I've seen a lot of references (many are even reputable! :wink to pieces of the Gibeon meteorites being used by native tribes to make weapons, tools, jewelry, etc over the last 50,000 years. However, I have not been able to come up with the right Google keywords to turn up any photos of Gibeon artifacts, or even any research papers mentioning such. Does anyone have any ideas how I could track this down, or is it just another one of those "facts" that gets passed along each time someone writes about the meteorites and no one ever actually verifies?

(I'm doing a planetarium show on meteorites, and would love to show a couple pix of artifacts when I pass around our Gibeons.)

Thank you!
Julie

Welcome to the board, juliew!

Try googling (after selecting images) just gibeon and I bet you'll find LOTS of images.

Here's a site that has a few images...

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Thank you for the welcome and your suggestion! I've loved the BA book for a long time, and was really excited to find these forums.

Let me be a little more specific though in my request. Wading through Google and Google images, I've found lots of pix of pieces of Gibeon, and lots of pix of contemporary knives and jewelry made from it. What I'm looking for are photos or evidence of artifacts made from gibeon metals throughout history. Ideally I'd like to find pix of artifacts discovered by archeologists and anthropologists that have been shown to be made from gibeon metal, but would also be happy with, say, an account from one of the 19th century British discoverers of the meteorite that says something like "one native also showed me a spear made by her great-great-great grandfather that was made from meteorite metal" or a research paper that says something like "there are no metal deposits in the area, so the metal artifacts found would have had to be made from gibeon metal."

Just something a little more definitive than the generic statement about "tribesmen using the metal to make stuff" that I've been finding, because I hate to keep perpetuating an urban legend if one person years ago thought "hey, I bet someone might have used this metal to make stuff" and everyone else has been parroting that as fact ever since.

I "poked" around a bit more and that's all I'm finding too.

The worse part is, now you've got me curious.

With all the people on this board, I imagine that someone will come along, eventually, with the info you're looking for (if it exists)...someone always does.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

May I add my welcome too juliew

I tried a Yahoo search but could only come up with info about the Gibeon meteorite(s) (which must have been quite a display at the time 8) ) I also got a bit of a headache wading through all the meteorite rock dealers that are selling them (they are now protected in Namibia and it's illegal to export them). There are also a lot of (unrelated) religious references as well so I can understand your frustration.

namiweb.com gives this, which you may have already seen.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

I had not... and it's more detailed than anything I had found. Thank you!

I dunno . . . I'm not well-inclined to trust "it is well known" as proof. I just know of too many things that are well known . . . like that a penny falling off the Empire State Building will kill you, or that Coke and Pop Rocks will make your stomach explode, or that the Earth is only 6000 years old.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Gillianren:

I couldn't find any specifics about working of meteoric iron by the Namba to produce atifacts but is possible so I wouldn't rule it out. The other side of me is suspicious though when children were paid by explorers to collect meteorite samples, the 'industry' could have followed on from that.

I have found a Wikipedia reference to Sumarian and Egyptian use of meteoric iron as far back as 4000BC - scroll down to 'History' Metallic iron is relatively easily worked. Extracting it from ore was the key to the start of the iron age.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.

I know from personal experience that Pepsi and Pop Rocks are safe on the stomach, not so sure about Coke though. :-k

it was on MythBusters. since you can burp, you're fine. (the penny was on MythBusters, too.)

oh, I'm not saying no one's ever worked meteorite iron. I'd be rather surprised if they hadn't. I'm just saying that "common knowledge" is not the reference I'd prefer.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Likewise re. the 'common knowlege' I looked for links that would give a positive trail back to definite items but didn't find any. It might be possible to contact the Geological Survey of Naminia: National Earth Science museum to see if they can give any further information. There's an email link to the webmaster at the bottom of the page.

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By asking questions we sometimes get the wrong answers, from wrong answers we learn to ask the right questions.