Mystery Of The London Hammer
By James Donahue
Among the many oddities
mined out of solid rock is the “London Hammer,” a forged iron hammer head attached to a broken shaft of petrified
wood. It was found encased in stone at London, Texas, in 1934, and has been puzzling scientists ever since.
There are a few things
about this hammer that do not fit the accepted model of human history. Because it was found encased in stone it is estimated
to have existed for over 100 million years. This means the tool appears to have been manufactured long before humans ever
walked the planet.
The hammer is now in the hands of Carl Baugh, founder of the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. Baugh,
an American young earth creationist, also claims he discovered human footprints along dinosaur footprints along the Paluxy
River in Texas.
Baugh says he had the London Hammer tested by Battelle Laboratory in Columbus, Ohio. There researchers found the
metal in the hammer to be composed of 96.6 percent iron, 2.6 percent chlorine and 0.74 percent sulfur. Strangely, it contains
no carbon, which is usually necessary to strengthen iron, which by itself is very brittle. Also chlorine is not found in modern
iron.
The hammer
also is coated in an iron oxide which prevented rust.
All of this strongly suggests a form of metallurgy and craftsmanship that is foreign to
all contemporary methods of manufacturing and shaping iron products.
Naturally Baugh’s hammer has been
subjected to skepticism by people who do not wish to believe there is a possibility that an ancient civilization once existed
on Earth before Homo sapiens, or that humans were here before Adam and Eve were allegedly “created” by God.
They argue that rock
can form around objects faster than millions of years. That the hammer was found by a hiker on a rock ledge rather than having
been found deep in the ground also challenges its age.
Carbon dating performed about a decade ago suggested that the hammer was no more than 700
years old, but Baugh argues that the test was contaminated by more recent organic substances. Thus the debate over the London Hammer continues.
