"Anything around that [iron object] gets absorbed into its presence," Milburn added.
|
|
Concretions occur when an iron object corrodes in water, causing a reaction that forms sand and other nearby items into a dense layer around the object.
|
|
Sometimes there was a rattling sound, sometimes there was not, thanks to a switch-controlled electromagnet that, when pressed, caused the iron object to stick to a stainless steel plate at the top of the container.
|
|
A huge butcher's hook from 1600 hangs solemnly in a glass case as a reminder that this grisly, wrought-iron object is how dead flesh has been stored for much of human history: it makes today's supermarkets, with their packaged sausages and frozen lamb chops, look bloodlessly sanitised by contrast.
|
|
Two other iron implements were found - a spear and a socketed sickle. Bronze items included two cauldrons and axeheads. The items appear to have been placed in the lake as votive offerings. The date of these items is uncertain because of the context of the finds, but the sword is thought to date from about 650 BC. It is the earliest iron object to have been discovered in Wales.
|
|
This episode investigated the cause of the Tunguska event. The programme concluded that the explosion was caused by the impact of a comet fragment, or other ice-rich body, that exploded above the ground. The reasons given for this were the fact that there was no crater as might be expected had a stony or iron object been involved and the heightened levels of rare earth elements discovered in the devastated environment afterwards.
|
|
In 1912 a hoard of 24 late Bronze Age weapons and tools was discovered during construction work at the Llyn Fawr reservoir, at the source of the Rhondda Fawr. The items did not originate from the Rhondda and are thought to have been left at the site as a votive offering. Of particular interest are fragments of an iron sword, the earliest iron object to be found in Wales, and the only C-type Hallstatt sword recorded in Britain.Davis (1989), p. 9.
|
|
Among these were the teeth of a reptile/mammal hybrid, Plagiaulax dawsoni, "found" in 1891 (and whose teeth had been filed down in the same way that the teeth of Piltdown Man were to be some 20 years later); the so-called "shadow figures" on the walls of Hastings Castle; a unique hafted stone axe; the Bexhill boat (a hybrid seafaring vessel); the Pevensey bricks (allegedly the latest datable "finds" from Roman Britain); the contents of the Lavant Caves (a fraudulent "flint mine"); the Beauport Park "Roman" statuette (a hybrid iron object); the Bulverhythe Hammer (shaped with an iron knife in the same way as the Piltdown elephant bone implement would later be); a fraudulent "Chinese" bronze vase; the Brighton "Toad in the Hole" (a toad entombed within a flint nodule); the English Channel sea serpent; the Uckfield Horseshoe (another hybrid iron object) and the Lewes Prick Spur. Of his antiquarian publications, most demonstrate evidence of plagiarism or at least naive referencing, Russell wrote: "Piltdown was not a 'one-off' hoax, more the culmination of a life's work." In addition, Harry Morris, an acquaintance of Dawson, had come into possession of one of the flints obtained by Dawson at the Piltdown gravel pit.
|
|
Thus a macroscopic piece of iron will have a nearly zero overall magnetic field. Application of an external magnetic field causes the domains that are magnetized in the same general direction to grow at the expense of adjacent ones that point in other directions, reinforcing the external field. This effect is exploited in devices that needs to channel magnetic fields, such as electrical transformers, magnetic recording heads, and electric motors. Impurities, lattice defects, or grain and particle boundaries can "pin" the domains in the new positions, so that the effect persists even after the external field is removed -- thus turning the iron object into a (permanent) magnet.
|
|
The mass spectrometry result indicating the rich seafood diet was confirmed by a chemical isotope analysis of two teeth, a femur, and a rib. From the isotope analysis of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in the teeth and bones the researchers discovered the diet included much freshwater fish and exotic birds such as swan, crane, and heron, and a vast quantity of wine – all items at the high end of the luxury market. Close analysis of the soil immediately below the skeleton revealed that the man had been infested with roundworm parasites when he died. The excavators found an iron object under the skeleton's vertebrae and speculated it might be an arrowhead that had been embedded in its back.
|
|