The world's most famous Egyptian King owned some pretty cool things, but the most impressive thing in his possession was a dagger that was made from a meteorite that fell to the Earth. Not only is it incredibly beautiful, but the craftsmanship that went into making it shows us the importance that early Egyptians placed on the iron from these meteorites that they forged into weapons long before the Iron Age began. Around this same time, a hieroglyph began to appear on tablets which translated into "Iron from the sky." Here's what the researchers, led by Daniela Comelli, wrote in their studies on the dagger:
“The introduction of the new composite term suggests that 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.”
After using a technique called fluorescence spectroscopy to analyze the blade, which allows them to determine the elemental composition of the dagger without damaging it, they determined that it was made from an iron meteorite. Going back through their historical records of meteorites that had fallen within a 2000 km range of city, they narrowed it down to one meteorite out of a possible 20 that they were aware of. Through it's chemical composition, they determined that it belonged to the "Kharga meteorite" which was discovered in 2000on a "limestone plateau in Mersa Matruh, a seaport west of the city of Alexandria."
You can see the dagger in the picture below:
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