What
we have is supposedly chlorine steel which our technology simply does not
attempt. It is possible that what we are
seeing actually is iron quenched in sea water producing a useful surface. What I am comfortable with is positioning
this tool into the European Bronze Age from 3000BC through 1159BC.
The
wood through modified was somewhere beyond biological attack that had to be in
a mineral rich sink of some sort. The
iron would allow electron exchange and accretion of the limestone. Recall that
limestone can self-assemble quickly with the right conditions. At the same time, geological aging methods
are profoundly untrustworthy unless you get extremely lucky. There is a good reason that I can date the
end of the Bronze Age proper to 1159 BC and place Troy in the preceding
generation. Yet almost all other dates
are very fuzzy and have a typical error factor of at least a century and even
then cannot be trusted.
This
chlorine iron technology needs to be replicated and I am sure it must be linked
to sea water or sea salt and may also need some additional chemistry as
well. Those look to be good hammer
heads.
Out of
Place in Time: Was This Hammer Made 100 Million Years Ago?
Oopart (out of place artifact) is
a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around
the world that seem to show a level of technological advancement incongruous
with the times in which they were made. Ooparts often frustrate conventional
scientists, delight adventurous investigators open to alternative theories, and
spark debate.
A hammer was found in London, Texas, in
1934 encased in stone that had formed around it. The rock surrounding the
hammer is said to be more than 100 million years old, suggesting the hammer was
made well before humans who could have made such an object are thought to have
existed.
In June 1936 (or 1934 according to some
accounts), Max Hahn and his wife Emma were on a walk when they noticed a rock
with wood protruding from its core. They decided to take the oddity home and
later cracked it open with a hammer and a chisel. Ironically, what they found
within seemed to be an archaic hammer of sorts. A team of archaeologists
checked it, and as it turns out, the rock encasing the hammer was dated back
more than 400 million year; the hammer itself turned out to be more than 500
million years old. Additionally, a section of the handle has begun the
transformation to coal. Creationists, of course, were all over this. The
hammer’s head, made of more than 96% iron, is far more pure than anything
nature could have achieved without an assist from modern technology.
Much mystery surrounds the so-called
“London Hammer.”
Carl Baugh, who is in possession of the
artifact, announced that it was tested by Battelle Laboratory in Columbus,
Ohio, a lab that has tested moon rocks for NASA. The tests found the hammer to
have unusual metallurgy—96.6 percent iron, 2.6 percent chlorine, 0.74
percent sulfur, and no carbon.
Carbon is usually what strengthens
brittle iron, so it is strange that carbon is absent. Chlorine is not usually
found in iron. The iron shows a high degree of craftsmanship without bubbles
in the metal. Furthermore, it is said to be coated in an iron oxide that would
not readily form under natural conditions and which prevents rust.
Glen J. Kuban, a vocal skeptic of
Baugh’s hammer claims, wrote in a 1997 paper titled “The London Hammer: An
Alleged Out-of-Place Artifact,” that the tests may have been conducted
privately rather than at Battelle Laboratory. He cites a 1985 issue of the
magazine Creation Ex Nihilo. Epoch Times contacted Battelle Laboratory to
verify. A spokeswoman said she had not heard of the hammer in her 15 years at
the lab, but she would check into it.
Kuban said the stone may contain
materials that are more than 100 million years old, but that doesn’t mean the
rock formed around the hammer so long ago. Some limestone has formed around
artifacts known to be from the 20th century, so rocks can sometimes form fairly
quickly.
Baugh’s website says, however, that the
fossils in the stone surrounding the hammer “retain fine detail, indicating
that they were not reworked, but [are] part of the original formation.” This
would suggest the fossils and the hammer are from the same time period, that
the fossils did not just get mixed up in materials that formed rock around the
hammer at a later date.
Carbon dating performed in the late
1990s “showed inconclusive dates ranging from the present to 700 years ago,”
Baugh supporter David Lines reported at the time. According to Kuban, Lines
said the test had been contaminated by more recent organic substances. Such
contamination is one of the reasons Baugh is said to have delayed having the
artifact carbon dated (skeptics say he delayed because he feared being proved
wrong). Dating is often called into question on both sides—by skeptics and
proponents—for various reasons when it comes to ooparts.
The object was found by a hiker, and
it seems it was not found embedded in the original layer of rock, which
would have made a stronger case for an ancient origin. It was a chunk of rock
found resting on a ledge, perhaps having tumbled there from within a larger
formation.
As evidence of the hammer’s age, Baugh said
part of the wooden handle had turned to coal. The photos of the hammer show
a black part of the hammer that looks like it could be coal.
The debate surrounding the hammer’s
origin has become bound up with the creationism versus evolutionism debate.
Baugh is a creationist. Kuban is a creationist-turned-skeptic (or a much more
moderate creationist). Various creationist organizations take different stances
on this artifact, and many evolutionists dismiss it as a creationist hoax. But
the object remains a fascinating one apart from its role in this controversy.
This is one of many objects said to be
out of place in time. Epoch Times continues to explore more such findings.
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