The beauty, scarcity, unique density of gold (no other metal outside the platinum group is so heavy) and the ease with which it could melt, form and be measured made it a natural trading medium. Some people argue that gold has no intrinsic value, that it is a barbaric relic that no longer possesses the monetary qualities of the past. They argue that in a modern economic environment, paper money is the preferred currency; that gold is only good as a material for making jewelry. The purest way to own gold is to take physical possession of the precious metal and buy gold coins or ingots.
However, many investors prefer to invest in gold through a Best rated Gold IRA, which allows them to own gold without taking physical possession of it. Gold has also been used in medicine, for example Pliny in the 1st century BC. C. suggests that gold should be applied to wounds as a defense against “magic potions”. Gold consists of 79 protons, 79 electrons and 118 neutrons, meaning that even under extreme heat and pressure conditions, natural gold production is rare.
The first pure gold coins with printed images are attributed to King Croesus of Lydia, between 561 and 546 BC. C., and a contemporary gold refinery has been excavated in the capital, Sardis. If you put together all the earrings, all the golden rulers, the small traces of gold on each computer chip, each pre-Columbian statuette, each wedding ring and cast it, it is estimated that you would only have a 20-meter cube left or something like that. Gold can stimulate a subjective personal experience, but it can also be objectified if adopted as an exchange system.
The salt mixed with the silver and formed a vapor of silver chloride that left pure gold that could be used to create a standardized coinage with a guaranteed gold content. Archimedes also knew that the specific gravity of gold is altered according to the percentage content of base metals, for example, pure gold has twice the gravity of silver. Gold was still incredibly valuable, but when World War I broke out, countries revoked the gold standard so they could print more money. In South America, the Chavín civilization of Peru used gold in a similar way around 1200 BC.
and the Nazca society perfected gold smelting starting in 500 BC. Gold is the metal we'll turn to when other forms of currency don't work, meaning that gold will always have value in difficult and good times. Gold is such a precious material that for centuries several attempts were made to produce it through alchemy, that is, the chemical transformation of base metals into gold using the philosopher's stone (lapis philosophhorum). Even the purest natural gold can contain 5% silver, but the Lydians could refine their gold using salt and furnace temperatures of between 600 and 800 °C.
Concerns about the authenticity of gold led the Egyptians to devise a method for determining the purity of gold around 1500 BC. (or before). Both men and women wore gold jewelry in the Sumerian civilization around 3000 BC. and gold chains were first produced in the city of Ur in 2500 BC.
As a decorative coating, gold plating and gold leaf (gold beaten in extremely thin sheets) have been used to decorate shrines, temples, tombs, sarcophagi, statues, ornamental weapons and armor, ceramics, glassware and jewelry since Egyptian times.
