Priceless Tibetan Buddha statue looted by Nazis was carved from meteorite
\nRelic taken by SS in 1930s analysed by researchers following reappearance at auction in 2007<\/p>\n
A priceless Buddha statue looted by Nazis in\u00a0Tibet\u00a0in the 1930s was carved from a meteorite which crashed to the Earth 15,000 years ago, according to new research.<\/p>\n
The relic bears a Buddhist swastika on its belly \u2013 an ancient symbol of luck that was later co-opted by the Nazis in\u00a0Germany.<\/p>\n
Analysis has shown the statue is made from an incredibly rare form of nickel-rich iron present in falling stars.<\/p>\n
The 1,000-year-old carving, which is 24cm high and weighs 10kg, depicts the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, and is known as the Iron Man statue.<\/p>\n
It was stolen before the\u00a0second world war\u00a0during a pillage of Tibet by Hitler’s SS, who were searching for the origins of the Aryan race.<\/p>\n
It eventually made its way to a private collection and was hidden away until it was auctioned in 2007.<\/p>\n
– the Guardian UK\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nazi Buddhist Iron Man From Space<\/p><\/div>\n Crazy, right? Well, according to new studies, it’s not so much the case.<\/p>\n There were only, it turns out, a few slight catches. According to two experts who have since given their verdict on the mysterious Iron Man, it may have been a European counterfeit; it was probably made at some point in the 20th century; and it may well not have been looted by the Nazis. The bit about the meteorite, though, still stands. Nazi buddhist iron man from space, we hardly knew ye.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know it sounds like something from Indiana Jones, but it’s true. Last month, the headlines looked like this – Priceless Tibetan Buddha statue looted by Nazis was carved from meteorite Relic taken by SS in 1930s analysed by researchers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[130,169,177],"tags":[604,606,607,605],"class_list":["post-2971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-history","category-art-news","category-sculpture","tag-art-fake","tag-forgery","tag-looted-art","tag-nazi-buddhist-iron-man-from-space"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2JDlZ-LV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nazi](\"http:\/\/greynotgrey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/nazi-buddhist-iron-man-from-space.jpg\" "\\"Nazi")
\n– the Guardian UK<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n