Necklace in the making.
Posted on 06/26/2006 4:32:58 PM PDT by blam
King Tut's necklace shaped by fireball
June 26, 2006
LONDON: Scientists believe they have solved the mystery surrounding a piece of rare natural glass at the centre of an elaborate necklace found among the treasures of Tutankhamun, the boy pharaoh. They think a fragile meteorite broke up as it entered the atmosphere, producing a fireball with temperatures over 1800C that turned the desert sand and rock into molten lava that became glass when it cooled.
Experts have puzzled over the origin of the yellow-green glass -- carved into the shape of a scarab beetle -- since it was excavated in 1922 from the tomb of the teenage king, who died about 1323BC.
It is generally agreed the glass came from an area called the Great Sand Sea, but there has been uncertainty over how it was formed because there is no crater to back up the idea of a meteorite. Now it is thought the meteorite responsible was not intact but made up of loose rubble.
"A fireball moving quicker than a hurricane force would have meant a blast of air so hot it could melt all the sand and sandstone on the ground," said Mark Boslough, an expert on impact physics based at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
He recreated the effect on his computer and found that an object 120m in diameter and travelling at 20km a second would produce enough heat to melt sand and create glass without leaving a crater as it broke up in the atmosphere.
"It would have become a molten lake of bubbling liquid sand, and as the sand cooled it would have formed glass, which ended up in King Tutankhamun's jewellery," said Dr Boslough. The necklace with the 2.5cm oval glass is housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The object was one of hundreds of items discovered by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. In his diary, he described the brightly coloured gem as "greenish yellow chalcedony". But in 1999, geologists tested the composition of the scarab and concluded it was not chalcedony but natural desert glass, which is found only in the Great Sand Sea 800km southwest of Cairo.
Many meteorite craters can be seen only from space, so satellite photography experts examined the area. Farouk El-Baz, from Boston University, said: "If this glass is of meteoric origin, there should be a crater of that age.
"But we did not find a smoking gun for silica (glass) there," Dr El-Baz said.
In the jargon of current jewelry artists this would be described as fabricated from a "found" object.
This piece will be the ultimate "found object" reference.
Me too.
Did you do the Monkey?
Are you Thor sure?
He's my favorite Honkey.
hmmmm....hang on a second...
Buried with a donkey.
Necklace in the making.
The Middle Times were ending, and the heavens were filled with fire, and The Lord did fight to throw The Daemon out of the heavens.
And the fight was fierce, and the sky was filled with bright flashes of fire, and debris did rain down on the people, and they were frightened.
And The Lord did seem to cast The Daemon out.
And The People did wear clothing, and such armor and helms as they had, to protect them, all painted in the various colors of the desert, so The Daemon might not see them.
And The Daemon did come, as if cast from the heavens, roaring down with a great noise, a frightening wail as had never been heard before.
And The People saw him approach the earth, and they were afraid.
And The People faced The Daemon, and prostrated themselves flat on their bellies; and they turned up their collars, to hide their necks, and they tucked their arms under them, lest the Daemon see their hands; and they bowed their heads, and seemed to kiss the dry desert floor.
But The Daemon knew them, and saw them in the desert, and was displeased, that they had attempted to hide.
And The Daemon released his awful wrath, and The People were terrified.
And those of The People that had displeased The Daemon, by their proximity to him, were instantly consumed by fire, such that all that was left of them, and of their clothes, and of their armor and helms, was a dark stain on the dry, cracked desert floor.
And those that had displeased The Daemon, by casting their eyes on him, were instantly struck blind, never to see again.
And those farther yet from The Daemon, were burned horribly, although they did live, some for a day, some lingering on in awful pain for weeks.
And those farther yet from The Daemon, they thought themselves spared, and that the Daemon might let them live.
And then The Daemon did exhale, in a mighty blast of hot air, so strongly that boulders were tossed across the desert, as a child might skip a rock on a calm lake; and the sick, and the burned, and the wounded, and the dead, were rolled up in the great wave of The Daemons breath, and many were crushed.
And then did The Daemon draw breath, in a wave of air as strong as his mighty exhalation, and more of The People were caught up, and torn, and crushed by the rocks and boulders of the desert.
And then there was a mighty clap, such that many of The People that had survived thus far were struck deaf, and The Daemon was gone.
And in place of The Daemon was a mighty pillar of fire, topped by a huge cloud of smoke, that blacked out the sun, and made the day into night.
And those of The People who had survived, again thought that they had bean spared; but many among them did sicken, and their fingernails, and their toenails, and their teeth did fall out, and they did die.
And The People were no more, and only a few, scattered through the desert, did survive.
And the Final Times did begin.
NFP
Tektite. Egyptian iron was iron meteorites they found. The Egyptian word for iron is a pictogram that shows a smelter and meteorites. The Greek word for iron means 'from the sky.' Meteorites were valuable then; still are, but mostly to collectors.
Most interesting.
Yes, I think that's it. But now I'm a bit concerned. How long do you think it will be before someone believing in ancient astronauts claims the glass was produced in a nuclear test?
ping
Conjuration of the Fire God
(translated)
Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) is almost pure silica. It occurs in pieces weighing up to 16 lbs in the Sand Sea of the Libyan desert, in an area roughly 130 by 53 kilometers.
http://glenavalon.com/ldglass.html
You must have been there to be able to describe the event so vividly!
not quite - I ain't that old. LOL.
What? Y'mean to say it *wasn't*?!?!? ;')
Whoa! The Annunaki (Nephilim) nuked Ur....
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