One of the ten ancient elements is gold. The oldest evidence dates back to the 5th century before Christ. The Egyptian pharaohs considered gold a divine metal. They considered themselves to be descendants from the Sun God. For immortality, gold was used. Therefore, the body of a dead pharaoh was made from gold. The burial chamber was filled in with silver and gold items. The researchers discovered Tutankhamun’s grave in 1922. They found three sarcophaguses surrounding the mummy. However, the interior was solid gold and weighed more that 108 kg.
The burial chamber had chariots made out of white gold, daybeds in golden, statues, and Tutankhamun’s chair, which was fully gold foil plated. In some ways, the Roman Empire was built on stolen silver and gold. The Romans gained control over all the known mines, deposits and other resources of the entire world within three hundred years. Silver and gold were solid currencies, and all over Rome there was evidence of the richest life. The Romans had already discovered a method of cleaning by melting with lead, common salt, or chalk. Christopher Columbus also sought a new route from India by searching for gold. In the 16th Century, Hernandez Cortes, a Spanish conqueror, landed near Vera Cruz and subjugated Aztecs. Montezuma was the Aztec King and welcomed the Spanish with golden presents. This only incited the Spanish greed even more.
They made up lies about the king, and then they murdered him and his entourage. They also destroyed Aztec capital and committed terrible massacres of the population. The Aztecs’ entire gold was stolen by Spanish ships and taken to Spain. This story has been repeated several times over the centuries, such as the murder of Atahualpa, Inca king, by Pizarro the Spanish conqueror in 1532 or the murders of thousands more Indians by Western settlers of the United States in 1921.
Alchemists attempted to make gold artificially by transmuting other substances during the Middle Ages. However, this was unsuccessful. Cinnabar was and mercury were considered the first stage of so-called “philosopher’s stone”. It was believed that this magic substance could turn worthless metals into gold. Initially, the solar disk was represented by the alchemistic symbol for the circle. Properties: Gold shines in a yellowish-golden color and has a high density. Gold is one of the most versatile metals. 1g of it can be extended to make a wire that runs 3 km. The metal can also be rolled to form gold leaf with a thickness of approximately. 1 micrometre. It appears blue-green when you glance at it. It is possible to combine gold with other metals. When you do this with mercury, amalgam can be created. Apart from silver and copper, the best conductors for heat and electric power is gold.
Gold is a precious and resistant metal that is also very corrosion-resistant. It isn’t affected by acids, water, or air. Only aqua regia or chlorine water can dissolve gold. Deposits: The rare element of gold ranks above platinum 75th in element frequency. The earth’s crust can contain gold up to 16km deep. Iron meteorites and seawater have an average share between 1.8g/t & 4.1mg/t. Although native gold is found in the form of elementary, it is almost always contaminated by silver, bismuth, mercury and other metals.
Electrum refers to gold with a higher than 30% silver content. Grains, lumps, or “nuggets”, are found in river-sands. These can be found using “gold panning”. The largest known nugget was discovered in 1931 near Kalgoorlie/western Australia. It is known as the “Golden Eagle”, measuring 67.4 cm in length and 29.2cm in width. It is proudly weighing in at 71.177kg. It is made of quartz veins, which were washed away from water. The high density of the grains makes them easy to “soap” into the river sediment.
Some minerals, such pyrite or quartz, may have minor gold contamination. Witwatersrand is the Republic of South Africa’s largest location for gold. The quartz rock has a 45g/t gold content. Other notable deposits include Mother Lode/California; Cripple Creek/Colorado; Canada; the Urals; Ghana and Zimbabwe. Kalgoorlie, Australia brought to light the largest lump of gold ever found. It weighed in excess of 71kg. Transylvania has the largest European deposit.
Germany is the only country where the rare metal can be recovered along with other precious metals, such as galena and copper pyrite. The gold content per ton of ore is approximately 1 gram. Estimated global reserves of approximately. 60,000 tonnes. Although there are many tonnes of gold in the seas, their extraction is not financially viable. Gold panning: This is the oldest method of extracting precious metals. This involves the river sands being slurried in an industry plant or with a simple saucepan. Due to their high density, the gold nuggets, or plates, settle on the ground and edge of the pan. The two most important industrial methods today are: During amalgation (rock containing gold is crushed and mixed with water and Mercury), and The amalgam (or gold) is made with mercury. This mercury can then be separated by distillation at 600°C.
This method extracts approximately two thirds the gold from the rocks. The remaining gold must be extracted using cyanide leaching. This method was developed in 1887 by Scotsmen MacArthur, Forrest, and is still used today. The finely crushed rock is combined with a sodium or potassium cyanide solution, and then oxygen is added to the mixture. The gold is incorporated into a complex compound of cyanide compounds, which can then be reduced with zinc shavings to obtain its pure form. The gold becomes a sponge when it falls to the ground. The precipitation is filtered and dried. After roasting, the gold is melted with a flux (such as Borax) to make bullions.
