The Ancient Egyptians were often ahead of the times, but this is unbelievable! We know they were advanced in writing, medicine and architecture, but were they so advanced that they managed to make jewelry from outer space!
Incredible, yes. But they didn’t travel into space themselves…
For almost 100 years scientist have been scratching their heads at the mystery of nine beads found in a cemetery at Gerzeh, just outside of Cairo, Egypt. The beads are believed to be about 5,000 years old and come from ancient Egypt. The strange thing about the beads is what they are made of: iron, rock and nickel.
Creating a bead like that today wouldn’t be too hard, if you have access to a lab and scientific chemicals. You would just have to use a process known as smelting, where you combine heat and chemicals to melt the materials together. Of course Ancient Egyptians didn’t have access to a lab or scientific chemicals, so for decades scientist have argued over what exactly the beads were made of and how they were made.
It turns out the materials for the beads were not made here; they were made in space! On May 20 2013, scientists announced that the beads actually came from a meteorite that must have fallen to earth around 3,300 BC.
The scientist now believe that the Egyptians made the beads by hammering pieces of the metal off of the original meteorite into thinner more bendable pieces and then shaping them into tubes by hand.
(Photo from:OPEN UNIV./UNIV. MANCHESTER)