Salzburg Cube

The Salzburg Cube, an out of place artifact also known as The Wolfsegg Iron, is a small cuboid mass of iron that was found buried in Tertiary lignite in Wolfsegg am Hausruck, Austria, in 1885. The name of the Salzburg Cube comes from its location, as it was held at the Salzburg Museum but then disappeared in the early 1900's under apparently mysterious circumstances, only to later re-appear at the Heimathaus Museum.

In 1885, Reidl, the miner who found the cube at the iron foundry, was apparently breaking open a piece of coal and found the Cube inside. It is believed that the strain of coal the cube came from and that was dug out of the mine was dated back as over 60 million years old.It weighs 785 grams (about 1 and 3/4 lbs.) and measures 2.6 inches high by 2.6 inches long by 1.85 inches wide and has a deep incision running around its circumference.

Salzburg Cube

In 1886, the mining engineer Adolf Gurlt Professor of Geology at the University of Bonn suggested that it was meteoritic in origin. The object was analysed in 1966–1967 by the Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum using electron beam micro-analysis, which found no traces of nickel, chromium or cobalt in the iron, suggesting that it was not of meteoric origin, while the lack of sulfur indicated that it is not a pyrite.

Sources:
http://listverse.com/2014/08/21/10-unsolved-mysteries-from-ancient-times/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfsegg_Iron

http://www.legendsandchronicles.com/ancient-artifacts/the-salzburg-cube/

http://www.countryside-lavie.com/article/2010/08/23/salzburg-cube

Pic Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wolfsegg_iron.jpg