THE ANCIENT PRACTICAL ARTS
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HOME PAGE The Speculative Side of Ancient Chemistry Early History of "Elements" Early Alchemy
"The beginnings of the arts we call chemical are lost to us in the buried civilizations that have left no records sufficiently decipherable to afford us definite knowledge, but so far as records and remains of the oldest civilizations exist they give evidence of the great antiquity of the chemical arts."----Stillman
Metallic objects are among the most important evidence that have survived from ancient civilizations. The different metals were often associated by the ancients with the gods and the planets.
The earliest metals used were those that occurred in their native form. COPPER and GOLD have been found in very ancient remains of both Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Methods were later discovered for obtaining metals from their ores by smelting. The discovery of BRONZE followed as a result of the melting together of tin and copper. Bronze objects have been found in Egypt of about 2500 B.C. and in Ur and Eridu in Mesopotamia of about 3500-3000 B.C. ASEM (the electum of the Greeks and Romans) was known to the Egyptians, but the concept of alloys was unknown in this period. Methods were developed in Egypt and Mesopotamia for purifying and assaying gold and SILVER. IRON, TIN, and LEAD were used by the ancients later than gold, copper and bronze. The first iron was probably of meteoric origin. The metallurgical arts became an important part of the culture of Egypt and Assyro-Babylonia, and a close association of the metals to the priests, temples and gods was established.
A great number of chemical substances, other than the metals, were known to the ancients: pigments (cinnabar, ferric oxide), glazes, glass (cobalt, copper), lapis lazuli, detergents, etc.
Several early writers describe the chemical processes known at the time, especially:
PLATO (427-347 B.C.) and ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.) give little evidence of familiarity or experience with practical chemical arts.
By this time, many chemical processes were well known:
- the mining of many minerals and ores;
- the metallurgy of a number of metals;
- the making and coloring of glass;
- the dyeing of textiles, and even the use of mordants;
- the use of many inorganic pigments and the extraction of certain dyes of plant and animal origin;
- making of inks;
- manufacture of bricks and other ceramic products;
- production of charcoal and of lime;
- fermentation of liquors;
- the manufacture of many perfumes and unguents.
Among the many materials of importance and chemical significance at that time were: salt, starch, various oils and fats, glues, crude sugars, sulfur and petroleum.
Two Egyptian papyri, dating from the very early Christian Era, contain directions and recipes for the imitation of precious metal and gems, the whitening of pearls, dyeing of wool, etc.
The imitation of precious metals as here described is to be distinguished from the later efforts at transmutation by the alchemists, who showed less comprehension of practical chemistry than these earlier Egyptians from whom, to a large extent, they drew their inspiration.
The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia developed many chemical processes and methods, a form of practical technology that was transmitted to the generations that followed. Although the ancients did not speculate on the changes that occurred in their processes, they did influence the thinking of the later Western World.
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