3/13/1938 Statue discovered by the Nazis made of meteorite

In the 1930s, a Nazi expedition discovered a statue carved from a very valuable meteorite. It's believed to be about a thousand years old and has a swastika on its belly. The statue weighs ten kilograms and stands 24 centimetres tall.

Scientists say the thousand-year-old object was made from the Chinga meteorite, which crashed about 15,000 years ago. It was first reported in the Journal, Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

The statue was discovered in Tibet in 1938 by a German scientist, Ernst Schafer. His expedition was supported by the Nazis, especially SS chief Heinrich Himmler. He believed that the Aryan race originated in Tibet and therefore wanted to recover objects from the area.

The statue was brought back to Germany by the expedition, where it became part of a private collection. It disappeared from sight 15 years ago. The new owner subsequently asked the scientific council for information about the origin. He turned to Dr. Elmar Buchner of the University of Stuttgart.

"I was sure at first sight that the statue was made of meteorite. Even when I first saw it at a distance of ten metres," Buchner revealed.

Analysis showed that the statue was made of a rare class of meteorite - so-called ataxite, which is not very common on Earth. "It is rich in nickel and cobalt. Less than 0.1 percent of all meteorites are ataxites, so it's the rarest type of meteorite you can find," Buchner further revealed.

Meteorites have been taken by people in the past as a sign from God. The ancient Inuit made knives and jewellery out of iron meteorites. But tracing their exact origins is often extremely difficult. In the case of the sculpture discovered by the Nazis, scientists were exceptionally successful. They believe it was carved from a piece of the Chinga meteorite, which fell in the border region of eastern Siberia and Mongolia about 15,000 years ago.

The statue is believed to depict the god Vaisravan. Scientists believe it belongs to the pre-Buddhist Bön culture, which existed in Asia about a thousand years ago. "This is a totally unique thing," Buchner noted.

Neither the author of the statue nor the Nazis knew that the statue was made from such an extremely rare meteorite. According to Buchner, the statue has a certain aura. "It is extremely impressive and shrouded in mystery. Apparently it was almost entirely gilded before," Buchner concluded.

Sources: www.bbc.com