Mysterious Gemstone Found 100 Years Ago In King Tut’s Tomb Likely Formed When A Meteorite Hit Earth

The golden mask of Tutankhamun, 

    Getty On November 4, 1922, a boy accidentally stumbled on a stone that turned out to be the top of a flight of steps cut into the bedrock of the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is a remote valley located in the desert west of the river Nile. In Pharaonic Egypt, this valley was considered the land of the dead, and many pharaohs were buried there. In 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter was searching here for the tomb of Tutankhamun, a relatively minor pharaoh who ruled over Egypt from 1332 to 1323 BCE. 

One month later, Carter entered the pharaoh's tomb. Asked if he could see anything in the burial chamber, Carter allegedly responded: ”Yes, wonderful things.” 

Tutankhamun's tomb was filled with statues made of ivory and precious metals, jewelry, and even a complete golden chariot. In one treasure chest, Carter discovered a large breastplate, decorated with gold, silver, various precious jewels, and a strange gemstone. The breastplate shows the god Ra as a winged scarab, made from the yellow, translucent gemstone, carrying the celestial bark with the Sun and the Moon into the sky. 

Tutankhamun's breastplate features a scarab carved from Desert Glass. 

J.Bodsworth/Wikipedia 

Carter identified the gemstone at first as chalcedony, a common variety of the mineral quartz. Ten years later the British geographer Patrick Clayton was exploring the Libyan Desert along the border of modern Egypt and Libya. Here he discovered some strange pieces of glass in the sand. The pale yellow in color and translucent material seemed to be identical to the gemstone found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Two years later he published a short note, suggesting that the pieces of Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) were the quartz-rich deposits of a dry lake. In 1998, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele analyzed the optical properties of the gemstone in King Tut's breastplate and confirmed that it was indeed a piece of LDG. 

LDG is composed of almost pure silicon dioxide, but it contains unusual traces of iron, nickel, chromium, cobalt, and iridium. It is among the rarest minerals on Earth, as it is found only in the Great Sand Sea north of the Gilf Kebir Plateau, one of the most remote and desolate areas in the Libyan Desert. 

Piece of Lybian Desert Glass in a meteorite collection. 

D.Bressan 

The origin of the dessert glass has long eluded geologists. Some suggested a volcanic origin, and others proposed that the fragments found in the desert are tektites - solidified impact debris of a meteorite exploding and melting the vast sand deposits of the Sahara. 

In 2020, analyzing satellite images showing the terrain between the villages of Qaret Had El Bahr and Qaret El Allafa, Egypt, an international research team discovered what seems to be a previously unknown crater in the midst of the Sahara Desert. The supposed crater, tentatively named El Bahr Crater, is approximately 327 meters wide. 

A previously unknown crater, likely of extraterrestrial origin, was discovered in the Sahara Desert. 

PARIS et al. 2020/Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 

The shape resembles a typical impact crater, like the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona. The researchers also found chemical traces supporting the idea that this landform was formed by a high-energy impact event. Depending on mineral content, rocks absorb or reflect different wavelengths of light. Using satellite images created by combining various wavelengths of light, the researchers identified a high concentration of orthopyroxene in the basalt rocks of the crater, while the surrounding rocks show a low concentration of this mineral. This observation suggests that the rocks were melted and then slowly cooled, forming large crystals of orthopyroxene. 

If the LDG is a tektite, it formed about 28 to 26 million years ago when an impact melted the quartz-rich sand of the desert. The unusual elements found in the LDG could be traces of the vaporized meteorite. 

It is also unclear how the desert glass became part of Tutankhamun's treasures. Today, caravans rarely cross the Great Sand Sea. Archaeological evidence suggests that an ancient system of caravan routes existed around the Gilf Kebir Plateau, but it doesn't seem that the routes were used to search or trade for desert glass. It seems that the piece used for the scarab was discovered by chance or maybe was an exotic gift. It remains the only known example where an Egyptian artist used this mysterious material.