| London Hammer | |
| Material: | Iron, wood |
| Width: | 1inches |
| Long: | 6inches |
| Discovered Place: | London, Texas |
| Discovered Date: | 1936 |
| Discovered By: | Max Hahn |
| Location: | Creation Evidence Museum |
The London Hammer (also known as the "London Artifact") is a hammer made of iron and wood that was found in London, Texas in 1936. Part of the hammer is embedded in a limey rock concretion, leading to it being regarded by some as an anomalous artifact. The tool is identical to late 19th-century mining hammers, and the most likely explanation for its encasement in rock is that a deposit of highly soluble travertine formed and hardened around it within a relatively short time.
The hammer was purportedly found by a local couple, Max Hahn and a female friend, while out walking along the course of the Red Creek near the town of London. They spotted a curious piece of loose rock with a bit of wood embedded in it and took it home with them. A decade later, their son Max broke open the rock to find the concealed hammerhead within.
The metal hammerhead is approximately 6inches long and has a diameter of 1inches, leading some to suggest that this hammer was not used for large projects, but rather for fine work or soft metal.[1] The metal of the hammerhead consists of 96.6% iron, 2.6% chlorine, and 0.74% sulfur.
The hammer began to attract wider attention after it was bought in 1983 by the creationist Carl Baugh, who claimed the artifact was a "monumental 'pre-Flood' discovery."[2] He has used it as the basis of speculation of how the atmospheric quality of an antediluvian earth could have encouraged the growth of giants.[3] Baugh's Creation Evidence Museum purchased the hammer around 1983 and began to promote it as "the London Artifact".[4]
Other observers have noted that the hammer is stylistically consistent with typical American tools manufactured in the region in the late 19th century. Its design is consistent with a miner's hammer. One possible explanation for the rock containing the artifact is that the highly soluble minerals in the ancient limestone may have formed a concretion around the object via a common process (like that of a petrifying well) which often creates similar encrustations around fossils and other nuclei in a relatively short time.