3,400-year-old tablets suggest King Tut's ancient dagger was not from Egypt

Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.

A team of researchers from Japan and Egypt have found evidence that suggests a dagger found in King Tut's tomb was made outside of Egypt. In their paper published in the journal, the group describes their study of the dagger and what they learned from it.

Archaeologists found a dagger with an iron blade when they opened King Tut's tomb in the early 1900s. The Iron Age had not yet begun. Humans did not know how to heat native iron. It was assumed that the dagger blade was made by hitting metal from a meteorite. Humans were making many implements from iron from meteorites thousands of years before the beginning of the Iron Age.

Various researchers have studied the dagger in order to learn more about its origin. In 2016 a team of researchers confirmed that the iron was from a meteorite and now they have learned more about the meteorite that was used to make the blade. They used a microscope to get a closer look at the x-rays they fired at the blade. It was made of expected metals such as iron and nickel. Sulfur zinc and chlorine were mixed in. The cross-stitch pattern on one part of the blade has been seen before in other natural objects. The largest of the iron meteorites was suggested by this finding. The same pattern has been seen in other artifacts.

The analysis of the blade composition did not reveal where the meteorite had landed, but the study of the tablets gave some clues. The tablets were written about a century before King Tut was buried. The iron dagger was mentioned in a section of the transcription. The meteorite was given to King Tut's grandfather by the King of Mitanni, suggesting it may have landed in Syria.

More information: Takafumi Matsui et al, The manufacture and origin of the Tutankhamen meteoritic iron dagger, Meteoritics & Planetary Science (2022). DOI: 10.1111/maps.13787

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