Iron from the sky: The Science and Culture of Iron in Ancient Egypt

在古埃及早期，铁的证据有限，因为大部分铁似乎是从天上掉下来的陨石，所以我们对铁在古埃及文明中所扮演的角色知之甚少。古埃及人对它的看法还不清楚。然而，早在5500年前的史前时期，他们就把陨铁碎片制成珠宝。这些是在2个重要人物的坟墓中发现的，后来的一些例子是已知的铁物体从皇家坟墓，包括图坦卡蒙国王，这表明了铁的重要性。如果他们知道它来自天空，那是神的地方，他们会非常重视它。我们的项目将通过检查博物馆藏品来探索埃及在不同时期是如何使用铁的，以了解埃及人使用铁生产的不同类型的物品。他们认为铁是什么的证据来自许多来源，包括博物馆的文物和古代文献。埃及文献中最早提到铁的地方经常是神的铁骨，我们还没有完全理解这些意味着什么。我们知道，深色、致密、沉重的哺乳动物化石与风化的铁有着非常相似的视觉外观，它们有时被放置在埋葬井和坟墓中，有些甚至被包裹在自己的亚麻布中。由于古埃及人经常认为动物代表神，这些类型的化石可能是早期铁骨思想的灵感，这反过来又可能对早期铁的使用和古埃及人对铁的态度产生重大影响。我们的研究将科学地探索这些化石的起源，确定哪些哺乳动物是考虑到他们的文化作用和与古埃及神的代表性。

There is limited evidence of iron in ancient Egypt in early times as most of this iron appears to have fallen from the sky as meteorites, so we have little understanding of the role iron played in ancient Egyptian civilization. What the ancient Egyptians thought of it is not understood. However they were fashioning meteorite iron fragments into jewelry from as early as pre-historic times around 5500 years ago. These were discovered in the graves of 2 important people and some later examples are known of iron objects from Royal tombs including that of king Tutankhamen, which indicates the importance of iron. If they did know it originated from the sky which was the place of the gods they would have valued it greatly. Our project will explore how iron was used across Egypt at different times by examining museum collections to see the different types of objects Egyptians used iron to produce. Evidence of what they thought iron to be will be derived from many sources including museum artefacts and ancient texts.The earliest references to iron in Egyptian texts are frequently as iron bones of gods, we are yet to fully understand what these mean. We know that dark dense heavy mammal fossils which have a very similar visual appearance to weathered iron were sometimes placed within burial shafts and tombs some even being wrapped in their own linen shrouds. As the ancient Egyptians frequently considered animals to represent gods these type of fossils may be the inspiration for the early ideas of iron bones, this in turn could have had a significant influence on the early use of iron and the ancient Egyptian attitude to it. Our study will scientifically explore the origins of these fossils, identifying which mammals are present considering their cultural role and association with representations of gods in ancient Egypt.