Tutankhamun’s dagger proved to be of meteoric origin

The iron in the blade of one of the knives found with the mummy of Tutankhamun comes from one of the many meteorites that fell on the Egyptian desert and are still easy to find today. The life of Tutankhamun continues to surprise and fascinate Egyptologists.

The report will be published over the coming days by a specialized magazine to wrap up the workcarried out by a group of international researchers (from the Polytechnics of Milan and Turin, the University of Pisa, the Egyptian Museum in Cair, the CNR, the university Fayoum, the XGlab company).

Ever since his tomb was discovered in 1922 by the Britons Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon, a debate ensued over which type of material was used for one of the two knives on his body.

Today, the certainty that the blade on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is meteoritic comes from techniques using fluorescence and X rays, which confirms the composition of that iron in different percentages of nickel and cobalt. Also stressed by scientists was the high quality of the blade’s manufacture, confirming the high level reached in the age of Tutankhamun in working iron