Confirmed: Ancient Egyptian Jewelry Was Made From Meteorites
Egyptian Beads Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Photo by Gianluca Miniaci Barraging ancient beads with tests tells archaeologists that jewelry came from space-rocks--and that iron-working was an older job than we thought. If you want to track down meteorite debris, UCL Qatar professor Thilo Rehren explains in a phone interview, you have a couple options: your best bet is to scour for the black chunks of rock in the white plains of Antarctica, "but the second best place to hunt meteorites is the Sahara Desert," where it's relatively easy to find space rocks amid the expansive, light sands. About 5,000 years ago, that's where the Egyptians likely looked. Rehren and a team of archaeologists have been studying Egyptian jewelry first uncovered from a grave in 1911--specifically, a set of beads from around 3,200 B.C. (The markings on ceramics and other finds at the site indicate the general time period.) The...