Of course, it had other less metaphorical uses – vases, tools – and the most obvious was coinage. We also know that this alloy was used to cover the pyramidion, that is, the summit of the obelisks and pyramids, making it shine because that was where heaven and earth were joined and, therefore, where the solar disk representing Ra was placed. tells that significant quantities of myrrh, malachite and electrum were brought from there. There are even older sources: the first documented account of the expedition that pharaoh Sahure sent to the country of Punt in the 25th century B.C. Now, the Homer poem is dated between the 8th and 7th centuries BC, and the Hebrew prophet’s one after that.Įgyptian mummified head covered with electrum / Image: Rama on Wikimedia Commons Chemical analysis of Phocaean coins reveals that they were 55% gold, but in Lydia it could be even lower, between 55 and 45% in Anatolia, on the other side, there were electrum with an amount of gold between 70 and 90%.Īs you can see, we go back to Greek antiquity and, in fact, electrum is mentioned in The Odyssey and in the Book of Ezekiel. This is because it is not an artificial alloy but a natural one, although it can also be manufactured, in which case the composition percentages change a little and the gold is reduced. John on Wikimedia CommonsĮlectrum, we said, is composed of gold and silver it has a proportion of four parts of the first and one of the second, but there are also traces of other metals such as platinum or, above all, copper. Electrum veins in a quartz rock / Image: James St. These are just a few, since others could be cited, including those of more uncertain composition, such as the Oricalc or the Tibetan Thokcha. There was hepatizon or black Corinthian bronze (copper or bronze alloyed with gold and silver) brass (copper with zinc), Indian panchaloa (made of the five sacred metals, gold, silver, copper, iron and zinc) or those that combined gold with copper, such as the tumbaga of pre-Hispanic America and the Japanese shakudō. Of course, there were more alloys in those remote times. Of the ancient alloys, probably the most significant case was the electrum, which mixed gold and silver, which had a certain prestige. And, in fact, this combination of copper and tin gives its name to a whole period of prehistory, so that we could perhaps consider it the most important until the appearance of others. If we were to ask about a metal alloy used since the beginning of history, the unanimous answer would surely be bronze.
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