Very Ancient

This is Perth Museum's oldest exhibit, part of a meteorite that broke up over Perthshire in 1917. It came from the Solar System's Asteroid Belt and, at 4.5 billion years old, is older than anything on earth (and I've held it). Someone sometime cut off the corner, exposing the iron inclusions. They sparkle because, unlike terrestrial iron, they are unoxidised.

The extra is of some of Stirling's Smith Institute's Japanese collection on show for a couple of hours as part of a venture to spotlight a few aspects of the museum's collection not on permanent display (clockwise from top left):
- a netsuke of 3 blind men wrestling,
- a samurai helmet,
- a netsuke of a snake swallowing a frog eating a slug on a human skull,
- a netsuke of a chimpanzee.