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A 3,000-Year-Old Mystery: Sanxingdui Artifact May Be Forged from Meteorite Iron
A dark, corroded meteorite iron object lay buried for thousands of years inside a ritual pit in southwestern China. At first, it looked unremarkable. Then scientists analyzed it—and what they found may change how we understand early technology: the Sanxingdui artifact appears to be made from meteorite iron, a material that did not originate on…
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Ancient Chinese Artifact Made from Meteoric Iron Discovered at Sanxingdui
A strange iron object buried for more than three millennia at the ritual complex of Sanxingdui has now been confirmed to come from outer space. Researchers in China have identified the elongated, axe-like artifact as meteoritic iron, making it the oldest and first confirmed example of such material in southern China. The study, published in…