Nandan Iron Meteorite var. Kamacite (1516 fall)

Item Description

A striking and sculptural meteorite from a witnessed fall. The blocky, almost octahedral brilliant silver-metallic 4-sided specimen has striking surface features on all sides and has a coarse octahedral structure. From the literature: "Nantan iron meteorites represent one of the rare witnessed iron meteorite falls in the world. The fall was vividly recorded (in Chinese records): "During summertime in May of Jiajing 11th year, stars fell from the northwest direction, five to six fold long, waving like snakes and dragons. They were bright as lightning and disappeared in seconds.' These records show the meteorite to have fallen in the year 1516 AD. The fall site was not discovered until much later, in 1958. It contains 92.35% iron and 6.96% nickel, belonging to IIICD classification of Wasson et al (1980 's). An extremely fine example with 131 grams mass. We found one more from a small lot of finer quality pieces, bought a decade ago! Few have such sharpness to them. This is the last of our good ones from that old hoard. Valued at $750.