A few days Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) posted a link online to an article entitled, “Extraterrestrial Elements in Egyptian Equipment.” Ancient astronaut believers (and Giorgio Tsoukalos’ hairdresser) no doubt saw the title and got pretty excited about the possibilities.
Sounds startling, doesn’t it? The word “elements” conjures up mental imagery about physics, metallurgy, and “space age” technological knowledge on the part of the Egyptians. It’s nice titling if you want to generate hits online. At least someone working at BAR isn’t a crusty field archaeologist in their seventies. But when you actually read the article you’ll find out it’s about iron beads.
You read that correctly. Beads.
The focus of the essay is about the extraterrestrial source of the iron in certain Egyptian beads. No, the iron didn’t come from a UFO crash, or alien gods trading advanced material in exchange for . . . something. Rather, the iron came from meteorites.
Rocks that the Egyptians saw fall from space, not intelligent visitors from space. But still interesting.
WHAT YA WANT AH GIVE YOU – NUCLEAR PELLETS? IRON WAS WORTH A LOT BACK THEN. YOU RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING – AH’VE NO INTELLIGENCE VISITING THIS PLACE. AH TELL YOU HOW’S AN HONEST ALIEN TO EARN A LIVING THESE DAYS?