Live data from Hacker News

King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

cbc.ca

21–30 of 68 posts

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#21

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

So they didn't even need to have a clue as to its origin for it to be precious, that's interesting. Can you recommend any good reading to become acquainted with the technology of that time period, in that region?

This is a good book on it https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancient-Egyptian-Materials-Technolo... not been able to find a copy online though.

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#22
post #14

Is it quite normal to call him King "Tut"?

I have always thought -- without any evidence -- of it as an American Thing. Like Farenheit temperatures.

As a kid I learned on TV about a pharaoh named Tutenkhamon, and at some point became aware of some Egyptian named "King Tut", who must surely be the same dude.

Though come to think of it, now that we have this interweb thingy, it's worth checking...

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#23

Check out the documentary Secrets of the Viking Sword. Goes into great depth concerning the materials and methods used in creating the Ulfberht blades. Don't remember meteorites being mentioned though. Maybe they simply didn't mention it in this documentary.

I think Viking swords were made hundreds of years after this, when the basics of iron production were known in most parts of the world?

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#24

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

>Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut

I think several sources are saying that Hittites had some iron artifacts already around 1800 BC and had iron works in 1380 BC?

I don't recall that scene from the book, but anyway, Waltari wrote it during WW II using just library sources in Helsinki; he never set foot in Egypt. (He said "I have lived in Egypt although I've never been there.")

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#25

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin, melt them together, and pour the melted metal into a mold. Now, there are lots of complexities in this process but those are mostly to improve it, and importantly those improvements can be got at through incremental trial and error. This is possible because copper, tin, et al have fairly low melting points compared to the impurities in their ores and compared to silicates (glass), and also because cast bronze is a strong form of bronze.

Iron, on the other hand, is a very different beast. The carbon monoxide trick works just as well with iron, but the relevant working temperatures of iron are way higher than with copper. Which means that you need a more advanced furnace to work with iron. However, the melting point of iron is higher than the melting point of its impurities, so you can't use the same trick you can with copper to purify it. Instead what you have to do is hold iron at around its welding temperature, and you melt the impurities within the iron. What you end up with is an iron "sponge" (or bloom) that you then remove from the furnace and beat with hammers to squirt out all the remaining molten impurities. Worse yet, cast iron is not a particularly good material in comparison to cast bronze, especially for tools and weapons. The proper way to make tools from iron is to make steel, and to forge it (heating it and beating it with hammers and other implements into shape). There are yet additional complexities involving quenching and cooling that can greatly affect the material properties of forged steel. All of these things are very much unlike bronze working and also require a lot of non-obvious steps to improve the process from one step to the next.

All of which is why the bronze age lasted for such a long time, even though some elements of iron working were known (from, for example, working with meteorites). The big advantages of iron working are that the materials (iron ore, etc.) are fairly common everywhere if you know where to find them (compared to the rarity of tin) and iron/steel implements can be mended and recycled extremely easily, even in the field.

As a side note, Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten, who completely upset the entire Egyptian religious system. Akhenaten demanded that the egyptians worship him directly, and he in turn worshiped the god Aten, forsaking all other gods in the egyptian pantheon. This was a big deal due to the importance of the religious bureaucracy at the time, among other reasons. When Tutankhamun (originally Tutankhaten) came to rule after his father's death he restored the old ways, including the importance of the religious establishment. It's thought by many that king tut's lavish funeral gifts are in large part from the religious order, as a thank you to bringing them back to prominence and power.

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#26
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, I believe this was also what I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) when they traded with other civilizations overseas

>I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) Probably 1 of 3 reasons Gold was valuable at all to the ancients: 1. Gold is the most malleable of all the metals, making it easy to coin in extreme detail. 2. Antimicrobial properties (probably kno…

Gold was also the heaviest known element until the middle of the 19th century, which means that all impurities swim at the top and so it is easy to purify simply by melting it. Plus you can assay it by a touchstone. So there are a lot properties that make Gold the best metal for coins.

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#27

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin…

> Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten

No. he is famous because his tomb was found intact by Howard carter.

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#28
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, I believe this was also what I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) when they traded with other civilizations overseas

>I read about how it being more valuable allowed these ancient civilizations who had access to it, to have some more monetary value to their coins and also showed their political influence (Ex: a picture of their leader ) Probably 1 of 3 reasons Gold was valuable at all to the ancients: 1. Gold is the most malleable of all the metals, making it easy to coin in extreme detail. 2. Antimicrobial properties (probably kno…

You forgot:

0. Gold doesn't corrode/oxydize/otherwise react easily with most common elements, thus keeping it properties over extremely long periods of time.

I doubt they knew or cared about 2). They did care about 1) being malleable and therefore easy to turn into pretty objects. They also cared that 3) it was shiny. But the main selling point was the fact that those pretty, shiny things lasted and could even be passed to the next generation ;)

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin…

> Tutankhamun is an interesting figure largely due to his father, Akhenaten No. he is famous because his tomb was found intact by Howard carter.

"Famous" and "interesting" are two different things.

Re: King Tut's dagger blade made from meteorite, study confirms

#30

The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)

To make copper from ore you take the ore, which is conveniently typically a very distinctive bright blue/green rock, and you put it in the middle of a hot campfire. The carbon monoxide in the fire reduces the ore and then melting the copper separates it from its impurities. This is similar to the way you'd get tin or lead or several other metals. Then, to make bronze you combine specific weights of raw copper and tin…

However strange this might seem on the news site of a Silicon Valley VC hub, this comment is truly worthy of HackerNews.

Thank you, sir, for this insightful post!

Post reply on HN