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chester bead with photos and then a scanning electron micro- it was cracking along the crystal grains. So she cut her next
scope (SEM) at the Open UniversityThe SEM bombarded the slice parallel to the natural layers between the crystals, akin to
small bead (ess than an inch long) with electrons. The resulting sawing along the grain of a piece ofwood, rather than across it.
scatter of particles revealed detailed information on surface She also decided to turn the furnace up to 800'C very high
(a
structure and chemistrywithout damaging the bead, resolving but plausible temperature for ancient Egyptians, used to make
features just one micron wide, the width of a strand of spider Egyptian marl ware pottery) to see if the extra heat would help.
silk.Johnson was able to direct the electron beam at the fresh- Finally success. She hammered out a thin layer of metal
est bits of metal shining out from underneath the corrosion, and used pliers to bend it into a tubular bead (which she then
which revealed iron containing an average of4.8 percent nickel toasted in a 400"C flame to achieve the color effect).Johnson
byweight. "This made me feel confident that it probablywas had established the proof of concept, but to truly re-create
meteoritic iron, but there was still a chance it could be made the process bywhich the beads were made, she would need to
from naturally occurring nickel-rich iron ore," saysJohnson.
The next step was to look at the crystal structure. Using the
X-ray compuged tomography imaging facility at the University
of Manchester,Johnson and Tyldesley created virtual slices of
the bead, which show that it is a hollow tube containingwoven
strands of fax fiber in the center. "This was almost certainly
the string that the beads were threaded upon," saysJohnson.
Zooming in further, she observed the classic meteoritic signa-
ture-intersecting fingers of long nickel-iron crystals, known
as the Widmanstetten pattern. "It takes millions of years of
cooling to produce crystals of this size, and the only place we
see these kinds of crystals today are in meteorite samples," she
says. Using similar techniques, Thilo Rehren from University The distinctive crystal structure known as the Widmanst5tten
College London and Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, pattern (seen here in an unrelated sample) can take millions
of years to form. lt is a clear marker of meteoritic metal, and is
alongwith his colleagues, has shown that the three Gerzeh iron present in the Gerzeh beads.
beads at the Petrie Museum display the same crystal structure.
The beads are definitely made from meteoritic iron, but that
does not explain how the Egyptians worked the raw material use tools and materials available at the time. She headed back
into such fine decorations. to the Petrie Museum and found what she was looking for in
a storage drawer: a stone tool with a groove across the end
ACK AT HER LAB at the Open UniversityJohnson exam- and a small, bent copper rod. Both are from Egypt and date
ines the results of a series of experiments to answer to before the Gerzeh beads, though there is no evidence that
this question. The product is a tubular iron bead that they had been used in bead production. "They didnt look like
Iooks like a srunning iridescent jewel, shimmering blue, green, anlthing interesting, but after my metalworking experiments
and orange. "These beads are exquisite when they are fresh," I realized that these could have been the kind oftools used to
says Johnson, who wears her handmade meteorite beads on make beads," she says.
a necklace. Using her own precious collection of meteorite Johnson made replica tools and coaxed another thin layer
fragments,Johnson started to experiment with making beads. of meteoritic metal from her collection. (Again she used a
First, she used a modern saw to cut a thin layer of metal, which modern sarg but is still experimenting with means to split
she then hammered to make it thinner, thin enough to roll into meteoritic iron with stone tools). She bent it by placing it
a bead. Disaster struck fairly quickly 'As soon as I hit it, the betvgeen a copper rod and agrooved lump of granite, and ham-
metal fractured and broke apart. This suggested to me that mering gently while turning the rod. Rehren's analysis of the
cold-working wasn't the way to go," saysJohnson. Petrie Museum beads confirmed that the Gerzeh beads were
She used a furnace to heat the metal up to 200"C-approxi- rolled from thin sheets of meteoritic iron in the same way-a
mately the temperature the Egyptians would have used to work surprisingly sophisticated process for the time. "Forming such
copper at that time-and tried again. Once again it fractured, rolled-sheet beads out ofcoarsegrained and rather hard and
andJohnson realized that she needed to find a new approach. brittle meteoritic iron would have required very careful ham-
She studied the way that the metal had fractured and saw that mering of the metal, most likely with intermittent annealing
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