GIDEON METEORITES
The meteorite was discovered by the Nama people and used by them to make tools and weapons, including heads for their assegais.
In 1836 the English captain J. E. Alexander collected samples of the meteorite in the vicinity of the Fish River and sent them to London. There John Herschel analyzed them and confirmed for the first time the extraterrestrial nature of the material.
Between 1911 and 1913, 33 fragments of the meteorite were collected in the vicinity of Gibeon and brought to the capital Windhoek. They weighed between 195 and 506 kilograms (430 and 1,116 lb) and were first stored, then displayed at the Zoo Park as a single heap. In 1975 a public fountain displaying the meteorite fragments was planned. The pieces were removed and stored at the Alte Feste, where two of the fragments were stolen. The fountain was eventually erected in Post Street Mall, with two empty pillars for the missing fragments. Since then, two more fragments were removed from the fountain, so that it displays only 29 pieces today.
The collection displayed on the fountain in Windhoek's Central Business District was proclaimed a National Monument (Category: geology) on 15 February 1950. Additionally, it was decided that all meteorites found in Namibia would automatically be protected as National Monuments and should not be removed from where they have been found, nor damaged in any way.
