again, we knew the blade was meteoric iron, not 'extraterrestrial' per se, a problematic
(and hyperbolic) use which infers to the reader that the exploiters of the mineral saw it
fall as a meteor and collected the debris 'because that was significant'. This is highly
unlikely, it was much more likely to be a mineral found in certain areas and used
because of its appearance. The source of the iron of this dagger was established on the
basis of nickel content as the Kharga Oasis region in the Egyptian Western Desert in
Comelli et al 2016, The Meteoric Origin of Tutankhamen’s Iron Dagger Blade.”
[Sinclair, 2022].
The necklace from Gerzeh

The beads from Gerzeh were used for a necklace. An article by Sci News (2013),
www.sci-news.com/archaeology , explains that the ancient Egyptian iron beads were
discovered in 1911. A study demonstrated that the beads “were hammered from pieces
of meteorites, rather than iron ore. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being
rolled into tubes, the nine beads were originally strung into a necklace together with
other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic
material in ancient times. “The shape of the beads was obtained by smithing and rolling,
most likely involving multiple cycles of hammering, and not by the traditional stone-
working techniques such as carving or drilling which were used for the other beads
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January 16, 2024
found in the same tomb,” explained Prof Thilo Rehren from the Hamad bin Khalifa
University in Qatar, who is a lead author of the paper published in the Journal of
Archaeological Science” . The article is given in Ref. [Rehren et al., 2013].
“The Gerzeh culture, also called Naqada II, refers to the archaeological stage at Gerzeh
(also Girza or Jirzah), a prehistoric Egyptian cemetery located along the west bank of
the Nile. … Gerzeh is situated only several miles due east of the oasis of Faiyum. The
Gerzeh culture is a material culture identified by archaeologists. It is the second of three
phases of the prehistoric Naqada cultures and so is also known as Naqada II. The
Gerzeh culture was preceded by the Amratian culture ("Naqada I") and followed by the
Naqada III ("protodynastic" or "Semainian culture").” The Gerzeh culture dates circa
3,650 BC — circa 3,300 BC.
Origin of the words

It is time to add some sentences from [Johnson et al. 2013].
“Within the near east, we find text references to iron and meteorites, but the exact
origins of the words used for iron within the region are complex and despite many
previous studies remain largely unproven. … Complex linguistic issues regarding
difference in the reading of ancient Egyptian terms for copper and iron caused massive
confusion in early translations”. In [Johnson et al. 2013] it is told that “some linguists
made no acknowledgment of the difference”. And also “The term biA eventually
translated to mean iron; these early references to iron typically describe objects or
aspects of the sky and so have a relatively broad meaning. As Egyptians at this time
would not have understood the intricacy of iron metal chemistry, such early terms
possibly reflected other iron-related materials, such as haematite or any material that
had a visual resemblance to fresh or weathered iron”. However – it is stressed in
[Johnson et al. 2013] - “from the late 18th Dynasty, approximately 1300 BCE, the term
biA-n-pt starts to be used, which literally reads iron from the sky and from this point
onwards, it is applied to describe all types of iron (Bjorkman, 1973), the term becoming
synonymous with metallic iron in general”.
The authors of [Johnson et al. 2013] note that reasons for the creation of this new word
at this particular point in time are unknown. They mention that the term – possibly - was
coming from “a literal description resulting from the observance of a major event by the
Egyptian population”, that required the creation of a new term. “The witnessing of a
localized event would probably not be sufficient to influence the Egyptian literate
minority (scribes) to make and use a new word so dominantly, whereas a larger event,
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January 16, 2024
such as a shower of meteorites or large impact event would leave little doubt to where
the iron had originated and would be witnessed by many”. Then the Gebel Kamil crater
in southern Egypt is mentioned in [Johnson et al. 2013]. “The unpredictable nature of
such an event may have been sufficient to require a new descriptor, and sufficiently
significant for the term “iron from the sky” subsequently to be used indiscriminately for
all metallic iron” [Johnson et al. 2013]. At the time of Tutankhamun, it seems that
“iron” was the “iron from sky”. Or “metal from sky”?
Stone and Fire

There is also a remarkable link that it is necessary to stress, and it is that of meteorites
and fire. We can find it in [Graves-Brown, 2010]. “Although the Egyptians used the
fire-drill, which is attested archaeologically and iconographically (Newberry et al. 1896,
23, fig. 68, p. 5; Stocks 2003, 52–55), the ability of flint to produce sparks, particularly
when struck with meteoric iron, must have been familiar. While no strike-a-lights have
been found, they may have gone unrecognised. ... Alternatively, the Egyptians may
have preferred the fire-drill. Fire is more difficult to produce from flint and naturally
occurring iron than from a fire-drill (Runnels 1994)”. And also “Connection between
flint and fire could be mediated through third parties, for example, Seth, snakes or
meteoric iron”.
“Within the realm of the stellar and flint, there appears to be a constellation of ideas
surrounding the northern night sky, meteoric iron, Seth and Osiris. With the exception
of Wainwright’s (1932a and b) observations on the connection between Seth, meteoric
iron and flint, these entities do not seem to have been previously discussed as a group”.
In [Graves-Brown, 2010], we find discussed “connection between flint and the moon”
and “between flint and the “opening of the mouth” ceremony”. “Several of the
implements used in this ceremony, particularly the adze, foreleg of an ox and the ntrwj-
blades are stellar (Roth 1993). The adze and foreleg particularly relate to the northern
sky”. [Roth, 1993] discussed the ntrwj-blades and fingers of bja. “A significant
peculiarity of the ntrwj is their composition. They are said in all the textual sources to
be of bja, which was clearly a material thought to be meteoritic”.
Benben and Bennu, the Phoenix

After talking of the beads of Gerzeh, in “The meteoric origins of Egypt’s first
ironwork”, guest blogger Isadora Fontaine tells that “Interestingly, this is not the only
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meteorite-related story to come out of Egypt… The mysterious Benben stone, a cult
object which once stood in the solar temple at Heliopolis, may have been a meteorite
that had a conical or pyramidal shape. We will never know for sure what the Benben
really was, since the stone was lost in antiquity, but some suggest that its shape may
have been the inspiration for the tips of obelisks and even the pyramids themselves”.
“In the creation myth of the Heliopolitan form of ancient Egyptian religion, Benben was
the mound that arose from the primordial waters Nu upon which the creator deity Atum
settled. The Benben stone (also known as a pyramidion) is the top stone of the pyramid.
It is also related to the obelisk” Wikipedia. “In the Pyramid Texts, e.g. Utterances 587
and 600, Atum himself is at times referred to as "mound". It was said to have turned
into a small pyramid, located in Heliopolis ... within which Atum was said to dwell.
Other cities developed their own myths of the primeval mound. … The Benben stone,
named after the mound, was a sacred stone in the temple of Ra at Heliopolis. It was the
location on which the first rays of the sun fell. It is thought to have been the prototype
for later obelisks and the capstones of the great pyramids were based on its design. …
The bird deity Bennu, which was probably the inspiration for the phoenix, was
venerated at Heliopolis, where it was said to be living on the Benben stone or on the
holy willow tree. According to Barry Kemp, the connection between the benben, the
phoenix, and the sun may well have been based on alliteration: the rising, weben, of the
sun sending its rays towards the benben, on which the bennu bird lives. Utterance 600, §
1652 of the Pyramid Texts speaks of Atum as you rose up, as the benben, in the
Mansion of the Bennu in Heliopolis.” from Wikipedia again.
Meteoric Iron?
Daniel E. Mitchell writes in his “Finding Your Benben Stone And Building Your Great
Pyramid of Success” [Mitchell, 2014], the following. “Theorists have speculated that
the Benben Stone may have been formed out of a meteoric iron which tied the ancient
Egyptians with a fervent devotion of the stars. The most existent writing that referenced
the Benben Stone was found in the Book of Coming Forth by Day (The Book of the
Dead). Bushby imparts that it was called the “Throne of Radiance”. This meteor type of
conical object appears to have been described in the Fifth Hour of the Duat Underworld
of the Coffin texts, as having a bell formation to it, and possessing a fiery presence. As a
probable meteoric object, the Benben Stone is believed to have glorified the base of the
Mansion of the Benben located at the temple structure associated with Atum-Ra at
Anu / Iunu / On / Heliopolis, and may have influenced the veneration of other meteoric
stones that have surfaced at Egyptian temples associated with the god Amon /Amun.”
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Iron or Copper?
In [Burke, 1991], we find the following. “In 1911, Wainwright discovered nine iron
beads in two predynastic graves at Gerzeh. 50 miles south of Cairo. It was not until
1928 that an analysis was made, but then C. H. Desch determined that one contained
7.50 percent nickel. Immediately thereafter, Wainwright began to publish his series of
articles on thunderbolts, meteorites, and omphaloi, among which was one entitled “Iron
in Egypt”. In it, Wainwright revived von Lauth’s hypothesis (without citing this source),
but used slightly different transliterations … R. J. Forbes was a leader in refuting
Wainwright’s hypothesis. “Wainwright.” he wrote, never brought forward one text in
which biӡ must have meant iron, the old and recognized translation copper fits in just as
well … There is no reason not to suppose that the Egyptian thought their meteoric iron
just a form of black unrefined copper and that they recognized its celestial origin much
later ... Only when they had attained the full Iron Age and iron was smelted and worked
in Egypt itself copper and iron were distinguished in separate metals”.
On copper in Egypt, see please among the “Additional Information”, which are given
before References.
In the Glossary of the Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, [Bunson, 2014], we can find
also mentioned the hematite. We can read that ba’a en pet is the copper from heaven, a
meteorite”. And that bia is the resource called hematite.
Hematite in Egypt is also mentioned in [Harrell, 2012]. hematite (opaque brownish
black to black with submetallic luster to silver gray with metallic luster [Fe 2O3]. Used:
rarely Pd to Pt/R. Source: no mine known, but both types of hematite are found in some
igneous and metamorphic rocks in the Eastern Desert. Ancient name: probably bia but
also bia qesey, and beqes ankh (Egyptian); haematitis/haematites (Greek/Roman).
In [Lacovara, 2016] it is told that the “ancient Egyptian word for iron is bia em pet,
“copper from heaven,” so they knew both the extraterrestrial origin of meteoric iron and
its relationship to the metal that could be produced from iron ores”. Then, as previously
told we have “metal”, “copper”, “iron” and “hematite” for bja.
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Fig. 10 - High resolution scan of a pattern welded "Damascus" knife blade. Image Courtesy
Fluzwup
Emperor Jahangir's meteorite blade

Now, let us pass from Egypt to China, but before some words about swords. Then, let
us move through Mughal Empire.
Michelle Starr in her “Swords from the stars: Weapons forged from meteoric iron”,
2015, begins the article remembering that “Myth is littered with legendary swords.
Durandal. Kusanagi. Legbiter. Excalibur. Joyeuse. Different factors make these
weapons extraordinary, but if we had to choose, we'd definitely go for a sword made of
meteoric iron. It's not as unusual an idea as it sounds. Throughout history, blades have
been forged from chunks of metal fallen from the skies, often smelted together with
terrestrial metals, then acid-etched, creating a patterned surface reminiscent of
Damascus steel. This pattern is due to the nickel content in meteoric iron, which gives it
a more silvery colour and sheen than terrestrial iron; folded together, they create an
effect known as pattern welding”. The article continues explaining that “modern
blacksmiths are still following the tradition”. One of them created a sword incorporating
ataxite, a meteorite with a high proportion of nickel, at least 18 percent.
Then, we encounter Emperor Jahangir. He was the fourth emperor of the Mughal
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Empire, and ruled from 1605 until his death in 1627. “When a meteorite fell to Earth in
April 1621 in Punjab, the local tax collector ordered” to search it. A piece of hot iron
was found. “It was so hot; it was as if it had been taken out of a furnace. After a while it
cooled off, the tax collector took it home, sealed it in a purse, and sent it to court."
Jahangir considered this meteoric iron as a gift from God and ordered his smiths to
forge it into two swords and a dagger. To create these objects, the smiths mixed the
meteoric iron with terrestrial iron.
Fig. 11 – Detail of pattern on the dagger. Courtesy Daderot for Wikipedia.
Sabri Ben-Achour, 2012, tells in the article entitled “Smithsonian Displays Mysterious
Dagger From The Stars”, that “Some people said it [the dagger] had magical powers,
and Jahangir talks in his diary about how tough the blade was and how amazingly it cut.
But that diary entry was the last anyone heard about it. The Mughal Empire rose and
fell, its treasures were plundered or given away, and that was it… until after World War
II”. Then, the dagger arrived at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries. By means
of x-ray analysis techniques, it had been determined that it was forged from a meteorite
that fell to earth from outer space.
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From Egypt to China

BBC is reporting that the researchers who studies Tutankhamen's dagger [Comelli et al.,
2016] stress that “Ancient Egyptians attached great significance to meteoritic iron for
the production of fine ornamental or ceremonial objects” [BBC]. "They [the Ancient
Egyptians] were aware that these rare chunks of iron fell from the sky already in the
13th [Century] BCE, anticipating Western culture by more than two millennia," they
[the authors] write in their findings” [BBC]. For further information about meteoric iron
found in ancient Near East and Mediterranean basin, see please the “Additional
Information”, before the references. But, what about the far East, for instance China?
Before discussing the meteoric iron in China, let us consider [Rapp, 2013].
Many meteorites are composed of iron and nickel in a combination which is “nearly
rustproof and easily recognized as metal. Meteoric iron is malleable and easily worked.
Metallic meteorites were picked up and used by humans over 8000 years ago, before the
Iron Age in the Old World. The prehistoric utilization of meteoric iron to fashion tools
probably was worldwide, including the Arctic. Iron meteorites were prized in
prehistoric America. The Aztec made knives from iron meteorites”. Ref. [Rapp, 2013] is
also stressing that ancient Sumerian texts mentioned the meteoric iron and called it the
“fire from heaven”. [Rapp, 2013] is providing several references.
As told in [Rapp, 2013], about the development and iron production in ancient China,
an in-depth account is given by [Wagner, 1993, 1999]. Wagner reviewed the earliest use
of iron in China and “suggests that, after the making of luxury weapons from meteoric
iron during the Shang and early Zhou periods, the technique of solid-state iron ore
smelting came to China by the eight century BCE from the west via Scythian nomads”.
Wagner tells also that “The earliest evidence of the use of iron in the area of Shang and
Zhou culture consists of bronze axeheads of several kinds with cast-in edges of
meteoritic iron … There is room for the supposition that the iron parts were imports
from elsewhere, but very little reason for it. More likely there were Chinese smiths in
the Shang and early Zhou who hot-forged meteoritic iron and produced small edges to
be cast into bronze axes and other edged weapons”.
We have previously seen that, of Tutankhamen’s dagger, an origin different from Egypt
has been recently proposed (gift of Mitanni). For the Chinese axeheads, in the past, this
happened too. Donald B. Wagner, 1999, reported that Noel Barnard told in early 1970s
the following: “I would simply observe here that the presence of meteoric iron in
sharper form – particularly the FGA items (34-11) [Freer Gallery of Art] with dovetail
cutting of the iron blade - must indicate an alien source of origin. Such articles have
entered the Middle States’ area as the result of occasional contacts with nomadic
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peoples far to the west and beyond the present boundaries of China. There is no
evidence at all which would allow us to assume that these meteoric iron blades could
have been worked by Chinese artisans in Shang and Western Chou times.” Among
Wagner’s comments we can find that “The bronze parts of these artefacts are clearly
Chinese in Style, and there are also many similar Shang artefacts with cast-in jade
cutting edges, … More likely there were Chinese smiths in the Shang and early Zhou
who hot-forget meteoritic iron and produced small edges to be cast into bronze
axeheads and other edged weapons, Meteoritic iron is usually fairly hard, and these
bronze-iron weapons are likely to have been superior to weapons of bronze alone, but
meteoritic iron is so rare that these must always have been uncommon luxury items.”
Pictures of “Two Chinese early Chou bronze weapons with iron blades” are given in
“Here Are 5 Ancient Artifacts Crafted From Meteorites Thousands of Years Ago”, Ivan
Petricevic, May 23, 2019, at the link https://curiosmos.com (archived
https://archive.ph/ByrF5)
“Several Chinese artifacts, including two early weapons, contain meteoritic iron. A
broad axe with a spike made of bronze and a deeply rusted meteoritic iron blade, along
with a dagger axe pointed with meteoritic iron, date from the early Chou Dynasty, about
3000 years ago. These weapons may have come from the tomb of Prince of Wei in
Honan Province, Significantly, they were manufactured about 400 years before the
general appearance of cast iron metallurgy in China. Because meteoritic iron varies in
composition, and sometimes contains abundant impurities, it is notoriously difficult to
forge. Nevertheless, there are many ancient and modern examples of ceremonial
weapons made form meteoritic iron, the metal having been save for the swordsmith’s
finest work” [Bevan and De Laeter, 2002].
Wagner noted that meteoric iron is hard, and then the bronze-iron weapons were
superior to weapons of bronze alone. But the meteoric iron was rare and then these
weapons were luxury items. “We do not know whether these smiths developed their
techniques themselves or learned them from elsewhere. The probability of independent
invention seems high, but I [Wagner] have no information at all on the use of meteoritic
iron in early Central Asia”.
See please more details and descriptions of other Bronze-iron artifacts in the book by
Wagner, at the following link http://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html
Layers on the bronze blades
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Qiu Lianghui (2013), in the “Metallurgical technology in Ancient China”, tells about the
bronze blades covered by layers of iron. “During the Zhou and Shang Periods, bronze
weapons with iron blades were used. Two of these are kept in the Freer Gallery: a battle
axe with an iron blade and a bronze dagger axe with a horizontal iron blade. Dating
from the end of the Shang or the beginning of the Zhou dinsaty, they were unearthed in
Junxian, Henan in 1931. Based on this evidence, some scholars in China and abroad
have claimed that Chinese iron smelting began during the Shang dynasy. The bronze
battle axe with an iron blade excavated from the Shang ruins at Gaochen, Hebei, in
1972 further strengthened this argument. Through strict scientific evaluation, based on
the crystal characteristics (the laminar distribution of the nickel content) of the siderite
(formed in astronomical bodies by slow cooling of only several degrees every 10,000
years), [Qiu Lianghui] identified an essential distinction between artificially smelted
iron and meteoric iron. [Qiu Lianghui] determined that these implements are made of
meteoric iron layered with nickel which was forged onto the blades of bronze
implements. This evidence refutes the claim that iron smelting began in China during
the Shang dynasty. Tests on the bronze battle axe with an iron blade which was
discovered in a Shang tomb in Pinggu, Beijing, in 1976 reveal that it is also made of
meteoric iron. These implements show that meteoric iron was used in China before the
Iron Age and that people could distinguish between iron and bronze. Because siderite is
quite rare, it was appropriate to forge it onto the blades of bronze weapons”. [Qiu
Lianghui, 2013]
“The earliest historical record shows that the use of meteoric iron preceded the
technology of iron smelting elsewhere as well. Iron implements containing nickel
forged from meteoric iron have been unearthed from tombs dating from before the
Egyptian dynasties. The Assyrians and Babylonians called iron ‘parzillu’; the
Sumerians and Chaldeans called it ‘barsa’; the Hebrews, ‘barzel’; and the Egyptians,
‘ba-en-pet’. These ancient names all means ‘metal from heaven’, which suggests that
the earliest iron implements used by man were all made from meteoric siderite.
Therefore, we cannot simply identify the human use of iron implements as the
beginning of iron smelting. Only after men had mastered iron smelting technology
could they produce numerous iron implements, thus entering the iron Age”. [Qiu
Lianghui, 2013]
“China mastered iron smelting technology during the Spring and Autumn periods. This
claim is supported not only by historical documents, but also by an increasing number
of Spring and Autumn iron implements.” [Qiu Lianghui, 2013]
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List of Rulers in China, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chem/hd_chem.htm
Shang and Zhou

“The Shang Dynasty is the earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded
history, though other dynasties predated it. The Shang ruled from 1600 to 1046 B.C.
and heralded the Bronze Age in China” - https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-
china/shang-dynasty and “The Zhou dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the
Shang dynasty and preceded the Qin dynasty. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any
other dynasty in Chinese history (790 years)” -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty
Meteoric Iron and Amulets

In [Wagner, 1993, 1999], we find stressed the use of meteoric iron for luxury weapons,
like the Tutankhamun's dagger indeed. However, we could imagine the meteoric iron
used also for small objects, such as amulets.
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January 16, 2024
Tibetan Thokcha are tektites and meteorites which serve as amulets. Typically high in
iron content, these are traditionally believed to contain a magical and protective power.
“The use of meteoric iron has been common throughout the history of ferrous
metallurgy. Historically, thokcha were prized for the metallurgical fabrication of
weapons, musical instruments, and sacred tools, ... Writer Robert Beer regards
meteoric iron as "the supreme substance for forging the physical representation of the
vajra or other iron weapons." It was believed that these amulets had been tempered
by the celestial gods before falling to earth. Beer describes the metal falling from
space as a metaphor for "the indivisibility of form and emptiness."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thokcha
Thokcha is composed of two words which means “above, primordial, first,
thunderbolt”, and “iron, metal”. Thokcha is therefore the "original iron" or the
"thunderbolt iron." Also G. A. Wainwright, in his study of ancient Egypt, pointed out a
link of the meteoric iron with thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is giving rise to flint and
meteorites containing iron.
Hongshan Meteorite Iron?

In searching on the web for pictures of Chinese artifacts made of meteoric iron, I was
surprised to find Chinese artifacts in the style of Hongshan Culture for sale at low cost,
very low cost, if we consider the price of the bulk material (meteorites) and work to
create these modern pieces.
“The Hongshan culture (simplified Chinese: 红山文化; traditional Chinese: 紅山文化;
pinyin: Hóngshān wénhuà) was a Neolithic culture in the Liao river basin in northeast
China. Hongshan sites have been found in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to
Liaoning, and dated from about 4700 to 2900 BC. The culture is named after
Hongshanhou (simplified Chinese: 红山后 ; traditional Chinese: 紅山後 ; pinyin:
Hóngshān hòu), a site in Hongshan District, Chifeng. The Hongshanhou site was
discovered by the Japanese archaeologist Torii Ryūzō in 1908 and extensively
excavated in 1935 by Kōsaku Hamada and Mizuno Seiichi”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongshan_culture
On the web, I found an “Old Chinese China Hongshan Culture Meteorite Iron Hand-
Carved Big Dipper Statue” on sale. We can see the Big Dipper asterism and what could
be the W of Cassiopeia in the images shown in the web page. It seems also that a circle
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January 16, 2024
was carved to represent the fact that the stars of the Big Dipper are circumpolar stars.
Seven stars indeed.
“Beidou 北斗 (lit. "Northern Dipper) is the common Chinese name for the Big Dipper.
Tiangang 天罡 and Tiangangxing 天罡星 (with tian 天 "sky; h/Heaven" and xing 星
"star; heavenly body") both mean "Big Dipper; (esp.) handle of the Big Dipper" – and
are the second of the 108 Stars of Destiny in the Water Margin”, as told at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugang - “Cassiopeia lies across two of the quadrants
symbolized by the Black Tortoise of the North ( 北方玄武, Běi Fāng Xuán Wǔ), The
White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and Three Enclosures (三垣, Sān
Yuán), that divide the sky in traditional Chinese uranography”.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopeia_in_Chinese_astronomy
We can find also “China Hongshan culture Meteorite iron Big Dipper ball loong dragon
hook stone” for instance. So, it would be interesting to know if these objects have been
copied from neolithic, or more recent, Chinese originals, or they are simply based on
artistic imagination.
The Nine Stars of the Big Dipper

The importance of the stars of the Northern and Southern Dipper is stressed in
[Pankenier, 2011]. And we can find these stars also mentioned in the Chinese Theology,
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Chinese_theology , then we have not to be surprised to
find these asterisms depicted on Chinese artifacts.
News of 2006 [China.org, 2006] , www.china.org.cn/english , tells that “A neolithic
stone carving of the Big Dipper star formation has been found on Baimiaozi Mountain
near Chifeng City in northwest China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according
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January 16, 2024
to experts”. The stone carving was discovered by Wu Jiacai, a researcher in literature

and history. On the stone there are carved 19 stars. “The representation of the Big
Dipper is on the north face of the stone”. "The stone was carved by neolithic dwellers,"
said Gai Shanlin, researcher with the Inner Mongolia Institute of Cultural Relics and
Archaeology (IMICRA) and an expert in stone carving. … Apart from the Big Dipper,
Wu also found some "unexplained images" on the stone. He thinks they may depict
ancient gods, such as the god of the sun and the god of horses.”
And in the news we can find also told that “Many neolithic jade articles from the
Hongshan Culture -- such as a dragon with a pig's mouth and a cloud-shaped pendant --
have already been unearthed around Baimiaozi Mountain. The Hongshan Culture was
an aboriginal culture that existed in northern China about 6000 years ago. Tala believes
the discovery will contribute to knowledge about the origin and spread of Hongshan
Culture”.
Navigating in Religious Life

Yiwen Li, 2020, is proposing a discussion entitled "Navigating Voyages in Real and
Religious Life: The Big-Dipper Belief and Shipbuilding in Premodern China". In the
text we find that in Daoism, “the visualization of stars was a way to “enable the adept to
integrate self and Dao, body and cosmos on a higher level”. Shih-shan Susan Huang,
2012, divides the images of the visualization of stars into four subcategories: narrative
illustrations of the adept’s journeys to the Big Dipper, imaginary star maps, stars in the
human body, and star divinities as iconic form. She emphasizes particularly that “the
common ground for these images highlights the role of the Big Dipper, one of the most
important constellations in Chinese visual culture” (Huang 2012, p. 38).” (Li, 2020).
“The Big-Dipper images in navigation maps and those in the religious context are
different in two significant aspects. First, the Big Dipper images in the religious context
were sometimes comprised of nine stars instead of seven, while the nine-star image was
never seen in navigation maps or ships. The nine-star Big-Dipper image existed as early
as 1116 and kept appearing in Daoist images afterward. The eighth star, the Fu star, is
the companion of the sixth star, and the ninth star, the Bi star, is near the handle of the
Dipper. While the Fu star is discernible under very particular conditions - on specific
days with a very clear sky - the Bi star is entirely invisible. A well-accepted belief
among the adepts says: “those who manage to glimpse these two stars are rewarded with
a prolongation of three hundred years of life for the eighth and six hundred years for the
hidden ninth star” (Mollier 2008, p. 162).” (Li, 2020).
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Fig. 12 - Shang-di, aka, the Jade Emperor, Stone carving from the Wuliang Shrine, ca. 150 CE.
Courtesy https://planetandepoch.com/ , adapted from [Major, 1993]. The same scheme of stars
is given in [Pankenier, 2011]. Note that “The eighth star, the Fu star, is the companion of the
sixth star, and the ninth star, the Bi star, is near the handle of the Dipper.” (Li, 2020).
Fig. 13 – The Big Dipper and the Pole Star (Stella Polare), year 150, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu
province, simulated by Stellarium.
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January 16, 2024
Not only on stones. In “Ancient Big Dipper temple found in Central China”, (see for
instance link http://www.kaogu.cn/en/News/New_discoveries/2018/0403/61554.html
or link http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2018-03/30/content_50776890.htm ), it is told that
“Archaeologists in central China's Henan Province have discovered ruins dating back
around 5,000 years, believed to be a temple in the shape of the Big Dipper”. The
excavation at the Qingtai ruins in the city of Xingyang is considered one of the “top five
archaeological discoveries in the province in 2017”. “Nine ceramic pots are laid out in
the shape of the Big Dipper, with a round sacrificial altar at the eastern side, said Wei
Qingli, a researcher with Zhengzhou cultural heritage institute. In ancient China, the Big
Dipper was composed of seven "visible" stars and two "invisible" ones, probably nearby
Messier objects. … “The discovery shows that people had some astronomic knowledge
and an established ritual ceremonial pattern in the shape of the Big Dipper," Wei said.
Qingtai ruins are one of the examples of Neolithic Yangshao culture”.
Mizar and Alcor

“Mizar and Alcor are two stars forming a naked eye double in the handle of the Big
Dipper (or Plough) asterism in the constellation of Ursa Major. Mizar is the second star
from the end of the Big Dipper's handle, and Alcor its fainter companion. The
traditional name Mizar derives from the Arabic ‫ المئزر‬miʼzar meaning 'apron; wrapper,
covering, cover'. Alcor was originally Arabic ‫ س››ها‬Suhā/Sohā, meaning either the
‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ one; notable as a faintly perceptible companion of Mizar.
Mizar, also designated Zeta Ursae Majoris (ζ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Zeta UMa, ζ
UMa), is itself a quadruple system and Alcor, also designated 80 Ursae Majoris (80
UMa), is a binary, the pair together forming a sextuple system. The whole system lies
about 83 light-years away from the Sun, as measured by the Hipparcos astrometry
satellite.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizar_and_Alcor
Supernova
An interesting discussion about the number of stars composing the Big Dipper asterism
is given in the article entitled “There are several Big Dipper stars, seven or nine, the
views of ancient people five thousand years ago are very different from today”, In
inf.news, https://inf.news/en/culture/ , it is told that the ancestors distinguished north,
south, east, and west through the Big Dipper. “However, the number of the Big Dipper
stars with such an important position in the development history of Chinese civilization
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January 16, 2024
has been unclear. The literature generally records that they are composed of the seven
stars "Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang, and Yaoguang".” It is
told in the pre-Qin literature that "Big Dipper nine stars, seven see (present) two
hidden", so is the Big Dipper nine or seven? Evidence was found in the Shuanghuaishu
ruins, one of the “Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2020”.” (See
the article archived at https://archive.ph/1Ayyc).
The article describes in detail these ruins. “In the front porch of the largest house [of the
archaeological site], archaeologists discovered nine strange clay pots, seven of which
were large and two were small. On top of the nine clay pots, there is a complete elk
skeleton facing south and facing the doorway. ... Gu Wanfa, director of the Zhengzhou
Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology,” explained “the figure composed of elk
and nine clay pots. It turns out that this is the "Big Dipper Nine Stars" recorded in the
history books of the Pre-Qin Dynasty”. A picture of the site is also given in the article.
The article is also mentioning a supernova in the Big Dipper. “ "He Tu" records: "The
Emperor Huang ruled, and Jing Xing was seen in the Big Dipper." The ancients named
the supernova Jing Xing. During the Huang Emperor period, Jing Xing may have
appeared, bursting out with shining light, shining like the Big Dipper stars”. The same
could have been happened in very ancient times. “The ancestors mistakenly thought it
was one of the Big Dipper stars. Since the supernova explosion ended soon, the later
generations would not be able to observe it”. https://archive.ph/1Ayyc
Fig. 14 - Pig-dragon. Image Courtesy Sailko for Wikipedia

Wikimedia
Cultura di hongshan (neolitico), oggetto rituale zhulong (dragone-

maiale) in nefrite, da lianing, 3500 ac. ; Pièce jue en forme de dragon.
Vraisemblablement région de Hongshan, Liaoning. Jade, H. 15,3 cm. Vers 4700-3000 avant
l'ère commune. Paris Musée National des Arts Asiatiques - Guimet. Ref. Danielle Elisseeff,
2008. Manuels de l' Ecole du Louvre: Art et archéologie : La Chine. Du Néolithique à la fin des
Cinq Dynasties (960 de notre ère). Notice 7, page 124-125. "Amulette en forme de larve au
49

January 16, 2024
museau vaguement porcin", Roberto Ciarla. L'armée éternelle, National Geographic, 2005, p.
22.
Pig-dragon
Besides the stars of Big Dipper on meteorites, among the modern artifacts available on
the web, we have also “9.2" Antique China Neolithic Age Hongshan Culture Carved
Meteorite Beast Statue”, and “Large magnetic field black-skinned magnetite iron
meteorite Hongshan Jade Pig Dragon pendant handle” or “ 9.4" Old Neolithic Age
Hongshan Culture Meteorite carved inlay Turquoise Statue”. “Hongshan culture antique
jade black iron meteorite tortoise statue” and “Hongshan culture antique jade collection
iron black meteorite cicada”. In fact, Pig-Dragon and Cicada has been carved in jade by
neolithic Hongshan people.
The “secret” Hongshan culture

On September 12, 2018, Natalia at http://natalymaster.com/en/2018/09/12/the-secret-
huangshan-culture/ wrote that “There is one more secret place in the northeast of China,
about which there are a lot of legends. It is as famous as the Himalayas in Tibet. An
ancient civilization engendered 6-7 thousand years ago in the Huanghe river basin is
nowadays famous by its Hongshan Neolithic culture. … Hongshan Culture being the
culture of daily existence disappeared thousands years ago. But its reminiscence has left
its mark not only in the Celestial Empire… The secret articles of the masters of this
civilization are still admired. They are argued about. They are investigated. People look
for the answers to the undiscovered questions… It is Hongshan culture that gave birth
to many greenstone and meteorite articles. Especially aerosiderite articles (iron-stone
meteorite alloys)”. https://archive.is/Xa7ar
“Aerosiderite: A meteorite consisting mainly of nickel and iron; an iron meteorite.
Also: the mineral of which this is composed; meteoric iron. Compare "aerolite",
"aerosiderolite". Now usually shortened to siderite”, as told by the web site
https://www.lexico.com/definition/aerosiderite .
Natalia shows “a famous sample of Hongshan culture piece of work”, called the Sun-
god. “Even scientists and investigators still do not know how this deity appeared. Some
of them think they speak about Sun-god (like Ra in Ancient Egypt). Other scientists are
sure that the history of the figure appearance is connected with shamanism”.
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“It is no coincidence that there are a lot of meteorite articles in Hongshan culture.
Hongshan people were very passionate about space bodies and the places of their
falling”. And here an answer by Natalia to Noah. “I think in China you can easily find
products in the Hongshan culture style. Of course, these will not be ancient figures (but
there are many more modern examples). As for collectibles. In northeastern China, near
historical Manchuria … there are many so-called “jade meteorites.” Unfortunately, real
collectible figurines (true Hongshan, 2,000-7,000 years old) are unlikely to be available
to the simple buyer. But today in the Chinese market there are a lot of modern copies
called meteorite jade, made in the style of Hongshan culture”.
On the web then, we can find modern objects in the style of Neolithic Hongshan. The
fact that this Chinese culture used “jade meteorites” or iron meteorites is not stressed in
[Peterson et al,, 2010, Childs-Johnson, 1991, Wagner et al., 2013, Hosner et al., 2016,
Drennan et al., 2017] for instance. However, according to Natalia’s words, ancient
artifacts made of siderite exist.
Fig. 15 - Hongshan Culture, Inner Mongolia, 1973. One of earliest dragon images found in
China. National Museum: China Through the Ages, exhibit 1. Complete indexed photo
collection at WorldHistoryPics.com. 2011. www.flickr.com Courtesy of the author, Gary Todd.
And also “English: Neolithic jade dragon, H. 26 cm, Hongshan Culture, Inner Mongolia,
excavated in Sanxingtala, Ju Ud (act. Chifeng), 1973. National Museum of China, Beijing -
Français : Amulette en forme de dragon ou de larve d'insecte lovée. Hongshan, Liaoning. Jade,
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H. 26 cm. Découvert en 1973 à Sanxingtala, Ju Ud (act. Chifeng), Mongolie Intérieure. Musée

national de Chine. Pékin” - caption of the image at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
The C-dragon
In https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2015-01/04/content_19231432.htm , it is
stressed that “China's mysterious Neolithic Hongshan culture is considered one of the
earliest and most advanced ancient civilizations discovered to date. The Hongshan
inhabited lands in northeastern China, between Inner Mongolia and today's Liaoning
and Hebei provinces from around 4700 to 2900 BC. The name "Hongshan" is derived
from Hongshan Mountain in Chifeng, ideally located between the Yellow River basin
and the northern steppes of Inner Mongolia's autonomous region bordering Liaoning
province. Though little is known about their daily lives, the Hongshan have become
world famous for their exquisite jade sculptures, prestigious concentration of funeral
offerings and unique ritual centers. Their patterns of technology and worship appear to
have had an influence on later Chinese traditions”. [Liu Xiongfei, 2015]
Fig. 16 - The amulet - Jade Gallery, Aurora Museum, Pudong, Shanghai.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/101561334@N08/22267459958/ Courtesy Gary Todd
References on Hongshan Culture are given in [Peterson et al,, 2010, Childs-Johnson,

1991, Wagner et al., 2013, Hosner et al., 2016, Drennan et al., 2017]. Hongshan jades
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according to type, style and material are given in [Childs-Johnson, 1991]. Pig-Dragon
and C-Dragon are discussed in detail.
In her web page, Natalia stresses that “Hongshan culture will remain one of the most
important historical cycles in China life. You will certainly meet the pieces of this
history in any part of the Celestial Empire. In the form of figures first of all. By the way,
it is China, Hongshan, where the cult of Dragon was born. In Hongshan articles there
are many figures with dragon heads. Sometimes they are specific, with circinated tails”.
Rituals
In [Johnson and Tyldesley, 2014] it is told that “Most of the early examples of iron in
Egypt are obviously symbolic or ritual artefacts”. “All the examples were recovered
from graves, and therefore are likely to have some ritual connection with the funeral
and/or rebirth of the deceased”. Let us remember once more the adze of iron in
association with the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. The article stresses that “iron was
allowed an important role in this ceremony because meteoritic iron was associated with
meteors and thunderbolts; powerful natural phenomena whose own inherent power
might increase the potency of the ritual”. In the case of the adze, used as a ritual
implement, the meteoric iron suggests “a link to the stars themselves, while the
constellation Ursa Major (aka ‘The Plough’ or ‘Big Dipper’) forms the shape of the
adze, the stars in Ursa Major were considered to be ‘imperishable’ stars, the name used
by the ancient Egyptians for stars not seen to set or rise because of their proximity to the
northern celestial pole. Dead and reborn kings were identified with these special stars”.
Article [Johnson and Tyldesley, 2014)] continues telling that meteorites may have
played a more direct role in state religion and mentions the ‘Benben Stone’, the shining
stone, worshiped in the temple of the sun god Re at Heliopolis.
In Egypt, the stars of the Big Dipper had been linked to iron and rituals, but in China, as
shown by the "Big Dipper Nine Stars" at the 5,000-year-old Qingtai Ruins in
Zhengzhou, the stars seem being the focus of a specific ritual. In fact, as stressed in
[Pankenier, 2011], archaeology shows that the use of astronomical alignments
representing the circumpolar nightly sky, was “firmly established by the formative
period of Chinese civilization in the early 2nd millennium BCE”. Moreover, “the
cosmological identification of the imperial center with the celestial Pole and an intense
focus on the circumpolar ‘skyscape’ are manifested in the highly symbolic orientation
of early imperial capitals” [Pankenier, 2011].
A study about the role of meteoric iron for Chinese rituals is under development.
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Dream Pool Essays

Of ancient China we have information from the Dream Pool Essays. It “was an
extensive book written by the Chinese polymath and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095),
published in 1088 during the Song dynasty (960–1279) of China. Shen compiled this
encyclopedic work while living in forced retirement from government office, naming
the book after his private estate near modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. The Dream
Pool Essays was heavily reorganized in reprint editions by later Chinese authors from
the late 11th to 17th centuries. … The Dream Pool Essays covers a range of topics
including discoveries and advancements in Traditional Chinese medicine, mathematics,
astronomy, science and technology, optics, architecture and civil engineering,
metallurgy, and early archaeology. Observations of the natural world included those of
wildlife, meteorology, hypotheses advancing early ideas in geomorphology and climate
change based on findings of petrification and natural erosion, and strange recorded
phenomena such as the description of an unidentified flying object.” From the item of
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Pool_Essays
In [Hamblyn, 2011], it is told that the Dream Pool Essays is a “sprawling collection” of
more that five hundred entries on subjects including mathematics, astronomy, geology
and botany. “Medieval Chinese technology was extraordinarily advanced”. According
to the scientist and historian Joseph Needham (1900-95), “the world’s first description
of a magnetic compass,” is contained in the Dream Pool. From [Hamblyn, 2011] let us
see how the Dream Pool is describing the Pole Star and the meteorite fall.
“The Pole Star: Before Han times it was believed that the pole star was in the centre of
the sky, so it was called Chi hsing (‘Summit star’). Tsu Kêng-Chih found out with the
help of the sighting-tube that the point in the sky which really does not move was a little
more that 1° away from the summit-star. In the Hsi-Ning reign-period (+1068-1077) I
accepted the order of the emperor to take charge of the Bureau of the Calendar. I then
tried to find the true pole by means of the tube. On the very first night I noticed that the
star which could be seen through the tube moved after a while outside the field of view.
I realized, therefore, that the tube was too small, so I increased the size of the tube by
stages. After three months’ trials I adjusted it so that the star would go round and round
within the field of view without disappearing. In this way I found that the pole-star was
distant from the true pole some what more that 3°. We used to make diagrams of the
field, plotting the positions of the star from the time when it entered the field of view,
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observing after nightfall, at midnight, and early in the morning before dawn. Two
hundred of such diagrams showed that the ‘pole-star’ was really a circumpolar star. And
this I stated in my detailed report to the emperor.” [Hamblyn, 2011]
Fig. 17 - The Pole Star (Stella Polare), year 1088, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, simulated by
Stellarium.
Fig. 18 - The Pole Star (Stella Polare), 1600 BC, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, simulated by
Stellarium. The star was far from the pole, but Kochab was closer.
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“Meteorite Fall: In the 1st year of the Chih-Phing reign period (+1064), there was a
tremendous noise like thunder at Chhang-chou about noon. A fiery star as big as the
moon appeared in the south-east. In a moment there was a further thunderclap while the
star moved to south-west, and then with more thunder it fell in the garden of the Hs ü
family in the I-hsing district. Fire was seen reflected in the sky far and near, and fences
in the garden round about were all burnt. When they had been extinguished, a bowl-
shaped hole was seen in the ground, with the meteorite glowing within it for a long
time. Even when the glow ceased it was too hot to be approached. Finally the earth was
dug up, and a round stone as big as a fist, still hot, was found, with one side elongated.
Its colour and weight were like iron. The governor, Chêng Shen, sent it to the Chin Shan
temple at Jun-chou, where it is till kept in a box and shown to visitors.” [Hamblyn,
2011].
After reporting these same passages from the Dream Pool, in Needham and Ronan,
1978, it is told that “Meteorites had many other names in Chinese books besides the yün
already mentioned, or yün shih. Very early on they they were called thien chhuan,
‘hounds of heaven’. Moreover, as in other civilizations, meteorites were sometimes
confused with axes of the Neolithic period: in AD 660 a meteorite presented to the
emperor was called ‘the stone of the thunder-god’, and other names were ‘the thunder-
god’s ink block’ or ‘thunder lumps’.”
Additional Information
In [Rickard, 1941], we can find some references in the Latin literature about
meteorites. – VI – “The celestial origins of meteorites was recognized at an early date.
Livy makes note of several showers of stones that fell from the air, like hail, in 654 BC.
Chinese records mention a fall of meteorites in 644 BC. Among the most famous of
ancient meteorites is the one that fell in 466 BC at Aegospotami, in Thrace, as is
recorded on the Parian marble (now in the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford). It is
mentioned by Pliny also. Plutarch, in his life of Lucullus, describes the fall of a
meteorite at the moment when the Roman legions under Lucullus were about to engage
the Macedonian army under Mithridates, in AD 73. “In the very instant before joining
battle, without any perceptible alteration preceding, on a sudden the sky opened, and a
large luminous body fell down in the midst between the armies, in shape like a
hogshead, but in colour like melted silver, in so much that both armies in alarm
withdrew” (1910, p.237). References to meteorites are to be found in Revelation (vi. 13;
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viii, 10; xii, 3, 4).”

In the article entitled “Sacred meteorites and various stories associated with them”, by
Andrzej Kotowiecki, http://pressmania.pl/sacred-meteorites/ , we can find that “in the
history of antiquity, we have many examples of meteorites owned by temples as well as
examples of their collection and worship as gifts from the gods. In the Artemision in
Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, a large black stone that fell
from heaven was stored. … “ . Many other meteorites are mentioned by Kotowiecki.
In [Schaaf, 2002], it is told that “A chariot-sized stone is supposed to have killed ten
men in China in 616 BC. Meteorite falls and finds in China date back to before 2100
BC (though this is before the historical period), and iron meteorites were alloyed with
bronze to make weapons there before 1000 BC. Formal records on meteorite falls and
speculation on their cosmic origins began in China as early as 645 BC. … Even earlier
than the Chinese use of meteorite iron seems to be that of the Hittites, usually credited
with the first successful smelting of iron, around 1400 BC. A list of treasures of a
Hittite king in the sixteenth century BC mentions “black iron of heaven from sky”.
More that three millennia later, the fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien tells the story of a
hero with a sword “made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star”.
In discussing the “legs” from Hasanlu, Ref. [White Muscarella, 1988] tells the
following. “If the legs were from a chair or throne, one may suggests that the Hasanlu
legs belonged to a wood and iron throne, and thereby continued a long tradition. For we
are reminded of the Hittite Old Kingdom Anitta text that mentions an iron throne as a
precious royal object (Waldbaum 1978, 21, n.92). Whether the iron legs belonged to a
statue of a human, the body of which was sculpted wood, is of course not possible to
recognize (Hittite texts mention iron statues: Waldbaum 1978 ,21, 94)”.
From [Robinson, 1951] – Artifact of Meteoric Iron - “We may now examine what is
known of meteoric iron artefacts in prehistoric times. Unfortunately the list is a short
one, and is no doubt incomplete. After all, as the Eskimo worked and used meteoric iron
with very primitive equipment, we cannot deny that prehistoric man may well have
done the same thing, indeed we have proof that this was so. First, we have the iron
beads which Wainwright (1936, p. 7) found at Gerzah in Egypt, about fifty miles to the
south of Cairo. ... In the XVIII-dynasty tomb of Tutankhamun were several iron
objects, a dagger, miniature head-rest, an amuletic eye, and sixteen miniature
implements (Lucas, 1948, p. 272). … Certainly of meteoric origin is a small amulet
which has a silver head and an iron blade. This amulet is from Deir el Bahari, in Egypt,
and is of the XI-dynasty. … Several other finds of early iron in Egypt have often been
quoted, but as there appears to be considerable doubt about their origin and dating, it
57

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would be unwise to include them in our list. In one of the Royal Tombs of Ur in
Mesopotamia, Sir Leonard Woolley found some fragments of iron (Peake, 1933, p. 641,
and Desch, 1928). These fragments contained 10.9 per cent, of nickel, and were
therefore of meteoric origin. There are two objects from Treasure L of Troy II or III, but
doubt was expressed whether these pieces were really iron, and analyses were therefore
carried out .... Hence, it is unwise to consider that the Treasure L find is of meteoric
origin. It is also significant that artefacts of relatively low nickel iron have been
recorded from period III of Alaca Hüyük. These are an iron pin with gold-plated head,
Al/a, MC 34, and a fragment of a crescent plaque, Al/a, MC 33. Both objects have been
analyzed with the following results … In view of the above figures it is possible that a
low-nickel meteoric iron is here in question. Przeworski (1939, p- 143) says that there
were early finds of meteoric iron from a Tholos near Platamos, and at Mavro Spelio, but
he does not comment on the nickel content. Peake (1933, p. 641) mentions that in 1927
a cube of iron was discovered at Knossos in Crete in a Middle Minoan grave dating
from about 1800 b.c. It had evidently been regarded as a precious object, and is likely to
be of meteoric iron. The same is probably true of the iron finger-ring, believed to date
from 1550 b.c., found at Pylos in the Peloponnesus. In the case of artefacts of the lower
nickel ranges, unless there is careful metallographic examination as well as the analyses,
a certain confusion would appear possible because of the mineral pyrrhotite (an iron
mineral which occurs in grains or massive form impregnating metamorphic or
crystalline rocks).”
About copper in Egypt, see please Ref. [Johnsen, 2018)]. We can find that N41 was
used for copper. “Copper, known to the ancient Egyptians as ḥmt or bỉȝ is a naturally
occurring metallic element that forms thin, crumpled, sheet-like or small nugget
formations in its native form. … If iron had been used in the production of large
numbers of objects anciently than it stands to reason that such objects would have been
preserved in a similar manner to other artifacts and that archaeologists would be able to
identify them in the archaeological record. Unfortunately, few such items exist. The
primary evidence of iron use is found in the slag that remains from copper and bronze
smelting operations. Small amounts of iron oxide were used as fluxing agents to process
copper and separate it from its impurities in the smelting process. One other, often cited
example of an iron artifact from New Kingdom Egypt is Tutankhamun’s iron dagger
(JE 61585AB). However, the dagger is not necessarily an Egyptian product. It appears
to have been a gift given by a foreign, likely Hittite, dignitary or king. Furthermore the
dagger is purportedly made of meteoric iron. In either case, the general use of iron as a
material resource seems not to have taken root with in the technology of Egypt.
Whatever the reason, the failure to develop and use iron as a resource put Egypt at a
58

January 16, 2024
distinct technological disadvantage when compared to its neighboring Near Eastern

kingdoms and is one of the possible causes for the downfall of Egyptian civilization
during the Late Period and the success of foreign invaders like the Persians.”
let us move from Egypt to Central Asia, where we find the fearless king Geser. As we
have previously told, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote of him and his sword.
In [Day, 2020], Geser and Kurkar are described. Geser “becomes an extraordinary
alchemist by combining his skills as a smith with his inherited powers of sorcery. He
creates many wonders in his smithy for his master, but for himself he forges an
unbreakable sword from celestial (meteoric) iron. Geser prepares himself for his
ultimate duel with his great enemy, Kurkar. However, he knows that his enemy cannot
be slain until a huge iron mandala ring or talisman that is kept in the palace treasury is
destroyed. This huge iron talisman contains the “life” or “soul” or Kardar and all
ancestors. …”
“The Epic of King Gesar[a] ... is an epic cycle, of Tibet and greater Central Asia,
believed to date from the 12th century, that relates the heroic deeds of the culture hero
Gesar, the fearless lord of the legendary kingdom of Ling (Wylie: gling). It is recorded
variously in poetry and prose, through oral poetry performance, it is sung widely
throughout Central Asia and North East of South Asia. ... The first printed version was a
Mongolian text published in Beijing in 1716.” From Wikipedia
“There is no indication that Tolkien knew or was inspired by the tales of Geser and
Kurkar, but both The Lord of the Rings and the stories of Geser share an ancient and
widespread archetypal theme of kings as magician-smiths and ring lords” [Day, 2019].
In [Bellezza, 2014], we can find that “the priest and rules of Zhang Zhung were attired
in sumptuous fur robes, and that they wore turquoise, patterned agates, and meteoric
iron talismans, as well as brandishing many kind of weapons.” “Zhangzhung or
Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom of western and northwestern Tibet,
which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is
associated with the Bon religion, which in turn, has influenced the philosophies and
practices of Tibetan Buddhism. … Recently, a tentative match has been proposed
between the Zhangzhung and an Iron Age culture now being uncovered on the
Changtang plateau in northwestern Tibet.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung
In [GUIDE], an expert’s guide to meteorites is given.
59

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Meteoric Iron in Ancient Egyptian and Chinese Cultures,

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna

Torino, May 18, 2022

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Sign N41 and the Pyramid Texts

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Old Kingdom. Table from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_of_ancient_Egypt

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1 About ka see please https://www.britannica.com/topic/ka-Egyptian-religion

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The big void in Akhet Khufu

In the secret repository

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powders in a ratio of 1:5:1. “At a pressure of 5GPa (gigapascals) – equivalent to 50,000

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Caliph Al Ma’mun and his father

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Shafts and Heaven’s Doors

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Iron throne and sceptre

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Fig. 4 - Octavian, togate, seated on curule

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Fig. 5 - KHUFU – Courtesy Osiritkos for Wikimedia.

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The Pindar’s iron throne

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During the Early Iron Age

From the Guide of British Museum (1904)

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Ancient “, British Museum, Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, written

The metal throne

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Glittering in the nightly sky

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The Bull’s Leg

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The metal of Seth

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‘Opening of the Mouth and Eyes’ ritual

The second Khufu solar boat

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Was the metal copper? Or iron, meteoric iron?

Black-market and Kamil Crater

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Other non destructive analyses