London Hammer

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 some to regard it as an anomalous artifact. The tool is identical to late 19th-century mining hammers; one theory for its encasement in rock is that a deposit of highly soluble travertine may have formed and hardened around it within a relatively short time.^[1][2]

London Hammer
London Hammer in 1986
Material	Iron, wood
Length	6 in (15 cm)
Width	1 in (25 mm)
Discovered	1936 London, Texas 32.23028°N 97.8053°W / 32.23028; -97.8053
Discovered by	Max Hahn
Present location	Creation Evidence Museum

History

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.^[3] 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 6 inches (15 centimeters) long and has a diameter of 1 in (25 mm), leading some to suggest that the hammer was not used for large projects, but rather for fine work or soft metal.^[4] The metal of the hammerhead consists of 96.6% iron, 2.6% chlorine, and 0.74% sulfur.^[2]

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."^[5] 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.^[1][6] Baugh's Creation Evidence Museum purchased the hammer around 1983 and began to promote it as "the London Artifact".^[7]

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.^[2]