Niger's President, General Abdourahamane Tiani, banned the export of some minerals and meteorites over the weekend in connection with an investigation into the smuggling and auctioning in the United States of a Martian stone found in Niger, the national news agency ANP reported.
Niger believes that a meteorite found two years ago in the Agadez region, weighing 24.5 kg, is the largest Martian rock ever found on Earth and, as a scientifically valuable object, should remain in the country.
However, in mid-July, the meteorite mysteriously made its way to New York, where it sold for nearly $5 million at a Sotheby's auction. The auction house did not disclose the names of either the buyer or seller, but rejected allegations that the item had been smuggled. The auction catalog only noted that the stone was found on November 16, 2023, by “a meteorite hunter in the remote Agadez region of Niger.”
A little more information emerged in an article published last year in the journal of the University of Florence, which revealed that the meteorite, designated NWA 16788, was found in the Sahara Desert, 90 km west of the Chirfa oasis, and was “sold by the local community to an international dealer,” ending up in his private gallery in Arezzo, Italy.
The day after the find was sold, the Living Desert Museum in Agadez demanded the return of the meteorite from the Italian authorities and the gallery, and the Niger government launched an investigation to clarify the circumstances under which the object, which should have been state property, left its borders.
These claims were supported by Professor Paul Serano, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, who explained to the BBC that under international law, you can't simply take something out of a country that's important to its cultural heritage—whether it's a cultural object, a physical object, a natural object, or an extraterrestrial object. “We've moved on from the colonial era, when such things were okay,” he explained.
Niger, although one of the world's poorest countries, has rich mineral resources, including coal, gold, silver, tin, and uranium, of which it is the world's fourth-largest producer. Meteorites are frequently discovered in the Sahara Desert, which covers much of the country. (PAP)
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