King Tut’s dagger made from a meteorite: researchers

Its makeup of iron, nickel and cobalt matched other meteorites in a database, and "strongly suggests its meteoritic origin."

The mask of King Tutankhamun is seen at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in this January 24, 2015 file photo.

An iron dagger buried with Egypt’s King Tutankhamun was made from a meteorite, new research shows.

Archaeologists and historians have been fascinated by King Tut’s mummified remains and the mysterious objects found in his tomb since their discovery in the 1922.

Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (ruled c. 1332—1323 BC in the conventional chronology).

In the past, scientists have claimed that an iron dagger, found along with a gold blade in King Tut’s tomb, may have come from meteorites.

Not just the dagger

Other ancient Egyptian iron artefacts have also been suspected to be meteoritic, since smelted iron was rarely used.

But now, researchers from Italy and the Egyptian Museum have used X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to accurately find out what King Tut's knife was made of, according to an article published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science . They found its makeup of iron, nickel and cobalt matched other meteorites in a database, and “strongly suggests its meteoritic origin.”

They knew what they were using

The authors said the Egyptians knew what they were using, CNN reported.

“We suggest that ancient Egyptian attributed great value to meteoritic iron for the production of fine ornamental or ceremonial objects,” the article said.