ENSISHEIM
LL6 Amphoterite
Fell November 7, 1492
Ensisheim, Alsace, France


On November 7, 1492, near noon, a loud explosion announced the fall of a 280-pound stone meteorite in a wheat field near the village of Ensisheim in the province of Alsace, France, which at the time was part of Germany. An old woodcut depicting the scene shows the fall witnessed by two people emerging from a forest. Actually, a young boy was the only eyewitness. He led the townspeople to the field, where the meteorite lay in a hole 3 feet deep. After it was retrieved, people began to chip off pieces for souvenirs until stopped by the town magistrate. The townspeople accepted the stone as an object of supernatural origin. King Maximilian of Germany, passing through Ensisheim three weeks later, examined the meteorite and proclaimed it a sign of God's wrath against the French, who were warring with the Holy Roman Empire. Maximilian ordered the great stone displayed in the parish church in Ensisheim as a reminder of God's intervention in the conflict. There it remained, chained to the church, until the French Revolution, when it was confiscated from the church by French revolutionaries and placed on display in a new national museum in nearby Colmar. In the museum, French scientists removed numerous pieces from the main mass for study. Many of those pieces eventually wound up in museums around the world. Ten years later, it was returned to the church in Ensisheim. The remaining specimen, then weighing only 122 pounds, round from centuries of sample removal and nearly absent of crust was taken to its final resting place, the town hall in Ensisheim. And there, much diminished, but occupying a position of honor, it remains to this day, carefully watched over and annually toasted by "The Guardians of the Ensisheim Meteorite".

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