The epic story of the iron plate of Gizeh Pyramid

In 1837, Colonel Howard Vyse found a piece of iron near the mouth of the air-passage, in the southern side of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh. He was able to extract it “after having removed by blasting the two outer tiers of the stones investigated the air shafts in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid” (Vyse, Pyramids of Gizeh, I, p. 276)

The iron plate had been necessarily inserted during the construction of the Great Pyramid, as there was no possible way to have inserted it later.
However, according to ongoing prevalent view, the use of iron in Egypt became common much later, as the earliest potential archeological evidence indicative of iron smelting in Egypt dates in the 6th century BCE largely in the form of iron slag excavated in the delta region at Naukratis and Tell Defena (Petrie 1886).

The finding of this iron plate was thus problematic, and it was considered that the origin of this iron was of a meteorite. This hypothesis was technically not testable at the time it was formulated.

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The iron plate was studied recently, and that time with more advanced technological means that allowed fined grained analyses of its metallurgic components and structure.

The outcomes brings further mystery and fascination to Egyptian Civilisation. The piece of iron does not come from a meteorite, as it should contain between 7% and 26% of nickel, which is not the case. It seems to have been melted and hammered by Human hand. It included gold traces, suggesting it used to be covered by a layer of gold.

What could be the function of this golden covered iron plate, is a very interesting but open question.

That being said, this piece of iron is one of the oldest piece of iron found so far, and contradicts the current consensus about the first occurrence of iron melting technique in Ancient Egypt, and across Human history.

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