The Somnium Project

Chemical analysis of 91 ancient iron weapons and jewelry turned up traces of nickel in about a dozen signet rings — a sign the iron probably came from meteorites, researchers report in the August 2026 Journal of Archaeological Science. The rings were excavated from the ruins of elite tombs, houses and a temple in southern Greece and Crete and the meteoric metal was often layered with gold and silver.

“This shows that meteoritic iron was considered a very precious metal used for producing objects of special value and for a high-status group of people,” probably elite Mycenaeans and Minoans, says prehistoric archaeologist Eleni Mantzourani of the University of Athens.

Iron from meteorites was prized throughout the ancient world, especially in Egypt, where arid deserts preserve meteorites. A dagger of meteoric iron was even found in King Tut’s tomb. But it was unclear whether the ancient Greeks also favored iron from meteorites; the space rocks are rare in a coastal region where the sea swallows most of them.

Mantzourani and Matthieu Gounelle, an astrophysicist and chemist at the French Natural History Museum in Paris, used X-ray fluorescence to study iron objects from 33 archaeological sites, all dating from 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.

More: Ancient Greek rings may have been forged with iron from meteorites