2023-07-10 08:30:01
Although more than a hundred years have passed since Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, stories about the young pharaoh, his largely intact tomb, the treasures that surrounded him, and, of course, the discovery itself continue to generate fascination today, just as it was when newspapers reported Carter’s feat in late 1922. The photographs taken by the Egyptologist, the impressive gold funerary mask, the quartzite sarcophagus, the gilt coffin, and the depiction of the scene of the Amduat on the walls of the burial chamber are astonishing. But what is most surprising is a peculiar dagger with an iron blade that accompanied the mummy.
That’s right.
It is probably one of the biggest mysteries.
An iron dagger? That’s how it is. At first glance, it may not look as impressive as Tutankhamen’s death mask, but the dagger that accompanied his mummy has fascinated Egyptologists for nearly a century. During his investigations in the 1920s, Carter discovered two daggers among the bandages of the young pharaoh’s mummy, which had been mummified more than 3,300 years ago.
One of the daggers had a gold blade, while the other, with an iron blade, had a gold handle, a rock crystal pommel, and a gold scabbard carefully carved with figures of lilies and jackals. Of the two daggers, it has been the latter that has puzzled researchers since the days of Howard Carter.
The dagger found in the tomb of Tutankhamen.
And what is the reason? Rather, “reasons” in the plural. The main one is that the weapon seems to be anachronistic. The dagger, with a roughly polished double-edged iron blade, represents a true enigma. Tutankhamun’s reign took place between 1361 and 1352 BC, during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, in the last stage of the Bronze Age. At that time, iron was still several decades away from widespread use thanks to the technological advances of the Iron Age. And that makes this piece a mystery.
“The reign of Tutankhamun occurred before the period of widespread use of iron, known as the Iron Age,” explain the authors of an article published in 2022 in ‘Meteoritics & Planetary Science’ on the dagger. During an interview with El País, one of the researchers, Tomoko Arai, went even further and pointed out that the origin of Tutankhamen’s dagger goes beyond mere curiosity or even the field of Egyptology: “It directly affects history widely accepted form of human civilization from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age”.
What kind of iron is this? Therein lies the fundamental question. The iron in Tutankhamen’s dagger comes from nothing less than space. Over the years, scientists have analyzed the metal blade of the weapon, which measures about 35 centimeters in length, and found that it contains 11% nickel and 0.6% cobalt, indicating that the material is related to a meteorite.
The high nickel content was detected by analysis with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer carried out several years ago by Italian and Egyptian researchers. During their study, they compared its composition with that of meteorites recorded on a wide stretch of the Red Sea coast of Egypt and found similar levels in one of the samples, corresponding to the Kharga meteorite, which was located about 240 km west of Alexandria. , in a port city known as Amunia in the 4th century BC
But how did it get into the hands of Pharaoh? The study published in 2022 confirms the origin of the dagger’s material, but also provides crucial information: although the Iron Age is believed to have started after 1200 BC, there are artifacts made earlier, during the Bronze Age period, with meteoric iron. Their analysis specifically suggests that it is an octahedrite meteorite and that the pharaoh’s dagger was made using a low-temperature forging technique, below 950ºC, which explains its Widmanstaätten pattern. However, this piece is not unique.
Scientists point out that there are prehistoric iron artifacts, made from meteorites, dating back to the Bronze Age. In fact, such a dagger has been found at Alacuhöyük in Anatolia, dating to the Early Bronze Age, around 2300 BC “This find suggests that the technology for working meteoric iron and making complex objects has at least 4,300 years old and may have been known in Anatolia,” the experts explain. Unlike the Turkish dagger, which is badly corroded, the one found next to Tutankhamen offers a fantastic study opportunity.
Does that explain how it got to Tutankhamen? Not at all. Experts concede that there is no evidence that the 18th Dynasty Egyptians mastered the technology needed to make meteorite iron daggers. So how did it come into the hands of Tutankhamen? How do you explain that it ended up in the tomb of a pharaoh in the late Bronze Age, where Carter found it? Thanks to expert analysis, we have some answers.
Examining the gold hilt, they identified traces of plaster, a material used to affix ornaments. It may seem like an insignificant detail, but since the technique of lime plastering in Egypt did not begin until the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC), this small clue has led researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology to deduce that it is likely that the dagger will arrive from Mitanni, Anatolia.
Why specifically from there? Because the Amarna letters, diplomatic correspondence preserved on clay tablets, tell how the monarch of that kingdom gave an iron dagger with a gold hilt to Amenhotep III, Tutankhamen’s grandfather, who would have taken that family heirloom to his grave. . The team of scientists did not consider that the mystery was completely solved and, at least until 2022, recognized that their conclusions were not definitive, but they shed more light and provided a quite plausible origin for one of the ancient Egyptian pieces that has surprised the Egyptian history enthusiasts.
Did meteorites have a special value? That is one of the possibilities that experts have raised. In 2016, for example, the discovery of other relevant pieces was reported: nine blackened iron beads found in a cemetery near the Nile River in northern Egypt, dated to around 3200 BC, long before the time of Tutankhamun.
These pieces are believed to have been made by striking fragments of meteorites and feature an alloy of nickel and iron. “We suggest that the ancient Egyptians placed great value on meteoric iron to produce fine ornamental or ceremonial objects,” the authors explained in statements reported by The Guardian.
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