10,000 years ago, an iron giant arrived upon Earth and 9,000 years later, the people of Thule, modern day Greenland, discovered this iron giant and simultaneously discovered opportunity. They’d break pieces off of the iron giant’s hide to make tools, then weapons. They named this iron giant Ahnighito, and present day, the Museum of Natural History found another use for this iron giant: education. Along with a new use, they’d found Ahnighito a more modern and scientific name: The Cape York Meteorite.
Sound a little dramatic? It is, but the story of the Cape York Meteorite, its worship and utilization by the indigenous Inuit of circa 1000 A.D. Thule, and a treasure hunt by a brave explorer almost a millennium later to find it is all fact.
The Cape York Meteorite is classified as IIIAB, and is primarily comprised of iron-nickel and carbon. The Cape York Meteorite is one of the largest iron meteorites in the world, with all its pieces totaling around 58 metric tons. Also one of the best preserved meteorites ever discovered, The Cape York Meteorite is divided into 8 notable pieces, all of which were cleverly named by the Inuit in accordance to their size. For example, Ahnighito, translated as “The Tent”, is the largest fragment and weighs 31 tons. It is from Ahnighito that the Inuit are said to have made most of their tools, and it’s the stories of Ahnighito that would attract treasure hunters in later centuries.
The stories of an iron giant that gave gifts to the Inuit reached the ears of 1818 America, when exploration was still a means of obtaining glory. While Robert E. Peary is credited as the first to find the Cape York Meteorite, British naval Captain John Ross was the first to explore West Greenland and bring some of the Cape York’s iron fragments home.
By 1894, the historical “Race for the North Pole” was very active, and American Arctic Naval explorer Robert E. Peary was poised to reach it; while the Cape York Meteorite was on Peary’s “to-do list”, it wasn’t at the top. When stopping at Greenland to learn of how to reach the North Pole, the Eskimos showed Peary, who’d earned their respect from a previous voyage to Greenland, where Ahnighito was. The Eskimos brought him to Cape York, where he found his first mass of the meteorite several miles away from Cape York after a week of digging. Over the course of a month, Peary would find two more masses before running out of means to continue his search. Peary would return a year later and found a fragment he believed to be 100 tons, so he couldn’t take it back with him. Peary would return yet again in 1896, but this time he was ready; he’d brought “The Hope”, a 370-ton steamship.
Again, he couldn’t load it. Ahnighito wasn’t giving up without a fight. Peary needed an iron will to bring back the ultimate iron treasure.
Peary returned yet again in 1896 with the Hope, and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Though many of his crew feared Ahnighito would sink the ship Peary brought it home on October 2, 1897. Peary’s wife, whom Peary gifted Ahnighito to her, sold it to the Museum of Natural History in 1904 for $40,000. The Museum of Natural History had been helping Peary from the beginning, as they had commissioned the Hope to Peary.
Ahnighito and its “family of seven” can currently be viewed in the Museum of Natural History; not worshipped as it once was, but still awed.