Post by magusmasonica on Oct 2, 2009 0:38:32 GMT
Part 1: Technical Arts Related To Alchemy in Old Egypt
By: Bro. Khalil Allah
One of the oldest civilizations all over the world was that of ancient
Egypt, which emerges from pre-history into the period of more or less
precise chronological record at a date perhaps not far removed from 3400
B.C. This highly developed civilization endured for over 3,000 years, during
which it spread its influence far and wide; some archaeologists, indeed,
claim to see in all other civilizations the signs of an Egyptian origin.
However this may be, it is universally agreed that in technical arts
Egyptian workers pointed the way to the rest of the world, and it is to them
that we must turn for the first discovery of those facts that make chemistry
possible.
Of course, our knowledge of the very earliest developments of chemical arts
is dependent upon the discovery of products as far as some 3000 years B.C.
tin bronzes were made.
Primitive arts that provide data of a chemical nature are those of the
metallurgist, the glass-maker, the dyer and the like, many of which reached
an astonishingly high level of perfection in ancient Egypt.
*Metallurgy *
Metallurgy in particular was carried on with an elaborate technique and a
business organization not unworthy of the modern world, while the systematic
exploitation of mines was an important industry employing many thousands of
workers. Even as early as 3400 B.C., at the beginning of the historical
period, the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge of copper ores and of
processes of extracting the metal. During the fourth and subsequent
dynasties (i.e. from about 2900 B.C. onwards), metals seem to have been
entirely monopolies of the Court, the management of the mines and quarries
being entrusted to the highest officials and sometimes even to the sons of
the Pharaoh. Whether these exalted personages were themselves professional
metallurgists we do not know, but we may at least surmise that the details
of metallurgical practice, being of extreme importance to the Crown, were
carefully guarded from the vulgar. And when we remember the close
association between the Egyptian royal family and the priestly class we
appreciate the probable truth of the tradition that chemistry first saw the
light in the laboratories of Egyptian priests.
*Copper and Iron Extraction.
*In addition to copper, which was mined in the eastern desert between the
Nile and the Red Sea, iron was known in Egypt from a very early period and
came into general use about 800 B.C. According to Lucas, iron appears to
have been an Asiatic discovery. It was certainly known in Asia Minor about
I300 B.C., for one of the Kings of the Hittites sent Rameses II, the
celebrated Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, an iron sword and a promise of
a shipment of the same metal . The Egyptians called iron 'the metal of
heaven' or ba-en-pet, which indicates that the first specimens employed were
of meteoric origin, the Babylonian name has the same meaning. It was no
doubt on account of its rarity that iron was prized so highly by the early
Egyptians, while its celestial source would have its fascination. Strange to
say, it was not used for decorative, religious or symbolical purposes, which
- coupled with the fact that it rusts so readily - may explain why
comparatively few iron objects of early dynastic age have been discovered.
One which fortunately has survived presents several points of interest: it
is an iron tool from the masonry of the great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, and
thus presumably dates from the time when the Pyramid was being built, i.e.
about 2900 B.C. This tool was subjected to chemical analysis and was found
to contain combined carbon, which suggests that it may have been composed of
steel. By 666 B.C. the process of case-hardening was in use for the edges of
iron tools, but the story that the Egyptians had some secret means of
hardening copper and bronze that has since I been lost is probably without
foundation. Desch has shown that a hammered bronze, containing 10.34 per
cent. of tin, is considerably harder than copper and keeps a cutting edge
much better.
Of the other non-precious metals, tin was used in the manufacture of bronze,
and cobalt has been detected as a coloring agent in certain specimens of
glass and glaze. Neither metal occurs naturally in Egypt, and it seems
probable that supplies of ore were imported from Persia. Lead, though it
never found extensive application, was among the earliest metals known,
specimens having been found in graves of pre-dynastic times.
Galena (PbS) was mined in Egypt at Gebel Rasas ('Mountain of Lead'), a few
miles from the Red Sea coast; and the supply must have been fairly good, for
when the district was re-worked from 19I2 to 1915 it produced more than
I8,000 tons of ore.
The vast quantities of gold amassed by the Pharaohs were the envy of
contemporary and later sovereigns. Though much was imported, received by way
of tribute, or captured in warfare, the Egyptian mines themselves were
reasonably productive.
Over one hundred ancient gold workings have been discovered in Egypt and the
Sudan, though within the limits of Egypt proper there appear to have been
gold mines only in the desert valleys to the east of the Nile near Ikoptos,
Ombos and Apollinopolis Magna. Of one of these mines - possibly near
Apollinopolis - a plan has been found in a papyrus of the fourteenth century
B.C., and the remains of no fewer than 1,300 houses for gold-miners are
still to be seen in the Wadi Fawakhir, half-way between Koptos and the Red
Sea. In one of the treasure chambers of the temple of Rameses III, at
Medinet-Habu, are represented eight large bags, seven of which contained
gold.
The Egyptian word for gold is nub, which survives in the name Nubia, a
country that provided a great deal of the precious metal in ancient days.
French Scientist Champollion regarded it as a kind of crucible, while
Rossellini and Lepsius preferred to see in it a bag or cloth, with hanging
ends, in which the grains of gold were washed - the radiating lines
representing the streams of water that ran through. Crivelli has more
recently advanced the theory that the gold symbol is the conventional sign
for a portable furnace used for the fusion of gold, and that the rays
represent the flames, which, 'as can be observed in the use of this type of
furnace, are unable to ascend because the wind inclines them horizontally'.
In the later dynasties, the Egyptians themselves forgot the original
signification of the sign and drew it as a necklace with pendent beads,
though Elliot Smith says that this was the primitive form and became the
determinative of Hathor, the Egyptian Aphro dite, who was the guardian of
the Eastern valleys where gold was found.
The gold mines in Nubia and other parts of the Egyptian empire seem to have
been very efficiently designed and controlled, though with a callous
disregard for the human element employed.
Alluvial auriferous sand was also treated, a distinction being made between
the gold obtained in this way and that extracted from the mines. The latter
was called nub-en-set, i.e. 'gold of the mountain', while alluvial gold was
named nub-en-mu, i.e. 'gold of the river'. Auriferous sand was placed in a
bag made of a fleece with the woolly side inwards; water was then added and
the bag vigorously shaken by two men. When the water was poured off, the
earthy particles were carried away, leaving the heavier particles of gold
adhering to the fleece. There is a picture of this operation on one of the
buildings at Thebes.
*Mercury
*Mercury (Greek-hydrargyros, liquid silver; latin-argentum vivum, live or
quick silver) is stated to have been found in Egyptian tombs of from
1500-1600 B.C.
*Metal and Mysticism.
*In the early centuries of our era, however, there gradually developed a
mysticism among chemical writers due to Egyptian and Chaldean religious
magical ideas, and there developed a fanciful relation of the metals as such
to the sun and the planets, and as a consequence there arose the believe
that it was necessary to confine the number of metals to seven.
Thus Olympidorous-in the 6th century of our era gives the following
relation:
Gold.....................the Sun
Silver...................the Moon
Electrum.................Jupiter
Iron.....................Mars
Copper...................Venus
Tin......................Mercury
Lead.....................Saturn
Metallurgy was by no means the only art practiced with conspicuous success
by the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. Glass was almost certainly the invention,
not of the Phoenicians, but of the Egyptians, and was produced on a large
scale from a very early date.
*Art of Glass Making *This art is of very ancient origin with the Egyptians,
as is evident from the glass jars, figures and ornaments discovered in the
tombs. The paintings on the tombs have been interpreted as descriptive of
the process of glass blowing. These illustrations representing smiths
blowing their fires by means of reeds tipped with clay. So can conclude that
glass-blowing is apparently of Egyptian origin, at the beginning of our era.
The remains of glass furnaces discovered by Flinders-Petrie at Tel-El-Amarna
(1400 B.C.) illustrate the manufacture of rods, beads, and jars or other
figures, formed apparently by covering clay cores with glass and later
removing the cores. Egyptian glass articles were of colored glass, often
beautifully patterned.
From analyses of ancient Egyptian glass articles, it show that generally the
glass was a soda-lime glass with rather soda content as compared with modern
soda-lime glass. The given analyses do not differ from those of some
soda-lime glasses of modern times. Lead was used in glasses from very
ancient times. French scientist analyzed a vase of the Fourth dynasty in
Egypt which contained about one quarter lead.
Artificial pearls, made of glass, were manufactured in such numbers that
they formed an important article of export trade, and the old legends of
enormous emeralds and other precious stones are most reasonably explained on
the assumption that the preparation of paste jewelry was widely undertaken.
The earliest glass-works of which the remains have been found date from the
eighteenth dynasty, and the oldest dated glass object is a large ball bead
bearing the cartouche of Amen-Hotep I, now in the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford. The invention of glass-blowing, as opposed to the older method of
glass-molding, is comparatively recent, dating back only to about the
beginning of the Christian Era. Sir Flinders Petrie has shown that the
relieves at Beni-Hassan, which were formerly supposed to represent
glass-blowers are more probably to be interpreted as metal-workers blowing a
fire.
*Textile and Dyeing Materials.
*The begining of the art of weaving and the art of dyeing are lost in
antiquity. Mummy cloths of varying degrees of fitness, still evidencing the
dyer's skill, are preserved in many museums.
The invention of royal purple was perhaps as early as 1600 B.C. From the
painted walls of tombs, temples and other structures which have been
protected from exposure to weather, and from the decorated surfaces of
pottery, chemical analysis often is able to give us knowledge of the
materials used for such purposes.
Thus, the pigments from the tomb of Perneb (at estimated 2650 B.C.) which
was presented to Metropolitan Museum of New York City in 1913, were examined
by Maximilian Toch. He found that the red pigment proved to be iron oxide,
haematite; a yellow consisted of clay containing iron or yellow ochre; a
blue color was a finely powdered glass; and a pale blue was a copper
carbonate, probably azurite; green were malachite; black was charcoal or
boneblack; gray, a limestone mixed with charcoal; and a quantity of pigment
remaining in a paint pot used in the decoration, contained a mixture of
haematite with limestone and clay. So many analyses results made by known
scientists all serve to illustrate the character of the evidence furnished
by chemical analysis of surviving samples of the products of early chemical
industries.
By: Bro. Khalil Allah
One of the oldest civilizations all over the world was that of ancient
Egypt, which emerges from pre-history into the period of more or less
precise chronological record at a date perhaps not far removed from 3400
B.C. This highly developed civilization endured for over 3,000 years, during
which it spread its influence far and wide; some archaeologists, indeed,
claim to see in all other civilizations the signs of an Egyptian origin.
However this may be, it is universally agreed that in technical arts
Egyptian workers pointed the way to the rest of the world, and it is to them
that we must turn for the first discovery of those facts that make chemistry
possible.
Of course, our knowledge of the very earliest developments of chemical arts
is dependent upon the discovery of products as far as some 3000 years B.C.
tin bronzes were made.
Primitive arts that provide data of a chemical nature are those of the
metallurgist, the glass-maker, the dyer and the like, many of which reached
an astonishingly high level of perfection in ancient Egypt.
*Metallurgy *
Metallurgy in particular was carried on with an elaborate technique and a
business organization not unworthy of the modern world, while the systematic
exploitation of mines was an important industry employing many thousands of
workers. Even as early as 3400 B.C., at the beginning of the historical
period, the Egyptians had an intimate knowledge of copper ores and of
processes of extracting the metal. During the fourth and subsequent
dynasties (i.e. from about 2900 B.C. onwards), metals seem to have been
entirely monopolies of the Court, the management of the mines and quarries
being entrusted to the highest officials and sometimes even to the sons of
the Pharaoh. Whether these exalted personages were themselves professional
metallurgists we do not know, but we may at least surmise that the details
of metallurgical practice, being of extreme importance to the Crown, were
carefully guarded from the vulgar. And when we remember the close
association between the Egyptian royal family and the priestly class we
appreciate the probable truth of the tradition that chemistry first saw the
light in the laboratories of Egyptian priests.
*Copper and Iron Extraction.
*In addition to copper, which was mined in the eastern desert between the
Nile and the Red Sea, iron was known in Egypt from a very early period and
came into general use about 800 B.C. According to Lucas, iron appears to
have been an Asiatic discovery. It was certainly known in Asia Minor about
I300 B.C., for one of the Kings of the Hittites sent Rameses II, the
celebrated Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, an iron sword and a promise of
a shipment of the same metal . The Egyptians called iron 'the metal of
heaven' or ba-en-pet, which indicates that the first specimens employed were
of meteoric origin, the Babylonian name has the same meaning. It was no
doubt on account of its rarity that iron was prized so highly by the early
Egyptians, while its celestial source would have its fascination. Strange to
say, it was not used for decorative, religious or symbolical purposes, which
- coupled with the fact that it rusts so readily - may explain why
comparatively few iron objects of early dynastic age have been discovered.
One which fortunately has survived presents several points of interest: it
is an iron tool from the masonry of the great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, and
thus presumably dates from the time when the Pyramid was being built, i.e.
about 2900 B.C. This tool was subjected to chemical analysis and was found
to contain combined carbon, which suggests that it may have been composed of
steel. By 666 B.C. the process of case-hardening was in use for the edges of
iron tools, but the story that the Egyptians had some secret means of
hardening copper and bronze that has since I been lost is probably without
foundation. Desch has shown that a hammered bronze, containing 10.34 per
cent. of tin, is considerably harder than copper and keeps a cutting edge
much better.
Of the other non-precious metals, tin was used in the manufacture of bronze,
and cobalt has been detected as a coloring agent in certain specimens of
glass and glaze. Neither metal occurs naturally in Egypt, and it seems
probable that supplies of ore were imported from Persia. Lead, though it
never found extensive application, was among the earliest metals known,
specimens having been found in graves of pre-dynastic times.
Galena (PbS) was mined in Egypt at Gebel Rasas ('Mountain of Lead'), a few
miles from the Red Sea coast; and the supply must have been fairly good, for
when the district was re-worked from 19I2 to 1915 it produced more than
I8,000 tons of ore.
The vast quantities of gold amassed by the Pharaohs were the envy of
contemporary and later sovereigns. Though much was imported, received by way
of tribute, or captured in warfare, the Egyptian mines themselves were
reasonably productive.
Over one hundred ancient gold workings have been discovered in Egypt and the
Sudan, though within the limits of Egypt proper there appear to have been
gold mines only in the desert valleys to the east of the Nile near Ikoptos,
Ombos and Apollinopolis Magna. Of one of these mines - possibly near
Apollinopolis - a plan has been found in a papyrus of the fourteenth century
B.C., and the remains of no fewer than 1,300 houses for gold-miners are
still to be seen in the Wadi Fawakhir, half-way between Koptos and the Red
Sea. In one of the treasure chambers of the temple of Rameses III, at
Medinet-Habu, are represented eight large bags, seven of which contained
gold.
The Egyptian word for gold is nub, which survives in the name Nubia, a
country that provided a great deal of the precious metal in ancient days.
French Scientist Champollion regarded it as a kind of crucible, while
Rossellini and Lepsius preferred to see in it a bag or cloth, with hanging
ends, in which the grains of gold were washed - the radiating lines
representing the streams of water that ran through. Crivelli has more
recently advanced the theory that the gold symbol is the conventional sign
for a portable furnace used for the fusion of gold, and that the rays
represent the flames, which, 'as can be observed in the use of this type of
furnace, are unable to ascend because the wind inclines them horizontally'.
In the later dynasties, the Egyptians themselves forgot the original
signification of the sign and drew it as a necklace with pendent beads,
though Elliot Smith says that this was the primitive form and became the
determinative of Hathor, the Egyptian Aphro dite, who was the guardian of
the Eastern valleys where gold was found.
The gold mines in Nubia and other parts of the Egyptian empire seem to have
been very efficiently designed and controlled, though with a callous
disregard for the human element employed.
Alluvial auriferous sand was also treated, a distinction being made between
the gold obtained in this way and that extracted from the mines. The latter
was called nub-en-set, i.e. 'gold of the mountain', while alluvial gold was
named nub-en-mu, i.e. 'gold of the river'. Auriferous sand was placed in a
bag made of a fleece with the woolly side inwards; water was then added and
the bag vigorously shaken by two men. When the water was poured off, the
earthy particles were carried away, leaving the heavier particles of gold
adhering to the fleece. There is a picture of this operation on one of the
buildings at Thebes.
*Mercury
*Mercury (Greek-hydrargyros, liquid silver; latin-argentum vivum, live or
quick silver) is stated to have been found in Egyptian tombs of from
1500-1600 B.C.
*Metal and Mysticism.
*In the early centuries of our era, however, there gradually developed a
mysticism among chemical writers due to Egyptian and Chaldean religious
magical ideas, and there developed a fanciful relation of the metals as such
to the sun and the planets, and as a consequence there arose the believe
that it was necessary to confine the number of metals to seven.
Thus Olympidorous-in the 6th century of our era gives the following
relation:
Gold.....................the Sun
Silver...................the Moon
Electrum.................Jupiter
Iron.....................Mars
Copper...................Venus
Tin......................Mercury
Lead.....................Saturn
Metallurgy was by no means the only art practiced with conspicuous success
by the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. Glass was almost certainly the invention,
not of the Phoenicians, but of the Egyptians, and was produced on a large
scale from a very early date.
*Art of Glass Making *This art is of very ancient origin with the Egyptians,
as is evident from the glass jars, figures and ornaments discovered in the
tombs. The paintings on the tombs have been interpreted as descriptive of
the process of glass blowing. These illustrations representing smiths
blowing their fires by means of reeds tipped with clay. So can conclude that
glass-blowing is apparently of Egyptian origin, at the beginning of our era.
The remains of glass furnaces discovered by Flinders-Petrie at Tel-El-Amarna
(1400 B.C.) illustrate the manufacture of rods, beads, and jars or other
figures, formed apparently by covering clay cores with glass and later
removing the cores. Egyptian glass articles were of colored glass, often
beautifully patterned.
From analyses of ancient Egyptian glass articles, it show that generally the
glass was a soda-lime glass with rather soda content as compared with modern
soda-lime glass. The given analyses do not differ from those of some
soda-lime glasses of modern times. Lead was used in glasses from very
ancient times. French scientist analyzed a vase of the Fourth dynasty in
Egypt which contained about one quarter lead.
Artificial pearls, made of glass, were manufactured in such numbers that
they formed an important article of export trade, and the old legends of
enormous emeralds and other precious stones are most reasonably explained on
the assumption that the preparation of paste jewelry was widely undertaken.
The earliest glass-works of which the remains have been found date from the
eighteenth dynasty, and the oldest dated glass object is a large ball bead
bearing the cartouche of Amen-Hotep I, now in the Ashmolean Museum at
Oxford. The invention of glass-blowing, as opposed to the older method of
glass-molding, is comparatively recent, dating back only to about the
beginning of the Christian Era. Sir Flinders Petrie has shown that the
relieves at Beni-Hassan, which were formerly supposed to represent
glass-blowers are more probably to be interpreted as metal-workers blowing a
fire.
*Textile and Dyeing Materials.
*The begining of the art of weaving and the art of dyeing are lost in
antiquity. Mummy cloths of varying degrees of fitness, still evidencing the
dyer's skill, are preserved in many museums.
The invention of royal purple was perhaps as early as 1600 B.C. From the
painted walls of tombs, temples and other structures which have been
protected from exposure to weather, and from the decorated surfaces of
pottery, chemical analysis often is able to give us knowledge of the
materials used for such purposes.
Thus, the pigments from the tomb of Perneb (at estimated 2650 B.C.) which
was presented to Metropolitan Museum of New York City in 1913, were examined
by Maximilian Toch. He found that the red pigment proved to be iron oxide,
haematite; a yellow consisted of clay containing iron or yellow ochre; a
blue color was a finely powdered glass; and a pale blue was a copper
carbonate, probably azurite; green were malachite; black was charcoal or
boneblack; gray, a limestone mixed with charcoal; and a quantity of pigment
remaining in a paint pot used in the decoration, contained a mixture of
haematite with limestone and clay. So many analyses results made by known
scientists all serve to illustrate the character of the evidence furnished
by chemical analysis of surviving samples of the products of early chemical
industries.