Archaeology – September-October 2019

archaeology.org 15

SCARAB FROM SPACE

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mong the treasures discovered in King Tut’s tomb is an elaborate pectoral

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Desert glass. Found in the sand dunes of Egypt’s western desert, the glass was

formed about 29 million years ago when a quantity of quartz melted at a temperature

LQH[FHVVRI 3 , 000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than the inside of a volcano.

Scholars have long debated whether the yellow glass was created by a meteor that

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glass samples for grains of the mineral zircon that hadn’t broken down under the

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of preserved zircon grains whose crystal orientation indiĥ

cated that they had transformed from reidite, a mineral

that can only be formed by a meteorite strike. “This

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Desert glass was formed by a meteorite impact,” says

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may lie beneath shifting dunes or may have eroded

to such a degree that it’s no longer distinguishable

on the landscape.

ħ%(1-$0,1/(21$5'

Tut gold pectoral with

Libyan Desert glass

Libyan

Desert

glass

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