Lyell Collection
Geological Society, London, Special Publications
Lyell Centre  |   Lyell Collection  |   Subscriptions   |   Geological Society  |   Email alerts  |   Online bookshop  |   Help

Keywords:
Author:
Advanced search>>
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by D'Orazio, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation
Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 2007; v. 273; p. 215-225;
DOI: 10.1144/GSL.SP.2007.273.01.17
© 2007 Geological Society of London

Meteorite records in the ancient Greek and Latin literature: between history and myth

Massimo D'Orazio

Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Via S. Maria 53, 1-56126 Pisa, Italy (e-mail: dorazio{at}dst.unipi.it)

A catalogue of citations related to possible meteorites has been assembled by searching the ancient Greek and Latin literature up to the end of the West Roman Empire (AD 476). The catalogue illustrates the attitude of ancient populations towards the fall of meteorites and extends the record of meteorite falls back in time. The citations are arranged in the catalogue as: i) ‘meteorite falls’, when both the locality and the date of the fall are, at least approximately, indicated; ii) ‘worshipped stones’, when the written and archaeological sources suggest the actual existence of a stone as an object of worship, but the information about the locality and the date of the fall are missing or vague; iii) ‘myths’, when the connexion between an object said to have fallen from the heaven and the fall of a meteorite is weak or obscured by mythological traditions.