Submit a Picture

Where is My Picture?!

The Queue

Met Name

Met Type

Thin Sections

    Iron

Steve writes:

On a recent trip to Washington DC to visit our son, my wife and I took a few days to tour some sites, including several of the Smithsonian National Museums. Not unexpectedly, we saw lunar rocks at the Air and Space Museum (samples that had been returned during the Apollo missions), and the outstanding collection of meteorites at the Museum of Natural History. But surprisingly, we also saw one more meteorite artifact that I thought I’d share with Paul’s readers.

Indian Emperor Jahangir (1569 – 1627 AD) reigned over India when a nickel-iron meteorite was observed to fall over Jalandhar, a city in the present-day state of Punjab. According to translations of Jahangir’s memoirs, the date of the fall was on or about April 10, 1621, after which Jahangir ordered tax collector Muhammad Sa’id to retrieve the meteorite and have Master Ustad Daud – well known at the time for making high quality sword blades – fashion from it two swords, a dagger, and a knife. Of those, only the knife currently on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Arts is believed to have survived (previously, the knife was on display with the meteorite collection in their National Museum of Natural History).

Prominently displayed is the side of the knife with a gold inlay thought to portray a parasol, which has been proposed as the possible seal of the emperor. And although not easily visible (though I wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway!), the museum’s website describes an inscription on the spine of the blade, starting at the edge of the handle, which approximately translates as:

There fell in the time of Jahangir Shah
From lightening-iron, a lightening-like, precious piece.
Jahangir, son of Akbar ordered to make of that
Two swords, this knife and a dagger.
In the year 1030. In the year 16 (of Jahangir’s ascension).

While visiting the museum, I was able to take a few low-quality cell phone pics of the knife and its display. The lighting was poor, and cell phones don’t always create the best images (especially under low light), but some post-processing helped to clean up those photos, some of which I’ve included in today’s post. In addition to the 2D shots, I also tried taking a few shifted photo pairs for creating 3D images; though crude, hopefully they still help to better convey the workmanship of this knife. (Next time I’ll make sure to bring a real camera – these cell phone images definitely don’t do it justice!)

Photo 1 – meteorite knife (right) on display with an ornate iron chape from a sword’s protective cover (left) and a lion-topped hilt on a conventional metal dagger (middle)

Photo 2 – the entire knife shown in a crossed-eyes 3D image

Photo 3 – Photo 2’s corresponding red-cyan anaglyph

Photo 4 – a closer image of the hilt in a crossed-eyes 3D image

Photo 5 – Photo 4’s corresponding red-cyan anaglyph

Photo 6 – image from a different angle to highlight the blade’s folded meteorite metal



Note from the MPOD Webmaster on 3-D Viewing:

I cannot fuse the stereo-pair images as presented. They are too large for my aged eyeballs to bring together. If you have the same problem, try this:

1) Click on the picture to view the full-resolution photo.

2) Click the 'Smaller' button 10-15 times to shrink the picture to the point where you can fuse the images.

3) Hold the mouse over the 'Bigger' button, fuse the pictures, and click the mouse while keeping the images fused to see how large you can go.

More Info on 3-D Viewing