Egyptian Artifacts of Meteoritic Iron

A 5300-year-old necklace bead found in an Egyptian tomb was made with iron from a meteorite!  Evidence for iron smelting in Egypt dates back to the 6th century BC, but archeologists have found much older iron artifacts in the region, including in Tutankhamun's tomb. Scholars have examined some of these beads and concluded that the material they are made from came from a meteorite. The surface of the bead had low levels of nickel, but the levels inside were as high as they would be in a meteorite. But the clincher was evidence of a distinctive crystal structure – known as the "Widmanstätten pattern" – that only forms when iron and nickel cools very slowly, as it does in meteoroids.

Scientific American, "Ancient bling was out of this world".