[meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite

Mon Jan 8 02:49:43 EST 2007

This meteorite could be the subject of all kinds of fantasy books. Seemingly stoic monks stash a rock contrary to their beliefs. Ninth century act of passion? Call the monks! 

Bill 

> -----Original Message----- 
> From: mexicodoug at aim.com 
> Sent: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 01:28:52 -0600 
> To: mlblood at cox.net, peterscherff at rcn.com, 
> meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com 
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite 
> 
> Hello Michael. Nogotta meteorite :-)? If you are writing a book, may I 
> suggest... 
> 
> For a good look at the stone, Check Figure 1 (page 90, see online link 
> below) of the 1983 paper on the Nogata chondrite or better yet, contact 
> the 
> authors, for a nice picture of the "low iron" L6 meteorite which appears 
> to 
> be oriented (and is triangular shaped). While this aptly historically 
> called "Flying Stone" was purported to be a hammer hitting the Butoku 
> Jinja 
> Temple Shrine, I would doubt that somewhat as it seems more likely that 
> the 
> 472 gram meteorite was lifted out of a small hole made in the ground by 
> villagers, not priests, and not scraped off the side the (stone - or rice 
> paper?) Shrine building. Perhaps the purported hammer was a different 
> stone 
> from the same fall, though multiple pieces are apparently not mentioned. 
> No 
> reverence whatsoever is mentioned, just that it was kept as a treasure, 
> and 
> the sonic booms and light phenomena were apparently nicely recorded in 
> the 
> almost ancient documentation. 
> 
> Shima, M. et. al., "Description, Chemical Composition and Noble Gases of 
> the 
> Chondrite Nogata", Meteoritics, Vol. 18, 30 June 1983, p. 87-102. 
> 
> The authors received a sample of the treasure from the kind Shinto priest 
> M. 
> Iwakuma of the now renamed Suga Jinja Shrine where it was "kept as a 
> treasure" for 1,120 years. In 1983 they lamented about the impossibility 
> of 
> asking for more than 20 g to do some better MS compositional analysis 
> with 
> the tools of the time, given the status of it being a treasure for over a 
> thousand years, kept in a wooden box, which incidentally was carbon dated 
> rather than analyzing the meteorite itself, due to lack of material. The 
> carbon dating was inconclusive though supported it to be ball-parked 
> around 
> 500 years older than the meteorite. The fall date was corroborated with 
> at 
> least two historical records, though. The writing on the box giving the 
> fall year was of a later style script. 
> 
> A complete copy of the paper for poor, impatient and underprivileged 
> people 
> (low resolution terrible contrast photo) is available at: 
> http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/gif/1983Metic..18...87S/0000090.000. 
> html 
> 
> But I am sure you California/Arizona folks have hard, crisp copies coming 
> out of the woodwork in the UCSD library, etc.! 
> 
> Best wishes, 
> Doug 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael L Blood" <mlblood at cox.net> 
> To: <peterscherff at rcn.com>; "Meteorite List" 
> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> 
> Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:00 PM 
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite 
> 
> 
>> Hi Peter, 
>> The only image I have seen of it was in a video about 
>> meteorites. 
>> For those in the peanut gallery, it is the stone that fell May 19, 
>> 861ad. 
>> in Nogata, Japan, crashing through the roof of a monastery of Buddhist 
>> monks. It is the oldest documented hammer I know of. I believe not one 
>> single mg has ever been made available to any one or any institution. It 
>> is highly revered by the monks, supposedly because it is considered to 
>> have fallen from heaven. (Such reported beliefs are often 
>> ethnocentrically 
>> biased and/or involve misinterpretations in translation - so, who can 
>> say 
>> how/what the monks REALLY think of it) - in any event, it is highly 
>> regarded and absolutely none of the material has ever been available). 
>> In the video, a monk brought out the box in which it is kept and 
>> the video was quite clear, as the interviewer and the monk were outside 
>> in the courtyard. It was larger than a golf ball but smaller than a 
>> baseball. 
>> If you do discover a still photo of it, I would much appreciate 
>> if 
>> you let me know of it, as I am working on a book about hammers. Right 
>> now all I have depictions of are mostly the 40 or 45 I have for sale. As 
>> rare as some of them are, I would say Nogata takes the cake, as it is 
>> TOTALLY unavailable. 
>> Good luck, Michael 
>> 
>> on 1/7/07 5:10 PM, peterscherff at rcn.com at peterscherff at rcn.com wrote: 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi, 
>>> 
>>> I hope someone can help me. I am looking for a photo of the Nogata 
>>> Meteorite that I can use in a powerpoint presentation. 
>>> 
>>> Thanks, 
>>> 
>>> Peter Scherff 
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>> 
>> -- 
>> It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his 
>> salary depends on him not understanding it. 
>> - Upton Sinclair 
>> -- 
>> What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. 
>> It is what we know for sure that just ain't so. 
>> - Josh Billings (but oft credited to Mark Twain) 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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