Chondrite –L5 West Java, Indonesia

99 years ago Tjerebon blazed across the night sky of Java, Indonesia. It was hot and humid on July 10, 1922 and the fireball was seen by numerous people over a wide area. The visual phenomena was followed by a detonation heard for miles, after which a careful search yielded only two stones, each weighing just eight kilograms. Rarely available, scant Tjerebon has been distributed to institutional or private collectors.

As the meteorites Mt. Tazerzait and Baszkowka appear similar to Tjerebon, which has its idiosyncrasies, they likely originated on the same parent body. Each appears unique until you see one of the others: all of these meteorites share the same petrologic type, a low degree of shock, high porosity, a long cosmic-ray exposure age and similar noble gas abundances.

Tinted with hues ranging from cocoa to sienna to sand, along with a long single rim of fusion crust, this is a fine partial slice of a difficult to obtain Indonesian meteorite.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.


141 x 103 x 4mm (5.5 x 4 x 0.1 in.) and 181.9g (0.4 lbs)