The dagger with which Pharaoh Tutankhamun was buried was created with use of meteorite iron, a new X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analysis by a team of Italian and Egyptian researchers revealed. The weapon, being on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is a highly ornamented gold dagger with crystal knob.

Iron meteorites are mostly made of iron and nickel, with minor quantities of cobalt, phosphorus, sulfur and carbon. The iron blade of King Tutankhamun dagger was found to contain nearly 11 percent of nickel, while artefacts produced with iron ore quarrying display 4 percent at most. Further confirmation of the blade’s meteoric origin comes from cobalt traces. Ancient Egyptians attributed great value to meteoritic iron for the production of precious objects, possibly perceiving those chunks of iron falling from the sky as a divine message. High quality of Pharaoh Tutankhamun dagger blade shows that iron smiting was successful already in the 14th century B.C.

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