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

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

#31

Post by mod »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #22
tome wrote: 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...

> The discoveries in the tomb were prominent news in the 1920s. Tutankhamen came to be called by a modern neologism, "King Tut". Ancient Egyptian references became common in popular culture, including Tin Pan Alley songs; the most popular of the latter was "Old King Tut" by Harry Von Tilzer from 1923, which was recorded by such prominent artists of the time as Jones & Hare and Sophie Tucker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun

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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

will_brown wrote: post #15
xufi wrote: 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…

[deleted]

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

#34

Post by InclinedPlane »

oblio wrote: post #30
InclinedPlane wrote: post #25

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…

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!

There's plenty in there that's directly applicable other than just generally interesting. History of technology stuff aside, there's a lesson in the bronze/iron age transition in regards to A/B testing driving development and even agile. It's practically impossible to A/B testing evolve your way from bronze working to iron working, and it's difficult to do so even if you're doing directed development using an agile model. You have to try different things and have diverse, competing projects if you want to make that leap, and you have to allow time for new technologies to reach maturity. That has applicability not just in providing enough resources to develop "next gen" platforms or what-have-you but also in avoiding committing too early to something new before it's fully baked. Even if you could see the hypothetical advantages of iron working way back in the mid-bronze age it didn't make sense to switch until much later.

Some technological advancements are easy to access, others require a lot more investment to mature, and often it's the second category which are superior. Given the general lack of investment in serious R&D by most of SV, and how much the tech industry in general has backed away from pure research, I think there are some applicable lessons there.

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

#35

Post by will_brown »

oblio wrote: post #28
will_brown wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 pas…

Yep. I originally included that and erased it for some reason.

You are probably right about 2 as well, the reasons I like to think they might have been aware: 1.) there were Amphora made of both silver and gold; and 2.) they recognized the antimicrobial properties of other things (example: honey on wounds to avoid infection).

Obviously the Amphora could simply be chalked up to displays of wealth, but I would think they observed the delay in food/beverage degradation in those Amphora compared to standard clay. I guess the funny thing with gold is even today we don't have broad industrial usage (probably good because of the limited supply), though I I suppose trace amounts are used in some modern electronics.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] »

will_brown wrote: post #15
xufi wrote: 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…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by colechristensen »

phreeza wrote: post #23
joliya65 wrote: post #17

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?

The Vikings were around a little under 2000 years after Tutankhamun.

The Viking swords in question were early examples of steel of some surprising quality. Iron technologies had existed for 1000 years at that point around Europe.

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

#38

Post by yoodenvranx »

yk wrote: post #26
will_brown wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

This is actually a crucial point in the later parts of Neal Stephensons Quicksilver/Baroque cycle.

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

#40

Post by dominotw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #29
dominotw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

eh my brain swapped interesting for famous. to make up for that comment here is an interesting tidbit .

The word chemistry/alchemy comes from ancient word for Egypt - Khmet, because they were such experts at metal.

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