This is an ancient Tibetan sculpture. Carved from an even older
meteorite. Discovered by a Nazi archaeological expedition. And
no, it doesn’t play a key role in an Indiana Jones movie.
According to a new paper in Meteoritics & Planetary Science
(gloriously titled “Buddha from space”), the elements that
compose a 23-pound Tibetan statue (even more gloriously
nicknamed “Iron Man”) match the composition of known fragments
from the iron Chinga meteorite. This space object hit Earth
between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, near the Chinga stream on
what is today the border of Russia and Mongolia. Although
meteorites have been formed into weapons, jewelry, and art
before, the Iron Man statue is the only known human figure to be
crafted from a meteorite, which makes it truly priceless. The
researchers suggest that an 11th-century Tibetan artist chiseled
the sculpture as a representation of the Buddhist god
Vaiśravaṇa.