The meteorite of Ensisheim: 1492 to 1992

Abstract— On November 7, 1492, a 127-kg stony meteorite fell at Ensisheim in Alsace after a fireball explosion that was heard for a distance of 150 km over the upper Rhineland. Today, a 56-kg specimen of the stone, an LL6 chondrite with large patches of fusion crust, remains on display in the Hotel de Ville at Ensisheim. This was the earliest witnessed meteorite fall in the West from which pieces are preserved. Initially, the stone's survival depended on the presence of a magistrate at Ensisheim who forbade the removal of pieces, which had begun apace as soon as a crowd gathered and pulled the stone out of a 1-m hole in a wheat field. He ordered the stone brought into the city to await the arrival of King Maximilian, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III, who was approaching with his army. In nearby Basel, broadsheets were printed within weeks bearing the story in Latin and German verses by the eminent poet, Sebastian Brant, who turned the sheets into propaganda tracts by claiming the stone as a portent of victory and admonishing Maximilian to make war on the French without delay. Maximilian declared the stone to be a sign of divine favor and ordered it to be preserved in the Ensisheim parish church. The stone grew in fame when Maximilian won his impending battle with the French, but strange new elements entered the story as it was repeated over the years in books and chronicles. Through centuries of battle and political changes, the stone remained in the church until 1793 when French revolutionaries transferred it to a new National Museum in Colmar. There, many pieces were taken for chemical analyses during the birth of the meteoritics at the turn of the 19th century. In 1803 the stone was returned to the Ensisheim church where it outlasted the structure itself which collapsed in 1854. This paper traces the history of the stone itself and people's responses to it through the 500 years since the fall at Ensisheim.