Tucked against the right thigh of Tutankhamun’s mummy was a dagger with an iron blade and an ornate gold sheath. In a Bronze Age burial, where gold was everywhere and iron almost nowhere, the blade was the real surprise. For decades nobody could say where its metal came from. In 2016, a team using portable X-ray fluorescence showed that the blade’s chemistry matches meteoritic iron: the metal very likely fell from the sky.
Quick Facts
- What it is: a dagger with a meteoritic iron blade, a gold handle ending in a rock-crystal pommel, and a decorated gold sheath
- Found: 1925, in the wrappings of Tutankhamun’s mummy, from tomb KV62 in the Valley of the Kings
- Owner: Tutankhamun, who reigned around 1332–1323 BCE
- Size: roughly 35 cm overall, with a blade of about 22 cm
- Composition: about 10.8% nickel and 0.58% cobalt in the 2016 study, and about 11.8% nickel in a 2022 follow-up. Both fit meteoritic iron.
- Key studies: Comelli et al., Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 2016; Matsui et al., Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 2022
- Where to see it: the Tutankhamun galleries at the Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza
What Is Tutankhamun’s Iron Dagger?
When Howard Carter’s team unwrapped the mummy in 1925, they found two daggers among the wrappings. The iron-bladed one lay by the right thigh. A second dagger, with a blade of gold, lay near the abdomen. Searches for “Tutankhamun’s dagger” often mix the two up. The meteorite story belongs to the iron one.
The iron dagger has a gold handle decorated with granulation and inlay. One side of its gold sheath carries a lily motif, and the other a pattern of feathers ending in a jackal’s head. Carter assumed such a blade must have been imported, perhaps from the Hittites in Anatolia. For decades that was as far as anyone could take it. For the discovery of the tomb itself, see our King Tut tomb discovery guide.
Why Was Iron So Unusual in Tutankhamun’s Day?
Tutankhamun lived long before the Iron Age in Egypt. Tools and weapons of his time were bronze and copper, with gold reserved for ceremonial pieces. Smelted iron from this period is very scarce in Egypt. The tomb held a number of iron objects, but they are small and simple next to this dagger. The dagger stands apart for its finish and its craftsmanship.
Iron was rare enough to be treated as a royal gift. Diplomatic letters from the 14th century BCE, discussed below, show kings sending iron objects to one another.
How Do We Know the Blade Is From a Meteorite?
The 2016 X-ray study
Earlier examinations in the 1970s and 1990s raised the possibility that the blade was meteoritic, but the methods of the time couldn’t settle it. In 2016, a team from Milan Polytechnic, the University of Pisa and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo analysed it with portable X-ray fluorescence. The method is non-invasive, so the blade wasn’t damaged.
- Nickel: about 10.8%. Iron made by smelting terrestrial ore rarely exceeds about 4%.
- Cobalt: 0.58%. The nickel-to-cobalt ratio is consistent with iron meteorites.
The authors concluded that the composition strongly supports a meteoritic origin.
The 2022 follow-up
In 2022, researchers from the Chiba Institute of Technology analysed the blade again at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. They measured about 11.8% nickel and found a crosshatched Widmanstätten pattern, which points to an octahedrite, the most common group of iron meteorites. The pattern and other features suggest the blade was shaped by low-temperature forging, below roughly 950 °C. Meteoritic iron is worked this way, by hammering and forging. It isn’t smelted.
Which meteorite?
The 2016 team compared the blade with known meteorites from the region. Only one, the Kharga meteorite, found in 2000 near Mersa Matruh on the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria, had a composition possibly consistent with the blade.
“Possibly” is the honest word here. The study points to a meteorite with a similar composition. It doesn’t prove that this one supplied the blade.
How Did the Blade Reach Tutankhamun?
Three explanations are discussed, and the evidence can’t yet choose between them.
A diplomatic gift from Mitanni?
The Amarna letters, royal correspondence from the 14th century BCE, show that iron objects were prized gifts between kingdoms. One letter from Tushratta of Mitanni to Egypt’s Amenhotep III, likely Tutankhamun’s grandfather, lists an iron-bladed dagger with a gold hilt. The 2022 team suggested that Tutankhamun’s dagger could be that very blade, perhaps passed down as an heirloom. This remains a hypothesis.
A local find?
Meteorites land in deserts, and Egyptians had worked meteoritic iron long before. Nine small beads from a Predynastic cemetery at Gerzeh, about 5,000 years old, were hammered from meteorite fragments.
Made in Egypt or abroad?
This is a separate question from how the metal arrived. The 2016 authors read the blade’s quality, compared with other simple meteoritic iron objects, as a sign of real ironworking skill in Tutankhamun’s time. The 2022 team thought it unlikely that the dagger was made in Egypt, and linked it to the Mitanni gift instead. The two readings sit uneasily together and haven’t been resolved.
Did the Egyptians Know Iron Fell From the Sky?
Possibly, but not provably in Tutankhamun’s lifetime. A hieroglyphic term for iron, meaning “iron from the sky,” appears in texts from the 19th Dynasty, in the 13th century BCE, a generation or so after his death. The 2016 authors argue it shows Egyptians understood the origin of this metal by then. Whether the people who handled this blade knew it is still debated. For the script itself, see Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
Why Was a Meteorite Dagger Buried With the King?
Scholars offer three interpretations, though none is certain:
- Divine connection. The sky was the realm of the gods, so a blade from the sky may have carried protective meaning.
- Status. Iron was scarce enough to be exchanged between kings, which signalled the highest rank.
- Afterlife. Placed on the body, the dagger may have been meant to arm the king for the next world.
For the wider burial logic, see Funerals in Ancient Egypt and Tutankhamun Legacy.
Where Is the Dagger Now?
The dagger is now part of the Tutankhamun collection at the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza, beside the pyramids. Older articles still place it in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, which is where it was when both studies were carried out.
Tickets are timed-entry and must be booked online. For the Tutankhamun galleries, current prices, hours and how long to allow, see our guide to Tutankhamun’s treasures at the GEM. The tomb itself, with the king’s mummy but not his treasures, is in Luxor. See Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62).
