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El Hammami - (Tiris Zemmour, Mauritania, 1997)

El Hammami is the name given to an H5 chondrite that fell over Mauritania sometime around 1995-1997.  This meteorite is famous with collectors because it was one of the first "exotic" hot-desert meteorites available widely to collectors.  This was in the days before the NWA rush and the internet.  Most old collections have a specimen of this fall and it is sometimes present under other names such as Mhamid and Hamada du Draa.  El Hammami is a fresh H5 chondrite with a concrete-grey matrix full of glittering metal flecks.  

Refer to the photo.  You are purchasing one large or a few small fragments from the lot shown.   The black centimeter cube is shown for scale and is not included.   Your purchase will include a labelled gemjar for safe storage.


From the Catalogue of Meteorites entry on El Hammami :

In 1997 January, an unknown mass of material, possibly broken apart from a single large stone, was sold to meteorite collectors by nomads near the town of Mhamid, Morocco; this material has since been resold under the names Mhamid and Hamada du Draa. The nomads claimed that this meteorite was found to the south, in Algeria (~29°50'N 5°50'W), in the direction of a fireball seen in 1995 January.

In 1997 September, the same nomads shipped a fragment of a meteorite that they claimed was seen to fall on 1997 August 10 to Mr. Edwin Thompson. In 1997 November, Thompson travelled to Mauritania and collected six fresh-looking stones totalling ~ 200 kg (individual masses of 80, 51, 30, 26, 8, and 4 kg) at the base of the El Hammami Mountains in Mauritania (1000km southwest of Mhamid, Morocco), probably in the place where they fell; fragments of these have been sold by Thompson and other dealers under the name El Hammami.

Some of the material appears weathered and rusts easily, but the bulk is quite fresh. Specimens originally called Hamada du Draa are now scattered in private collections, and some may remain in Morocco. Because all of the above-described material seems likely to represent a single fall, the name El Hammami shall be the official collective name. Mhamid and Hamada du Draa should be considered only as unofficial synonyms for El Hammami.