Nandan Iron Meteorite var. Kamacite (1516 fall)

Item Description

A sculptural meteorite from a witnessed fall! 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. The blocky, almost ocahedral brilliant silver-metallic specimen has striking surface features on all sides and has a coarse octahedral structure. It contains 92.35% iron and 6.96% nickel, belonging to IIICD classification of Wasson et al (1980 's). An extremely fine larger example with 393 grams mass. Last specimen we have left from a small lot of finer quality pieces, bought a decade ago!