Episode 73 - Our Most Metal Episode of All Time

Time to throw the devil horns and apply superfluous umlauts to vöwëls, because this week The Dirt is totally metal! Metallurgy, that is. How and when did humans first use metals, and what can we learn about them? Some come straight from the ground, others from far, far away, some from a combination of raw materials, and some? Some come FROM OUTER SPACE.

King Tut’s Dagger Was Made From a Meteorite (Smithsonian)

The meteoritic origin of Tutankhamun's iron dagger blade (Meteoritics and Planetary Science)

Greenland's Iron Age came from space (Science Nordic)

New Respect for Metal's Role in Ancient Arctic Cultures (Science)

Robert E. Peary and the Cape York Meteorites (Polar Geography)

The Dollop Episode 240: North Pole Madness (cn: discussion of human rights violations, language)

On the origins of extractive metallurgy: new evidence from Europe (Journal of Archaeological Science)

Prehistoric Balkans Were 'Faking' Gold 6,500 Years Ago (Ha’aretz)  (cn: skeletal remains pictured)

Theorizing Bronze-Age Intercultural trade : the evidence of the weights (Paléorient)

Exchange Systems and Trade Networks in Anthropology and Archaeology (ThoughtCo)

Antikythera Shipwreck Yields New Cache of Treasures, Hints More May Be Buried at Site (Smithsonian)

High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging reveals the metallurgy of the earliest lost-wax cast object (Nature Communications)

Lost Wax Casting Process (National Sculpture Society)

How Was Iron Smelted in Ancient Israel? Researchers Build Kilns to Find Out (Ha’aretz)

Photo credit: Albert Jambon, via LiveScience, “The iron dagger found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun dates to around 1350 B.C., about 200 years before the Iron Age.”