The metals of antiquity are the seven

metal A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...

s which humans had identified and found use for in prehistoric times in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

, tin,

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

, and mercury. These seven are the metals from which the modern world was forged; until the discovery of

antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient ti ...

in the 9th century,

George Sarton George Alfred Leon Sarton (; 31 August 1884 – 22 March 1956) was a Belgian-born American chemist and historian. He is considered the founder of the discipline of the history of science as an independent field of study. His most influential work ...

, ''Introduction to the History of Science''. "We find in his writings ..preparation of various substances (e.g., basic lead carbonatic, arsenic and antimony from their sulphides)." and

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, b ...

in the 13th (both now classified as metalloids), these were the only known elemental metals, compared to approximately 90 known today.

Characteristics

Melting point

The metals of antiquity generally have low

melting point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depen ...

s, with iron being the exception. * Mercury melts at −38.829 °C (-37.89 °F) (being liquid at room temperature). * Tin melts at 231 °C (449 °F) * Lead melts at 327 °C (621 °F) * Silver at 961 °C (1763 °F) * Gold at 1064 °C (1947 °F) * Copper at 1084 °C (1984 °F) * Iron is the outlier at 1538 °C (2800 °F), making it far more difficult to melt in antiquity. Cultures developed ironworking proficiency at different rates; however, evidence from the Near East suggests that smelting was possible but impractical circa 1500 BC, and relatively commonplace across most of Eurasia by 500 BC. However, until this period, generally known as the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

, ironwork would have been impossible.

Extraction

While all the metals of antiquity but tin and lead occur natively, only gold and silver are commonly found as the native metal. * Gold and silver occur frequently in their native form * Mercury compounds are reduced to elemental mercury simply by low-temperature heating (500 °C). * Tin and iron occur as oxides and can be reduced with carbon monoxide (produced by, for example, burning

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ...

) at 900 °C. * Copper and lead compounds can be roasted to produce the oxides, which are then reduced with carbon monoxide at 900 °C. * Meteoric iron is often found as the native metal and it was the earliest source for iron objects known to humanity

Rarity

While widely known during antiquity, most of these metals are by no means common. * Iron is the 4th most abundant element in the Earth's crust (approximately 50,000ppm, or 4.1% by mass) * Copper is next at 26th (50ppm) * Lead is 37th (14ppm) * Tin is 49th (2.2ppm) * Silver is 65th (70ppb) * Mercury is 66th (50ppb) * Gold is the 72nd (1.1ppb) Yet all were known and available in tangible quantities in ancient times. Additionally, despite being approximately 1,000 times more abundant in the crust than the next most abundant ancient metal, iron was the last to become available due to its melting point (see above), including requiring tools made from alloys such as

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

to work in quantity. Other comparably abundant elements, such as

titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion i ...

(approximately 4,400ppm) and

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

(approximately 83,000ppm), were not available until the modern era. This was due almost entirely to the huge quantities of energy required to purify ores of these elements. Energy requirements and tool availability were, therefore, the primary limiting factors affecting an ancient civilisation's ability to access metals, rather than those metals' relative abundances.

Symbolism

The practice of

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim wo ...

in the Western world, based on a

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

and Babylonian approach to planetary astronomy, often ascribed a symbolic association between the seven then-known celestial bodies and the metals known to the Greeks and Babylonians during antiquity. Additionally, some alchemists and astrologers believed there was an association, sometimes called a rulership, between days of the week, the alchemical metals, and the planets that were said to hold "dominion" over them.

References

* *{{cite web , url=http://www.levity.com/alchemy/kollerstrom_sevenfold.html , title=The Metal-Planet Affinities - The Sevenfold Pattern , accessdate=2011-02-17 , author=Nick Kollerstrom