On the second floor of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, there are three impressive specimens of a glassy yellowish gem so rare and so special that the ancient Egyptians used an identical material to adorn the breastplate of King Tutankhamun.
It's called Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) and it's found in only one location on Earth — the desolate Great Sand Sea north of the Gilf Kebir Plateau, just along the border of Libya and Egypt.
Geologists believe that LDG formed 29 million years ago when quartz-rich desert sand was liquified by a meteorite-generated heat burst of 3,600°F and then rapidly cooled.
The lack of an impact crater near the areas where LDG has been found lends credence to the theory that a meteorite may have exploded before touching down in the desert — but still generated enough heat to melt the sands. Scientists have compared LDG to trinitite, which is created when sand is exposed to the thermal radiation of a nuclear explosion.
When British archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter entered the intact tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, he encountered thousands of luxury objects intended to accompany the boy king into the afterworld.
Among the items decorated with gold, silver and precious gemstones was a breastplate depicting the god Ra as a winged scarab carrying the sun and moon into the sky.
The scarab, dating back to 1323 BCE, was carved from a pale yellow stone that Carter originally identified as chalcedony, a translucent variety of quartz. A decade later, British geographer Patrick Clayton found samples of a similar glass-like material while exploring the Libyan Desert and classified it as Libyan Desert Glass.
King Tut's breastplate is currently on display in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo, but will soon move to the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza.
Credit: Photo by The Jeweler Blog.