Pharaoh's Gem Brighter Than a Thousand Suns

Tamas Feher from Hungary writes "An Italian archaeologist accidentally found that the central gem in Tutankhamun's regal necklace is not amber, but a mere piece of yellow glass. Kinda cheap for the famous Egyptian pharaoh, best known for his splendid golden mask. Except that piece of glass is much older than civilization. Where did it come from, StarGate? Kind of. Scientists now think a meteorite much larger than the Tunguska event fell from the sky and exploded over the Sahara in prehistoric times. The tremendous heat of the 1000 A-bomb sized fireball melted large chunks of desert sand into perfect glass. The memory of such an apocalyptic event may have made sand-glass gems a desirable symbol, meant to emphasize the pharaoh's heavenly powers."

Comments

Lightning?

[kninja]

Doesn't lightning strike the desert? I know it doesn't rain that often in the Sahara, but still, I find that at least as plausible as a huge meteorite.

Volcanoes

[Tx]

Just thinking of possible alternate sources of prehistoric yellow glass, I know volcanic glass is usually black (obsidian), but surely there are some situations in which molten lava melts sand of various compositions that happen to be in its path, and therefore could conceivably result in other colors of glass? And I know there are no volcanoes in Egypt, but it could have been brought from elsewhere, the Egyptians were known to do a bit of trading now and again. Since they don't actually seem to have any actual evidence for the meteorite theory, it seems just as plausible.

Asimov (and Hollywood) got it wrong

[jamie]

The other day I was skimming through a book I very much enjoyed as a boy: Asimov on Astronomy.

Chapter 2 is about asteroids and comets that may impact the Earth, and how much damage they would do. He concludes with:

In the future, perhaps, things may be different. The men in the space stations that will eventually be set up about the Earth may find themselves, among other things, on the watch for the Earth-grazers, something like the iceberg watch conducted in northern waters since the sinking of the Titanic (but much more difficult of course).

The rocks, boulders, and mountains of space may be painstakingly tagged and numbered. Their changing orbits may be kept under steady watch. Then, a hundred years from now, perhaps, or a thousand, some computer on such a station will sound the alarm: "Collision orbit!"

Then a counterattack, kept in waiting for all that time would be set in motion. The dangerous rock would be met with an H-bomb (or, by that time, something more appropriate) designer to trigger off on collision. The rock would glow and vaporize and change from a boulder to a conglomeration of pebbles.

Even if they continued on course, the threat would be lifted. Earth would merely be treated to a spectacular (and harmless) shower of shooting stars.

Asimov was writing in 1966 but still should have known better. The kinetic energy of a shattered object is the same as the intact object. The only difference is that the energy will all be shed in the atmosphere instead of mostly in the lithosphere. Human suffering might be ameliorated somewhat but unless the trajectory of the pebbles is changed, the atmosphere is still getting superheated with disasterous local, and possibly global, effects. If you're standing under the shooting-star display, then like any nearby sand, you're getting cooked.

Yes, this ruined the ending of Deep Impact for me. Yes, I'm a geek.

Re:Asimov (and Hollywood) got it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point Asimov, and others, were getting to - local "superheating" of the atmosphere, while certainly uncomfortable, is far less likely to bring on particulate/nuclear winter, wildfires, destruction of infrastructure, Tsunami, etc. than a lithosphere impact - because it's happening locl to the ionosphere. "Disastrous" is relative - presuming some of it reaches the ground, is it the end of higher life in an area the size of New England - or is it the end of human civilisation globally period? Beyond that, spreading the impact energy over a large area/volume/time prevents it from punching through the atmosphere and delivering all that potential (and actual) kinetic and thermal energy to the lithosphere - which is, again, the point. Or lack thereof.

Re:Asimov (and Hollywood) got it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, assuming that the energy is evenly distributed throughout the atmosphere* and that no part of the body impacts the earth directly, even a 10 million megaton impact would only increase the temperature of the atmosphere by a little less than 8 Kelvin by my figures. That would be bad, but the time to dissapeate that extra energy is not long in the grand scheme of things, and doesn't make anyplace on the surface much less livable than it is right now.

*I realize that during the impact the energy would not be evenly distributed, and that there would be places that got much hotter for short periods of time (there's a good chance these places would be the ocean though). My point is that even huge amounts of kenetic energy only translate to a few degrees difference on a global scale, and that an atmospheric impact is therefore greatly desirable in comparison to an impact with land or water.

Re:weird logic in summary

[malsdavis]

I agree. The idea that the jewel (if it is such?) had some attached legend about the original explosion seems a little far fetched for quite a few reasons.

Personally, I don't see why it needs a legend even if it is "just glass" to us. Back then glass had never been heard of, so a rock that is almost transparent with a yellow tint would probably have seemed amazing.

One thing I do no understand though, if large areas of land were 'glassified', than why were bigger items or even structures not created or coated with this glass material? Why just one small jewel?

I *prefer* man-made gems

[HighOrbit]

When you go to the jewlrey story, you'll find that the prettiest gems with the deepest color are the man-made gems. The natural gems look faded and washed-out in contrast to the "laboratory" made versions. The man-made emeralds are the deepest green, the man-made rubies are the deepest red, and man-made saphires are the brightest blue.

For some people the value might be in the scarcity of the natural gems, but for me the value is in the aesthetic decorative value of gem (with the lab gems being usually of better color).

impact crater anyone?

[Intangion]

i wonder if they are aware of this HUUUUGE 19 mile wide impact crator nearby ;)

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060303_big_c rater.html

i mean this crater is sooo damn big that it wasnt even noticed till it was seen by satalites

theres on in europe like that too
its sooooo damn huge, an entire town is built in it, and an entire cathedral was built using a special rock that only forms from extreeeme compression and no one even knew it was a crater until some scientists realized the cathedral was built from that rock

when they are tooo big its hard to notice

like when you capture a lizard and it escapes and crawls onto the back of your arm, and thinks its safe cause it cant see your face ;)

your so big compared to him that it doesnt even realize its still on you ;)

Re:I *prefer* man-made gems

[random coward]

I agree with you. However in 200 years when synthetic pure white diamond is used commercially in very large crystals, when corundums(i.e. saphires) are used for windows, our great grandchildren will wonder about us wearing what is to them just glass. I wonder what jewelry will be like when our physical scarcity matches our current digital scarcity. How will we adapt to such abundance?

The Old Switcheroo

[airship]

It could be that Tut's successor really didn't want to put any more valuable geegahs in his tomb, and arranged for an impressive-looking but cheap amulet to save costs. Or, even more likely, a preist or other worker involved in Tut's burial preparations took it upon himself to replace the valuable gem with yellow glass, knowing it wouldn't be noticed among all the other bright, shiny things. Since the evidence was buried beneath the sands, this might just be an argument for one of the earliest 'perfect' crimes.

Oh boy, i cant believe such crap :

[unity100]

I cant believe how scientists create complete scenarios with details for things that happened aeons ago and they do not have even the little of sufficient evidence to justify sufficient crap :

Scientists now think a meteorite much larger than the Tunguska event fell from the sky and exploded over the Sahara in prehistoric times. The tremendous heat of the 1000 A-bomb sized fireball melted large chunks of desert sand into perfect glass. The memory of such an apocalyptic event may have made sand-glass gems a desirable symbol, meant to emphasize the pharaoh's heavenly powers.

And then the fish were living in trees, and people had 3 legs. Ah, the meteorite brought to you by courtesy of benign aliens.

Re:I *prefer* man-made gems

[ArmyOfFun]

Man-made gems can be more ethical as well since they don't finance activities which further human suffering. See also conflict diamonds.

another pieces of the puzzel

[Eion]

Keep an open mind... Some new information (Esoteric and academically/Scientific), I recently saw spoke about ancient civilizations, +10 000 years and more (example, Lumeria and Atlantis, to name only two.) (To take a part), from a very long and complicated history/story The ancients had wars with very powerful nuclear weapons which resulted in to creation of all known desserts. Egypt was very important had first pyramid.(the one with no markings) (This is important as it was always fought over repeated blast, otherwise there would not have been sand to make the glass) Egyptians had long and integrated history with the civilization from Atlantis. So when I read this story I was pleasantly surprised that we have evidence about something that happened a very long time ago preserved with the pharaoh. 800 000 years, no problem... Ancient Civilizations 180 000 million to beginning of last ice age. Not going to give you the whole story go on do your own research and make up you own minds

Re:"accidentally found"?

[kalel666]

Sorry to go offtopic, but where did you buy your synthetic diamond?

Re:"accidentally found"?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're available at a slight discount from "natural" diamonds, usually. Despite the fact that the pricing should be about 10:1, they know that it's in their best interest to keep prices as high as possible... just cheap enough to be a "bargain" compared to natural diamonds, but still overpriced enough to make the manufacturers a shit-ton of money.