Ancient statue carved from meteorite
An ancient statue known as 'iron man' was carved from a meteorite which crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. An ancient statue known as 'iron man' was carved from a meteorite which crashed on Earth thousands of years ago.
Berlin - An ancient Buddhist statue that a Nazi expedition brought back from Tibet before World War II was carved from a meteorite that crashed on Earth about 15 000 years ago.
Elmar Buchner of the University of Stuttgart said on Thursday that the statue was brought to Germany by the Schaefer expedition. The Nazi-backed venture set out for Tibet in 1938 in part to trace the origins of the Aryan race – a cornerstone of the Nazis’ racist ideology.
The existence of the 10.6kg statue, known as “iron man”, was only revealed in 2007 when its owner died and it came up for auction, Buchner said.
Scientists were able to get permission from its new owner, who wasn’t disclosed, to conduct a chemical analysis that shows the statue came from the Chinga meteorite, which crashed in the area of what is now the Russian and Mongolian border.
The meteorite was officially discovered in 1913, but Buchner said the statue, of a Buddhist god called Vaisravana, could be 1 000 years old.
The Nazis were probably attracted to it by a left-facing swastika symbol on its front.
Scientists not involved in the study said the research linking the statue to the meteorite was credible.
Qing-Zhu Yin a researcher in geology at the University of California said: “No terrestrial artefact would contain that much nickel content. Chemical elements don’t lie.” – Sapa-AP