METEORITES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION

Meteorites have fascinated humanity for centuries, not only because of their extraterrestrial origin but also for the stories they tell about the early Solar System and the origin of planets.
Our ancient ancestors made their first tools from bone, wood, and stone, and later discovered copper and its alloys with tin (bronze), with which they created much stronger weapons and tools.
Copper, silver, and gold exist in metallic form, accessible for mining and direct processing, but on Earth, iron is almost always found in the form of ore that must be processed to extract it. Without the invention of the smelting process, people from the Bronze Age would not have been able to use the iron they found.
But there is another source of metal for making weapons, tools, and decorative items – meteorites. It has been proven that discovered artifacts made from iron of cosmic origin predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia.
In archaeological sites from the late Bronze Age, artifacts made from iron with nickel impurities have been found – a sure sign that the iron came from a meteorite. Whether they knew or not that it came from the sky, ancient peoples valued meteoritic iron. Finding it in nature, early blacksmiths quickly realized its superiority.
During the fourth millennium BCE, the forging of iron-nickel alloy was mastered, which was much harder and more brittle than the copper processed until then. In the middle of the second millennium BCE, iron production developed through the smelting of iron ore, building on almost two millennia of experience in processing meteoritic iron. This allowed this metal to replace copper and bronze used until then.
Studies of artifacts over the last decade have confirmed that some civilizations used iron from meteorites. A well-known example is the elegantly crafted polished dagger and other iron items found among the treasures sealed in Tutankhamun's tomb about 3,300 years ago.



The earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads from two burials in Gerzeh, Northern Egypt, dated around 3200 BCE. It has been proven that these beads were made from meteoritic iron and shaped by carefully hammering the metal into thin sheets, which were then rolled into tubes. They were strung in a necklace together with gold and precious stones, indicating the high value of this exotic material in antiquity. The research was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Ancient jewelry and weapons made from this rare material have been found in other parts of the world: beads in North America, axes in China, and a dagger in Turkey.
For many years, the Inuit in northwestern Greenland made blades, harpoons, as well as engraving tools from meteoritic iron from the legendary Greenland meteorite, of which three separate pieces have been found, the largest of which, the Tent (34 tons), is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.


The Ahnighito meteorite (34-ton piece of iron) from Greenland is exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York

SACRED STONES
THE BLACK STONE OF KAABA

The most famous sacred meteorite is the Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca, where Muslims pray five times daily. It is placed in the northeastern part of the outer corner of the temple and is considered the holiest treasure of Islam.
In the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca is the black cubic temple of the Kaaba, "the House of God." In one corner of the Kaaba is the Black Stone, which is believed to be of meteoritic origin. Its exposed surface is about 16.5 by 20 centimeters and is framed with a silver band. Islamic tradition describes the stone as coming from heaven, initially the color of hyacinth before turning black because of humanity's sins.

THE HOBA METEORITE

This is the largest known meteorite on Earth, weighing an astonishing 66 tons. It was discovered in 1920 on a farm near Grootfontein, Namibia, but probably fell on our planet about 80,000 years ago.
Composed mainly of iron and nickel, Hoba is about 2.7 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and nearly 1 meter thick, giving it the appearance of a massive metal block.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Hoba is that it did not create a crater upon impact with Earth's surface, despite its enormous weight and size. Scientists believe that this unusual phenomenon occurred because the meteorite entered Earth's atmosphere at a very small angle, which slowed its descent. Over time, it partially buried itself in the ground, where it was eventually discovered by a farmer. Hoba is protected as a national monument by the government of Namibia.

CHELYABINSK METEORITE: THE METEORITE THAT SHOOK RUSSIA
On February 15, 2013, the world was startled by the collision with Earth's surface of fragments from a small asteroid (2012 DA 14 class "Apollo"), which disintegrated upon entering Earth's atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia.
According to NASA calculations, the object was about 19 meters in diameter and had a mass of around 10,000 tons. It entered Earth's atmosphere at a very acute angle at a speed of 18 km/sec and exploded after about 32.5 seconds. About 10% of its initial mass reached Earth. The asteroid debris scattered over an area of 2,500 square kilometers over the Chelyabinsk region. The fragments found mostly weighed 5 grams, with the largest piece of the meteorite weighing 654 kg recovered from Lake Chebarkul.
The disintegration of the celestial body caused three explosions, accompanied by powerful bright glowing lasting about 5 seconds and a strong shock wave that circled the Earth twice. The explosion caused a blinding flash, followed by a powerful shock wave that broke windows, damaged buildings, and injured over 1,500 people (mainly from flying glass). It was recorded by thousands of witnesses. These recordings allowed researchers to accurately model the event and analyze the dynamics of the process.
According to NASA's assessment, this is the largest known celestial body to have fallen to Earth since the Tunguska meteorite in 1908 and corresponds to events occurring on average once every 100 years.


TUNGUSKA METEORITE

In modern history, the most eyewitness accounts describing the entry of a large meteor into Earth's atmosphere are about the event that occurred on June 17, 1908, over Podkamennaya Tunguska in Siberia, Russia. This meteor was observed in a remote part of Siberia but did not reach Earth. It exploded in the air, but the force of the explosion was so powerful that it knocked down trees over an area hundreds of kilometers wide, flattening nearly 3,600 square kilometers of forest taiga.
The explosion caused an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 on the Richter scale, and the shock wave was heard up to 1,000 km away. The power of the blast was 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Two decades after the events of June 1908, trees near the Tunguska River in Siberia still appeared devastated.
The Tunguska event ranks among the strongest impacts from space during the 20th century.

* The material uses photos from www.meteorites.bg