Many hundreds of meteorites were collected before the 18th century. But few from those times have survived. The oldest stone meteorite that has persisted, perhaps due to initial protection by King Maximilian, is the one that was observed to fall on November 7, 1492 at Ensisheim in Alsace.
Fragment of the Ensisheim meteorite.
Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle à Paris. Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
