The Iron with Jewels Inside
In Siberia, people knew of a lump of iron on a hillside that was full of glittering green crystals. Local Tatars said it had fallen from the sky.
What was reported
In 1749, a Cossack blacksmith came across a mass of iron weighing about 700 kilograms on a mountain south of Krasnoyarsk. It was unlike anything from a mine: inside the iron were translucent yellow-green crystals, like gemstones. Local people believed it had fallen from the sky.
In 1772 the German naturalist Peter Pallas had it carried to St Petersburg.
Explanations offered
It was a meteorite, a kind now named pallasite after him: iron and nickel from the core of a broken asteroid, mixed with crystals of olivine. Ernst Chladni studied it in 1794 to argue that such rocks come from space, which was then a shocking idea.
- When
- Found in 1749
- Where
- Near Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia
- Witnesses
- Siberian blacksmiths, and the naturalist Peter Pallas
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
More from Russia