Aluminum wedge of Aiud

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The Wedge of Aiud is one of those supposedly "mysterious" out-of-place artifacts. It was found in Aiud, Romania, in the mid 1970s. Details are hard to verify, since the former Eastern Bloc country of Romania is home to various nationalist cranks who seek to glorify their nation by whatever pseudohistorical means possible, but the 4 to 5 pound wedge-shaped aluminum object was allegedly found during digging on a construction project, along with two mastodon bones in 35 feet of sand. Based on it being found in the same layer as the mastodon bones, the wedge is claimed to be at least 11,000 years old, if not millions.[1]


The wedge
The fact that this wedge-shaped thing is made from aluminum gets some people very excited because, previous to 1825, metallic aluminum effectively did not exist. And the first exciting explanation they come up with is (you guessed it) aliens. Yes, according to some unnamed engineer, the wedge is a piece of the landing gear on a VTOL-type (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) craft. This, of course, delights UFOlogists, who say an alien starship must have lost it when they blasted off after a visit to Earth thousands of years ago. Fantasy buffs speculate that it's something left behind by a time traveler making a hasty retreat from attacking mastodons, or partying with a band of early humans at the barbecue where the mastodon dropped.


Yet, there's a much more rational (albeit boring) explanation. The wedge is simply a tooth from a modern day excavator bucket, the kind used by workers digging foundations for construction projects. The results of metallurgical tests made on the wedge are consistent with modern 2000 series duralumin[wp] which oxidizes fairly rapidly, accounting for the aged appearance of the wedge, and which can be hardened[wp] to a degree similar to mild steel. Aluminum will not strike sparks as steel might, which makes the alloy desirable for service in environments with combustible gases or vapors, such as the coal mines that flourished for a while in Romania. With a decline in coal mining, the excavators may be reasonably supposed to have been turned to other uses. It's likely that one of these excavators lost a tooth while digging the hole in Aiud; someone unfamiliar with the machine found it in the sand near the mastodon bones, and assumed it to be an anachronism.

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LINK

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bencoleman

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When you don't want sparks

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