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Johnson, Diane

“Metorites in Ancient Egypt” Diane Johnson (EEG Talk)

On Sunday Diane Johnson came to the Essex Egyptology Group meeting to talk to us about meteorites in Ancient Egypt. She’s a physicist who works at the Open University on meteorites, and is also interested in Ancient Egypt. She is combining the two by examining ancient iron objects from Egypt to see if they derive from meteorite iron & has recently published a paper about a bead found in a pre-historic tomb. Johnson opened her talk with a discussion of what meteorites are (in more detail than “rocks that fall from space”). There are three types – rocky, iron & rocky-iron. The iron ones are the ones with most relevance for the rest of the talk, and she briefly discussed their composition. Iron in meteorites is normally nickel rich, around 10%ish (I think she said) and the nickel rich vs. non-nickel rich patterning in the meteorite generally shows similar characteristics… Read More »“Metorites in Ancient Egypt” Diane Johnson (EEG Talk)