Meteoric Metal and Alien Iron, Part 3

those out first, But to do a quick recap. In part one, we focused largely on the iron dagger of Tuton Common, a blade found wrapped up with the pharaoh tuton Common inside his coffin from before the time of large scale smelting of iron in Egypt. And we discussed chemical and mineral analysis showing that this dagger was almost certainly made out of iron that came not from Earth, but from a piece of iron meteorite that fell from space. And it turns out that a lot of iron artifacts

like amulets, beads, tools and trinkets. A lot of these iron artifacts from before the various regional iron ages have this in common. They come from meteorites, so ancient peoples were taking alien metal that fell from the sky and

shaping it to their uses. In Part two, we talked about a few more specific artifacts believed to be made from meteorite irons, such as the Shang Dynasty axes from ancient China, and a meteorite iron sculpture known as the Iron Man or sometimes in the media as the Space Buddha, which was at one point alleged to be a Tibetan depiction of a divine figure in Buddhism known as vice Ravana, but according to some experts in Buddhist art, was actually

a twentieth century European design, amounting to a forgery or at least a crude imitation of Tibetan imagery. And then I ended up getting in to some of the speculation about who could have actually made this sculpture, which is a somewhat wild story if true, big if true. We also talked about the history of knowledge that meteorites come

from space. So it took scientists of the European Enlightenment until around the beginning of the nineteenth century to really agree on this, but there is some evidence that people in ancient China. In ancient Egypt and other cultures knew that this metal came from above, and some of the indications of this are linguistic, for example, in the fact that in the ancient Egyptian language there's a convention to refer to iron as iron of the sky or metal

of the sky. And so today we're back to talk about more possible uses of meteorite iron in technology and artifacts from human history. And you know, one thing that's interesting this has sort of come up a little so far, is that meteoric iron still retains a strong power, a sense of power, and a mystical appeal, even after the spread of tools and artifacts made from earth based iron.

So even after iron as an element becomes common and mundane, and you know, it's smelted out of iron ore from the earth and we use it to make all kinds of things, including including steel products, there's still something undeniably appealing and even perhaps mystical about iron from the stars.

any culture with access to the prerequisite metals. As we've just us on stuff to blow your mind and the artifact the short form episodes we were on Wednesday before, we see sword like weapons in cultures that did not have access to the prerequisite metal work, though their functionality is ultimately perhaps more comparable to a club. Thinking here about you know, particular examples of essentially wooden clubs that are that to the untrained eye might look like a sword.

May even be you may even have bits of stone embedded in them, you know, given this the swordlike appearance, so there is something like, even when you cannot make swords because you don't have the prerequisite materials, there is something about the form, and it's an extension of the human arm as a weapon that seems to lock up

in various cultures. At any rate, wherever the sword was known, the sword increasingly took on various literal symbolic metaphorical meanings, And this of course means that swords factor into various religious traditions in a number of ways, like, for instance, in Christiananity, Jesus mentions the sword as a metaphor for conflict, and I believe the particular passage is widely interpreted to

refer to social division rather than armed conflict. But like anything in a religious text, people will take it and apply whatever meaning they want to it.

in other religions. This is not to say that the sword in Islamic traditions isn't, but as with other cultures, it doesn't always refer to harmed conflict or violence.

this incorrectly. If so, I apologize, but the name's meaning is largely uncertain, but may relate to concepts of splitting, and is often depicted as a pronged, split or double bladed sword. You can look up images of various images of the sword in iconography, and depending on how it's presented, the blade may split near the tip or I've seen

examples of the blades splitting close to the hilt. So I guess it kind of runs the gamut from like the highly symbolic to the you know, pievable and practical, and again that we're talking about largely about imagery here. Actual symbolic swords have been produced, but the sword in question here, the dual Forakar, is I think largely understood

to be a mystical and or mythological item. The story goes, however, that the prophet acquires the sword at the Battle of Bata in six twenty four, and then ultimately passes the sword on to his son in law, Ali, the fourth Caliph, now Caliph's by the way, if you're not familiar, these were the Muslim civil and religious rulers who succeeded Muhammad. So the sword in question here, the Dulafaikar, is strongly

associated with Ali. There are various legends about his military exploits with this mystical weapon and its ability to cut through his enemies, though it is also a symbol of political and spiritual authority. It is in many ways said to be the sword of swords, as Islamic blades were traditionally inscribed with the phrase there is no sword but dul Fokar, and there is no hero but Ali. Okay, some superlatives, right right, And you can find examples of this.

I was looking around and like various museums inevitably have swords of Islamic origin that have that do mention the Dulfokar on them. So it's a can you can find examples of this, perhaps even in your own museum within your own region. Now, some say that the actual sword in question here, among other relics, is currently in the in the possession of the Topekapi Palace museum in Turkey.

But it also seems that in twelve verse Sheism, the sword is believed to be in heaven or and or in the possession of Muhammad Almadi, the Imam believed to return at the end of time. So again there's this idea that again a highly mystical sword that is held in tradition to not even be perhaps on this earth anymore. Now, I say all this to sort of going to get into the idea of Islamic swords, but this is not the sword that I wanted to talk about in connection

to today's episode. Like there's I've seen no discussion that this sword or anything any artifact that is connected to this sword containing meteoric iron, And I guess we should also clarify that any sword in the possession of beings not on this earth any longer cannot be analyzed. However, we do see at least some mention of possible meteoric

iron weapons in Islamic traditions. I'll get to specific example in just a second, but you know, we should remember that medieval Arab astronomy was extremely advanced prior to the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Pre Islamic Arabs depended on empirical observations of constellations, and then with the rise of Islam we see the emergence of this tradition of five daily prayers, prayers that need to be directed toward Mecca. And this creates a true incentive based on

religion for better charting of time and location. Thus there's a reason to focus more on the movements of the stars, and this ends up helping to foster a more robust cultural understanding of astronomy, drawling upon other traditions in the ancient world and building out new knowledge. Now, on the other hand, I was reading a survey of Muslim materials on comets and meteors by David Cook. According to Cook, comets and meteors during the for a very long time

in these traditions were not considered astronomical phenomenon. They were held to occur within the atmosphere and therefore they were terrestrial, so they were largely omitted from astronomical works, while mentions would still be found in other forms of literature, especially when they were held as portents or lined up with important deaths or events such as the death of the Prophet in six thirty two, as well as events in

the lives of the Third and fourth Caliphs. Now in the past, I think this was when I was writing for How Stuff Works, and I was writing or applying some edits to an article that dealt with iron, and I remember reading that blades of possible meteoric iron had been associated with seventh century Caliphs, and I look back, I tried to get into this because I early wanted to figure out where's this coming from, what specifically is

this referring to? What are the sources? And the initial source was a nineteen forty one paper published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland titled the Use of Meteoric Iron by ta Rickard, and at one point in the text he discusses the possibility that Zeus's thunderbolts were a quote poetic expression for the use of meteoric iron, and that later I'm going to read a quote hear from it In later times,

we read that Attila, timor Antar and other devastating conquerors had swords from heaven. So also the Caliphs, whose swords were made of the same meteoric material as the Cobbastone that lies in the Holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Avajo's, an Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, states that excellent swords were made from a meteor weighing one hundred pounds that

fell near Cordoba in Spain. Now, if you've listened to the show for a while, you know that we did in an episode on the Cobbastone the Blackstone of Mecca a while back, probably a few years at this point, And one of the things that we did cover there that maybe wasn't as a parent to the author of this paper, is that the origins of the Cobbastone are far from a settled matter.

been forged from meteoric iron. Rickard here was citing British geologist Sir Lazarus Fletcher, who lived eighteen fifty four through nineteen twenty one, but rooting around in available texts by this author, I didn't really find any answers to my questions either. I did consult a couple of sources about the history of metallurgy in the region. And it is key to note that we've already touched on islam arises.

After the end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East, the Islamic world had access to Damascus steel, so any meteoric weapons would be largely symbolic and or relics of the past, and they clearly had access to what is often held up is the best steel of the day.

passage here, this is of course in translation. Indeed, we sent our messengers with clear proofs, and with them we sent down the scripture and the balance of justice, so that people may administer justice. And we sent down iron with its great might benefits for humanity and means for Allah to prove who is willing to stand up for him and his messengers without seeing him. Surely Allah is all powerful almighty ah.

be wrong on this end. As always I invite correction or clarity, But I believe some commentators argue that these lines in the Qur'an reference and historical understanding of iron meteor rights, you know, perhaps drawing on again, as we've touched on knowledge that already existed in the ancient world in different parts and to different degrees, that there was a connection between iron and meteorites, between iron and the sky again makes perfect sense, given everything we've discussed, but

isn't also also isn't necessarily guaranteed. Some also seem to interpret this verse as just stating that iron in the earth was a creation of Allah, and consideration of meteors doesn't seem to always serve as part of that conversation. You know, it was sent down just a way of saying it came from God, which you know fair enough. And say anything was sent down, you could, I guess you could say a giraffe was sent down, but that doesn't mean it actually had a re entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

so called space Buddha sculpture that we talked about. And while the artistic origins of that sculpture are highly suspect, the physical origins are not. Really it does seem to be agreed upon that this is a piece of iron meteorite. So many fragments of the Chinga meteorite have been found in the region of Tuva, which is in southern Siberia, since the first recorded discovery by miners in the early

nineteen hundreds. This scattering of iron meteorite chunks over a large area is the result of some original object coming apart into pieces somewhere in the atmosphere above roughly ten to twenty thousand years ago. Now, there are different ways for meteoroids to come apart or lose their structural integrity

in the atmosphere. In some cases they land roughly intact, in some cases they split up into some number of smaller pieces from the original, and in some cases they basically just explode or vaporize, and on the explosion end of the scale, the explosions before the meteoroids reach the ground. These explosions are referred to as air bursts. In many such cases, the entire object, or nearly the entire object, is burned up or reduced to dust in the process.

In the case of the relatively recent Cheliabinsk meteoroid, which exploded over Russia in February twenty thirteen, an asteroid that was originally like twenty meters or sixty five feet in diameter. When it entered the Earth's atmosphere, it exploded a few tens of kilometers above the ground. For some reason, I've seen different estimates about the altitude. Some say twenty three

kilometers up, others say thirty kilometers up. But wherever it was, this explosion released a huge amount of energy, expressed in the hundreds of kilotons of TNT, maybe like four hundred or five hundred kilotons of T and T. The explosion way up there, damaged thousands of buildings on the ground, blew out glass, and sent some fifteen hundred people to the hospital, though thankfully no deaths were reported.

the outcome was rather lucky. But despite the fact that the Chelubenzk meteoroid entered the atmosphere as an asteroid the size of a house, I've read estimates that well below one percent of its mass reached the ground in the form of solid meteorites. Again, this is something where I've

seen different numbers on the estimate. I've read like zero point one percent of its mass or like zero point zero five percent of its mass, some very small percent of its mass actually reached the ground in solid chunks, and the rest evaporated or was turned to dust as the object broke apart and burned up. So this got me wondering what actually causes a fast moving meteoroid to just blow up or even vaporize like that. A key

factor is speed. So the original object, which might be a chunk of asteroid or comet material at least a few meters in diameter or maybe up to tens of meters, typically enters Earth's atmosphere at great speed. According to the American Meteor Society, meteors tend to enter the atmosphere going anywhere between eleven kilometers per second and seventy two kilometers per second. And there's actually an interesting fact concerning this

variability that you might not think about it first. The speed with which a meteor enters Earth's atmosphere depends not only on the speed of the comet or the asteroids orbit relative to the Sun, so it has its own intrinsic speed as it's orbiting the Sun, but it's also affected by the movement of the Earth, which is simultaneously orbiting the Sun at about thirty kilometers per second and is also though this is less important, rotating at about

one thy six hundred and seventy kilometers per hour. Of course, speed is always, you know, it's relative to an observer. So even though we use language like the speed at which a meetia enters our atmosphere, that could give the false impression that our atmosphere is stationary and the media

is moving. In reality, both are moving, and they're moving in their own directions, and so the speed of entry is determined by the relative velocity of both objects to each other, you know, So it could be kind of trying to catch up with the part of the atmosphere it hits, or it could be like slamming into more kind of a head on kind of collision with the

part of the atmosphere it hits. And then of course, other things about other things about the way a meteor enters the atmosphere will determine, will determine its ultimate fate, whether it burns up, what the resistance is, and so that would include things like the angle of entry. Anyway, whatever the speed is at that incredible speed, the air directly in front of the meteoroid. Once it enters the

atmosphere becomes greatly compressed. It's squeezing a lot of atmospheric gas in its path into a very small space, very rapidly, so you can imagine it kind of like a pneumatic piston that is moving so fast it doesn't need a cylinder to squeeze the air in front of it. If you're traveling at dozens of kilometers per second, you're going to squeeze a lot of air into a thin layer at your bow before it has the chance to move

out of the way. And as a result of being so violently compressed, this air gets extremely hot, and then this layer of hot compressed gas flows around the sides of the object as it travels. This fast movement not only compresses the gas in front, but it also creates a relative vacuum in the space directly behind the meteoroid, and these forces put a lot of stress on the object, heating it up by thousands of degrees celsius, melting or vaporizing parts of it. Causing pieces of it to break off.

Is just a huge amount of stress on a solid chunk of material. These pieces that might be broken off of the object are in turn subjected to extreme forces of heat and pressure, and a sudden breakup of the main mass of the meteoroid can release just a lot of energy quite suddenly and resemble an explosion. Also, in addition to all this, I came across a paper from twenty eighteen adding another interesting mechanism, another piece of information

to the puzzle here. So this paper was by Tabita and Malash published in Mediauritics and Planetary Science in the Air twenty eighteen and the paper is called Air Penetration

Enhances Fragmentation of Entering Meteoroids. So this paper is discussing an attempt to model the physics of a fragmenting meteoroid with reference to the example of Chellibinsk and the authors here argue that their model reveals a previously unrecognized but very important mechanism in how this breakup occurs, and that is the penetration of high pressure air inside the body of the object through permeability of the material or through tiny cracks and pores in the rock or the metal.

And as this air percolates into the solid body of the meteoroid, it decreases its material strength. That weakens it and makes it more likely to want to split apart. One of the authors, Purdue University professor j Malash, described the process in a press release, saying, quote, there's a big gradient between the high pressure air in front of the meteor and the vacuum of air behind it. If the air can move through the passages in the meteorite,

it can easily get inside and blow off pieces. So air bursts are aided by this percolation, which every time I say that, I do think of coffee as a kind of kitchen first thinking. But this percolation of superheated compressed gas into the body of the meteoroid through these tiny holes and gaps in its structure. But not all meteoroids are equally vulnerable to this process. Size and density

help protect a meteoroid from fragmentation and vaporization. Iron meteoroids are not completely immune, but since they are denser on average than stony meteoroids, they are less likely to result in an air burst, and thus it is more likely

that large solid chunks reach the Earth's surface intact. And so I would like to talk about one such meteorite iron meteorite that did reach the surface of the Earth in several very large pieces, and that is the Inongenic meteorite, also known as the Cape York meteorite, three large pieces of which are now on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There's one that is enormous, you know, it's like sort of car sized, and even

the other two that are smaller are very big. So some thousands of years ago, we don't know exactly when a meteoroid weighing possible like two hundred tons about one hundred and eighty metric tons, but we don't know for sure, entered the atmosphere and fragmented into pieces in the Arctic over North America. But as several still very large pieces

of iron meteorite did make it to the ground. They landed in what is today northwestern Greenland, probably before it was inhabited by people, after people first arrived in the area.

Again we don't know for sure when this was. They found these large caches of solid iron and began using them to make iron tools through a process called cold forging, essentially using heavy objects such as stones to hammer pieces of the iron meteorite until they broke off, and then you would hammer these pieces until they reached the shape you wanted, such as a knife blade or a harpoon tip. And this cold forging process was very energy intensive. It

took a lot of human labor. These sources of meteorite iron became a vital mineral resource for the Inuit peoples of the region.

They would have looked weird because they were iron meteorites, but not just not so much like the things that these scientists were looking for in Antarctica, where it's just like a black rock on otherwise unbroken white ice sheet.

But by the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, explorers from Europe started to make repeated contact with various Inuit peoples, including the Inhuit of the far North and the Inuit are a group of Inuit people also known sometimes as the polar Inuit. They speak a language called Inukton and their

homeland is in northwestern Greenland. These European and US explorers, such as the Scottish naval officer John Ross, recorded that in speaking to these people, they were told about some kind of mountain of iron that the Inehuit were using to make their iron tools, but for a long time they never saw. The explorers never saw these iron sources for themselves. This was until the expeditions led by the

US explorer Robert Peer beginning around eighteen ninety four. Peery is mainly known for trying to reach the North Pole. There's some dispute about whether Peery ever actually did make it to the geographic North Pole. He certainly claimed he did in April nineteen oh nine, but it's difficult to verify since the ice would have been over water and is constantly moving, so the marker he placed in the

ice can't confirm it. Also, some later analysis of the records of the expedition cast doubt on the physical plausibility of their journey and also if Piery did make it to the geographic North Pole. There's an account from Matthew Henson, an African American explorer who lived from eighteen sixty six to nineteen fifty five and served on multiple expeditions with Peery, indicating that he was actually the one who made it

there first. If they did make it so, a lot of questions remain about that, But anyway, after living among the Inhuit and learning from them and trading with them, PII eventually removed three large chunks of iron meteorite from Inhuit lands, the largest of which is known as Anihito or the Tent, and this one is more than thirty metric tons and it required the construction of a rail system just to get it to his ship in order

to be transported to New York. But there are also two other smaller but still quite sizable iron masses known as the Woman and the Dog. Later and Pieri's plan was to sell these objects in order to finance his future expeditions to the Arctic, and they remain on display today at the American Museum of Natural History. Now, in addition to taking away these meteorites that were so important

to the Inhuit, not just practically as tools. More on that in a minute, there is also an incredibly tragic story of how Pierri took away six Inuit people and delivered them back to the American Museum as well, under the false pretense that they would soon be sent back home with many gifts and supplies. But in crowded New York they were quickly exposed to unfamiliar pathogens and most of them died of respiratory diseases. So in the end

that story is very sad. I think one man from the group was able to return to Greenland, and there was a boy among the group named Minic who did grow up in the United States for some time, and then I believe it sometime later tried to return to Greenland and then also at some point came back to the United States. But he passed away in the nineteen

eighteen flu pandemic. But regarding the Inhuit beliefs about these meteorites that had provided them with iron tools for so many hundreds of years, I wanted to mention a really interesting episode of another podcast that I came across while researching this subject. So this other podcast is called Endless Thread and it's put out by Boston's public radio station WBUR. I previously wasn't familiar with it, but this one episode I listened to is really great. And this podcast generally

discusses uses of meteorite among the Inuit people. But my favorite thing about it is that it includes interview material with an Inhuit shaman named Hivshoe, and it's definitely worth checking out that episode in full. I think the main title before a colon and subtitle is a Meteorite in Greenland, but I wanted to mention one interesting and important thing

that sort of comes up in it. So Hisshue is from a place in northwestern Greenland called hira Paluk, where the Inhuit people have this long relationship with metiorite fragments in and Hipshue says that in their language, these are known as the excrement of the stars.

uses through trade and so forth. So I guess the thinking is like, oh, they can they can get iron from other sources now, so they don't really need these meteorites anymore now, I think there are even if they were. Even if these metea rites were only significant for practical uses as a source of iron, I think there would be reasons for doubting that that way of thinking that justification. But in this interview, Hisshue makes clear that these meteorites

have significance beyond simply being utilitarian sources of metal. Though they were that as well, their significance was sacred, and he mentions that cutting off a piece of metal from the source involves a ritual. There is a ritual to that sort of giving the people access to the metal from this sacred object, and the tools made from it are not simply viewed as tools. He calls them partners because in a way, he says, everything in their view of the world is life. Everything is infused with life.

So a tool made from this meteorite is not just simply a dead object to get some use out of. It, is a partner in your work. So anyway, if you want to check out that other podcast episode again, the show is called Endless Thread. The title of the episode is a meteorite in Greenland. But to continue on this subject, I was reading around and I found other accounts of Inuit people explaining that they view these meteorites as having a sacred power and that in fact, religious significance and

material utility are not mutually exclusive in their view. So just one example I came across was a paper published in the journal Meteoritics by marden at All called Contemporary Inuit Traditional Beliefs concerning Meteorites. This is from the year nineteen ninety two and it records what was said about meteorites by Inuit elders in the High Canadian Arctic in nineteen eighty eight, So a few details of what the

authors here were told. They were told that Inuit people have long come across rocks in the landscape that they interpret as being not natural, sort of not the same as everything else around them, and in some cases these are meteorites, and meteorite pieces that are discovered or possessed by a person can give people special powers in some cases, or have some kind of special link to the fate

of the person who owns them. They mentioned that these iron media have been sources of metal for the fashioning of effective tools and weapons. But contrary to what might be a common Western assumption, this does not mean that they are not viewed as sacred or spiritual objects. Quote.

The one evident thing that became clear to the author is that the Inuit distinctly believed that these meteorites are religious objects of the highest order, and it brings into question the current academic practice of sending meteorites south to research institutes. Any seeming conflict with the traditional use of meteoric iron is more apparent than real. The animals, the hunt, the act of survival, all being bound up in the

mystic patterns of animistic belief. So what I take from this is it's sort of pushing back against an assumption that many Westerners might have that, oh, if people are just using this metal to make tools that they use for everyday chores, you know, for hunting and other things that must be done to survive, and you know, and maybe if you compensate them by trading with them some other objects that are useful for survival, then there's nothing

wrong with taking this stuff away. And you might not feel the same way about an artifact that has religious significance but maybe was crafted by humans and kept in a sacred special place and has no role in the ongoing work of everyday life. But I think they're saying that's wrong. Even though this is used to make materials that are used in regular work, it still is also sacred. And that kind of raises questions for me about like, why would we have the contrary assumption to begin with?

Why would we naturally assume that if a material is broken off of a mother load and hammered into blades or harpoon tips or other tools used for everyday survival, that material is not sacred or is not a religious object. The conclusion doesn't actually follow from that premise. It implies there's some other unstated premise that is driving the intuition.

That premise could be something like things you see every day aren't sacred, or things you use to accomplish work are not sacred, which, again, like where would such a belief come from?

practical applications that it may have had in its sort of artifact based history, like, for instance, the traditional traditional scepters in Chinese tradition. I've seen some discussion that they they may have in an origin been backscratchers. It's one theory,

you know. So it's like, Okay, you have a practical item that then ultimately becomes a thing that is completely divorced from that tradition and so if you're looking for those kinds of like clear examples like Okay, well this is clearly a sacred item because it doesn't look like it could be used every day, so you have that

going on. But then yeah, I don't know. It is weird to think about this idea of thinking that everyday items, everyday things cannot be held up as sacred because I think, for one thing, you can see various plenty of examples from history where things people encountered every day still took on sacred meaning. One example that comes to mind is the horse. Like the horse is you know, during times of its domestication to be clear here, you know, it

takes on sacred connotations, mystical connotations. Like the horse. The skull of the horse is often held up in different societies, is having some sort of a you know, peculiar meaning or area to it. And yet the horse was every day. The horse was something that was just part of your daily life and you depended upon. And then on the other end of things, like there's just our personal experience

like a beloved tool. We may not really be in the mindset of thinking about things in our immediate vicinity as being you know, mystical or magical or sacred, because maybe we just don't apply that mindset to our immediate world. But I don't think that the way we consider our tools and consider our knickknacks are completely divorced from that

thinking either. I mean, just think about, like whatever, if you do engage in some sort of a craft or a handiwork, Like, do you have a beloved tool, and how much would you have to lean into the idea of it being important to get to the level of it being sacred.

a modern understanding of extrement. You know, it's just pure waste, right, But for people that were actually engaged in like working the land and all like, there would have been more of an understanding that this is not like a valueless byproduct, this is something that then can be used to grow something new, you know. It can be used as a fertilizer.

There are various traditions where, of course it's also used and typically you know, I think we're dealing with animal excrement in these cases, but it can be used also as fuel for fire, So you don't have to like lean far in that direction to see this is something that can be that new life can be breathed into, you know. But again, just coming back to the idea of sacred items in everyday life, I mean, yeah, I think most of us can easily admit that we very

easily imbue physical items with meaning. I mean, it becomes a problem. So it's they're not necessarily, you know, hoarders are not making everything sacred, I guess necessarily. But you know, I don't I don't think it's you know, beyond the realm of our understanding that that a tool, especially when you depend upon could could you know, take on a

sacred quality. Now as we begin to close out these episodes, I guess we're closing out these episodes on iron, I don't know, do you think you have another one in you, Joe?

You can look up images of it. Looks pretty cool and I also read that fragments of this meteorite were also traditionally used by the Nama people of Namibia for many centuries in tools and in weapons. And you'll find various meteoric swords in fiction. I don't believe this is in like the core of books. This may be in the additional matter, but apparently a couple of these blades show up in the works of J. R. Tolkien and

also on Avatar the Last Airbender. I'd totally forgotten about this, but a meteoric sword does come into play on that show as well. Those are just a couple of the fictional examples, but I'm sure there are plenty more. So yes, we would love to hear from you out there. Write in with your favorite examples of fictional meteoric weapons, as

well as various examples or potential examples. With that huge caveat you know that we get into in the first episode regarding actual weapons that may include iron of meteoric origin.

Above and beyond that, throw us some ratings, you know, give us a nice collection of stars. Maybe say a few kind words, and you know, share, share the show, share a word of the show with people.