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We may still be looking for proof that aliens exist, but new research into some very curious ancient tools now reveals that humans were using extraterrestrial material long before mankind even dreamed of flying out of Earth’s atmosphere. The findings, which were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveal that some incredibly old iron artifacts date to a time well before humans had the technological wit to smelt iron ore, and as it turns out, the iron used in their construction actually fell from the sky. Archaeologists have long suspected that the iron occasionally found amongst Bronze Age artifacts...

Tutankhamun died at a young age with a feminine physique. His closest relatives, including his father Akhenaten, his uncle or brother Smenkhkare and preceding 18th dynasty pharaohs Amenhotep III and Tuthmosis IV, all shared similar features and fates. While scholars tend to relate the deaths of these pharaohs to separate circumstances, Hutan Ashrafian suggests that the royal family may have had an inherited disorder: temporal lobe epilepsy. Temporal lobe epilepsy is known to affect the release of hormones and sexual development. Tutankhamun was depicted with a feminine physique. Due to his short life, his representations are far less common than...

Experts used ground penetrating radar (GPR) which provided "conclusive evidence of the non-existence of hidden chambers adjacent to or inside Tutankhamun's tomb," the ministry said in a statement. ... It said Porcelli had submitted a report that "concluded, with a very high degree of confidence... the hypothesis concerning the existence of hidden chambers or corridors adjacent to Tutankhamun's tomb is not supported by GPR data." Previous scans had suggested the possibility of hidden chambers, although experts disagreed on the results.

"We can now say that Tutankhamun was the child of Akhenaten," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Discovery News. The finding offers evidence against another leading theory that King Tut was sired by the minor king Smenkhkare. Hawass discovered the missing part of a broken limestone block a few months ago in a storeroom at el Ashmunein, a village on the west bank of the Nile some 150 miles south of Cairo. Once reassembled, the slab has become "an accurate piece of evidence that proves Tut lived in el Amarna with Akhenaten and he married his...

The glamorous face of Queen Nefertiti, who could have been the mother of King Tutankhamun, has been brought to life using the latest 3D imaging technology. It took 500 hours to recreate the bust and the jewellery was even handcrafted by designers from Dior. However, the colour of the 3,400-year-old queen's skin has raised controversy with people claiming she would not have been so fair in real life.

Archaeologist Mary Shepperson, who previously dug with the Amarna Project, reported in The Guardian this week on the discovery of "the simple desert graves of the ordinary Egyptians who lived and worked in Akhenaten's city and never got to leave." "They paint a picture of poverty, hard work, poor diet, ill-health, frequent injury and relatively early death," ... "As we started to get the first skeletons out of the ground it was immediately clear that the burials were even simpler than at the South Tombs Cemetery, with almost no grave goods provided for the dead and only rough matting used...

The mystery of the final resting place of the wife of Ancient Egypt's most famous ruler has moved a step closer to being solved. Egyptologists previously discovered what they believe is the burial chamber of Ankhesenamun, Tutankhamun's wife, in the Valley of The Kings. If confirmed, it could help to unravel the final fate of the boy king's wife, who suddenly disappeared from historical records after her second marriage. The teen bride is believed to have had a tragic life, marrying her father, her grandfather and her half-brother Tutankhamun. Archaeologists have now begun to excavate an area near a tomb...

Despite the name, there was iron in the Bronze Age. It was just extremely rare. Most famously, the pharaoh Tutankhamun had a headrest, bracelet and dagger made of iron. Other iron artifacts from the same time have also been found around the globe. The existence of these artifacts has led to an archaeological debate: was there, in fact, iron smelting in the Bronze Age? According to a new chemical analysis, the answer is no. The iron humans had during the Bronze Age came from space.

"Our evidence shows definitively that the population decline in this period cannot have been caused by climate change," says Ian Armit, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bradford, and lead author of the study. Graeme Swindles, Associate Professor of Earth System Dynamics at the University of Leeds, added, "We found clear evidence for a rapid change in climate to much wetter conditions, which we were able to precisely pinpoint to 750BC using statistical methods." According to Professor Armit, social and economic stress is more likely to be the cause of the sudden and widespread fall in numbers. Communities producing...

Conventional estimates for the collapse of the Aegean civilization may be incorrect by up to a century, according to new radiocarbon analyses. While historical chronologies traditionally place the end of the Greek Bronze Age at around 1025 BCE, this latest research suggests a date 70 to 100 years earlier. Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham selected 60 samples of animal bones, plant remains and building timbers, excavated at Assiros in northern Greece, to be radiocarbon dated and correlated with 95.4% accuracy using Bayesian statistical methodology at the University of Oxford and the Akademie der Wissenschaften Heidelberg, Germany. 'Until very recently...

Researchers have shown that ancient Egyptian iron beads held at the UCL Petrie Museum were hammered from pieces of meteorites, rather than iron ore. The objects, which trace their origins to outer space, also predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being rolled into tubes, the nine beads – which are over 5000 years-old - were originally strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic material in ancient times. The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science....

An ancient Buddhist statue that was recovered by a Nazi expedition in the 1930s was originally carved from a highly valuable meteorite. Researchers say the 1,000-year-old object with a swastika on its stomach is made from a rare form of iron with a high content of nickel. They believe it is part of the Chinga meteorite, which crashed about 15,000 years ago. The findings appear in the Journal, Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The 24cm (9-inch) tall statue is 10kg (22lb) and is called the Iron Man. Origins unknown The story of this priceless object owes more perhaps to an Indiana...

One of Canada's top archeologists argues in a new book that the prehistoric ancestors of this country's 55,000 Inuit probably migrated rapidly from Alaska clear across the Canadian North in just a few years -- not gradually over centuries as traditionally assumed -- after they learned about a rich supply of iron from a massive meteorite strike on Greenland's west coast. The startling theory, tentatively floated two decades ago by Canadian Museum of Civilization curator emeritus Robert McGhee, has been bolstered by recent research indicating a later and faster migration of the ancient Thule Inuit across North America's polar frontier...

The Delhi Iron Pillar, which has withstood corrosion for over 1,600 years, continues to attract the attention of archaeologists and scientists who want to undertake a systematic study to unfold the secret behind its strength. A panel of scientists from across the country has recommended that the Government allow research on the pillar, a symbol of Indian metallurgical excellence, to ascertain its age, as well as for conservation of its underground part and the passive film that has preserved it through the ages. "The Archaeological Survey of India has agreed to allow the use of well-established non-invasive techniques to ascertain...

Iron Age pops out of KZN sewer September 06 2002 at 11:42AM Iron Age artefacts between 50,000 and 100,000 years old were unearthed while workers were digging to lay a new sewerage pipe near Amanzimtoti on Thursday. Pieces of iron smelting furnaces, slag and iron ore, arrowheads and bits of human bone had so far been found, said Gavin Anderson of the Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg. Once the area had been fully excavated, the artefacts would be displayed in the museum, he said. - Sapa

Scientists have discovered a huge crater in the Saharan desert, the largest one ever found there. The crater is about 19 miles (31 kilometers) wide, more than twice as big as the next largest Saharan crater known. It utterly dwarfs Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is about three-fourths of a mile (1.2 kilometers) in diameter. In fact, the newfound crater, in Egypt, was likely carved by a space rock that was itself roughly 0.75 miles wide in an event that would have been quite a shock, destroying everything for hundreds of miles. For comparison, the Chicxulub crater left by a...

A team of scientists claims to have found the first-ever definitive evidence of a comet striking Earth. After conducting a series of analyses, the researchers determined that a mysterious black pebble discovered years ago in the Egyptian desert is a piece of a comet nucleus — the first ever discovered. "It’s a typical scientific euphoria when you eliminate all other options and come to the realization of what it must be," study lead author Jan Kramers, of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, said in a statement. [Best Close Encounters of the Comet Kind] The pebble, which the team...

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Italian and Egyptian researchers analyzed the metal with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”. They compared the composition to known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite.

King Tut owned a dagger that was out of this world—literally. Researchers have recently published a study in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science that supports what has long been suspected: The ancient Egyptians were using meteoritic iron well before the spread of iron smelting technology. The recent study on King Tut’s dagger, led by researchers from Italy and Egypt, used X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to analyze the composition of the iron blade. Iron meteorites mostly contain iron and nickel, and the results of the XRF analysis on King Tut’s dagger confirm that the blade is mostly composed of iron...