Japanese scientists took X-rays of an iron dagger found in Tutankhamun’s tomb to learn how it was made, the metal of which was confirmed to have come from a meteorite in 2016.
According to a new study, the dagger was made using a low-temperature polishing process, but was not polished in Egypt.
Archaeologists discovered a 35-centimeter dagger in the burial chamber of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in the 1920s, among other riches, buried by the pharaoh.
The dagger was made of iron, but scientists were puzzled by the fact that the Iron Age began only a century after the death of Tutankhamun, and besides, this blade was not touched by rust.
Gradually, researchers came to the conclusion that iron objects, which preceded the wide spread of relevant knowledge about metallurgy, were formed from meteoric iron – pieces of metal that fell from space and were subsequently processed on Earth. Such things were highly valued both in Egypt and abroad.
A 2016 study confirmed the likely meteoric origin of dagger iron, but questions remained about its manufacturing technology.
The researchers have now examined the blade’s structure at the microscopic level using X-ray diffraction analysis, and have identified iron, nickel, manganese, and cobalt nodules in it.
Sulfur, chlorine, calcium and zinc were also found in black spots on the blade. Their distribution was no less interesting than the presence of certain chemical elements, which indicates that the dagger is made of octahedrite, which belongs to the most common classes of structures of iron meteorites.
“We found small black spots on the surface of the dagger,” said Tomoko Arai of the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. “At first we thought it was rust. But it turns out that these are iron sulfides, which are usually found as inclusions in octahedral iron meteorites.
Arai explained that the presence of iron sulfide, as well as the distinct fine pattern on the blade, indicated that it was formed at a relatively low temperature of less than 950 °C.
Although chemical analysis did not directly reveal the origin of the dagger, scholars have been able to use a series of 3,400-year-old tablets known as the Amarna Archive, to document diplomatic activity in ancient Egypt in the mid-14th century BC, to find out. That a certain iron dagger in a golden sheath – apparently a rare accessory at the time – was given by the king of Mitanni, a region in Anatolia, to Amenhotep III, Tutankhamun’s grandfather, when the pharaoh married his daughter.
So it is possible that the space dagger that Tutankhamun used was a family heirloom obtained from abroad. Detailed analysis also showed that the gemstones in the dagger’s handle were attached in a way that was widely used in Mitanni but not used in Egypt itself at that time.
