Like most iron meteorites, Gibeon meteorites formed 4.5 billion years ago within the molten core of an asteroid whose shattered remains are part of the asteroid belt. An impact event ejected what was to become the Gibeon mass into interplanetary space. Gibeon meteorites are the bounty that landed on Earth thousands of years ago when the wandering iron mass slammed into the atmosphere before exploding and raining down in what is now the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. In previous generations, indigenous tribesmen recovered small meteorite fragments at or near the surface and fashioned them into spear points and other tools. This specimen was recovered with the aid of a metal detector. Its final shape is the product of its composition, the soil chemistry where it landed, its orientation in the ground, the amount of groundwater to which it was exposed and the length of time of such exposure. All these factors slowly reshaped this mass as it sat near the Earth’s surface as the seasons turned over thousands of years.

In effect, this meteorite was hewn by monumental forces encountered in space, frictional heating as it plunged through Earth’s atmosphere with the final contouring having occurred during its millennia-long residency at the edge of the Kalahari Desert. While the vast majority of iron meteorites are prosaically shaped, that is not the case here in this engaging sculptural form from outer space.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.


228 x 79 x 171mm (9 x 7 x 6.75 in.) and 15.34 kg (33.75 lbs)