Their report was published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science. Elmar Buchner of Stuttgart University led the research.
It is not known when the statue was made. But some estimates say the rock-like material fell from the sky at least ten thousand years ago.
The researchers call the statue the “iron man”. It weighs more than ten and one half kilograms and is about twenty four centimeters tall. The iron man is holding an unidentified object in his left hand. A swastika is cut into the middle of the statue. The swastika is a centuries-old sign of good luck in Buddhist philosophy. The statue may represent the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist king of the North, known as Jambhala in Tibet.
The researchers believe the iron man may have been carved in the Bon culture of the eleventh century in what is now Tibet. No one is sure how the statue was discovered. But a research team may have taken it to Germany after a trip to Tibet in nineteen thirty-eight and nineteen thirty-nine.
The noted zoologist Ernst Schafer led the exploration. He was sent to Tibet by Germany’s Nazi Party. His team reportedly was looking for the starting place of the Aryan race, which the Nazis believed to be greater than any other race. But no one knows for sure that that was the reason, either. One unconfirmed story says Ernst Schafer used scientific expeditions to hunt animals.
The iron man found his way to the city of Munich. It remained for years in a private collection. But a public sale made the statue available for study in two thousand seven.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25