Evidence of Ancient Con Game?

www.seeker.com...

Looks to me like an ancient craftsman learned how to forge some fools gold and tried to pass them off as Actual gold Ingots in Malta, Sicily, or Italy.
Which proves again that at least some of these ancient craftsman had a lot more knowledge of metals than previously thought.

Probably one of the reasons ancients alchemists thought there was a way to make gold from lead.

Well that shipwreck saved someone from getting stung

ROFL

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER
It might of been some former customers of these "gold traders" that sent them to the bottom of the ocean.

By looking at some of those ancient greek gold coins, some do look a little light in the gold department

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

just sayin'...

Fom your link, you could at least cut 'n' paste
the most relevent parts from the article to encourge people to participate
The story is, in itself, interesting

Orichalcum

The name is derived from the Greek ὀρείχαλκος, oreikhalkos (from ὄρος, oros, mountain and χαλκός, chalkos, copper), meaning literally "mountain copper".

The Romans transliterated "orichalcum" as "aurichalcum," which was thought to literally mean "gold copper".
It is known from the writings of Cicero that the metal which they called orichalcum resembled gold in color but had a much lower value.

In Virgil's Aeneid, the breastplate of Turnus is described as "stiff with gold and white orichalc".

Orichalcum has been held to be either a gold-copper alloy, a copper-tin or copper-zinc brass, or a metal or metallic alloy no longer known.

In later years, "orichalcum" was used to describe the sulfide mineral chalcopyrite and also to describe brass.

However, these usages are difficult to reconcile with the claims of Plato's Critias,[6] who states that the metal was "only a name" by his time, while brass and chalcopyrite were very important in the time of Plato, as they still are today.

Joseph Needham notes that 18th century Bishop Richard Watson, a professor of chemistry, wrote of an ancient idea that there were "two sorts of brass or orichalcum".

Needham also suggests that the Greeks may not have known how orichalcum was made, and that they might even have had an imitation of the original.

Similar to Fool's Gold

Not knocking, just saying
The story is interesting
It just needs fleshing out ....

I see nothing in the article that would indicate an attempt to deceive. The stuff was considered valuable in its own right. You made up the stuff about "fools gold."

a reply to: schuyler

That's what it looks like to me. Why Ingots?

It probably ticked a whole lot of people off, when their gold started turning grey.
Might of been even part of the reason for the Crusades latter on.

"Looks like" to you just doesn't cut it. Your own link states it's an alloy of mostly copper and zinc, with a little nickel, lead and iron.
Do you know what fool's gold is? Almost 50% iron. The rest is sulfur.

Harte

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

en.wikipedia.org...

Probably was considered valuable because it was already in the coins and all metal was valuable at the time. But it wasn't gold.

If the metal was passed as gold, could see why people would of been angry.

After metallurgy advanced, and the blacksmiths in the west became more knowledgeable that's probably when some trouble began, when the first guy bit down on a coin and handed it back to a Noble and said I want real gold.

a reply to: Harte

Excuse me for gilding the lilly
thought It an was interesting story.
You know you can always right a letter to the editor
But I wouldn't want my pay docked
I'll try to be more exact next time

the periodic tables
www.ptable.com...

Just my take on the Archies discovery

archiecomics.com...

Just Orichalcum Here
Gone Walkabout

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

looks to me like you are just pulling crap out your arse

the story - as is - is facinating insite into ancient metalurgy and trade

why did you have to go " full retard " ?

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

Franks and Beans

It's all theory
I don't see a Nobel Prize for a few posts headed my way, hhm

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Cassi3l

From the way the article read, I got the impression this may have been mined in that form without the need for any further admixture. I don't know enough about minerals to tell whether this occurs naturally. It might explain the different formulas listed for its composition.

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER


Not what I got from the article
I got the impression it was smelted
What a Natural occurring "Orichalcum Mine" that disappeared into history, not likely
It's Not on the Periodic Table
No somebody knew what they were doing
The thing to do would be to check the Purity of ancient gold coins and see how much they were gold.

That might make the Numismatic Ancient Coin collectors angry, though
who knows?

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

Although it's the coin that is collectable, It might be interesting to know who was passing crap as gold.
I will tell you one thing some of those European "gold coins" around the time of the Crusades look kinda brown.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

Actually to be fair at one time all metal was valuable, so as the years passed and gold got melted, mixed and smelted what probably turned up was probably something with a 25-40% ratio of gold.

Probably not any governments or peoples fault, just time. I guess pretty much anyone can twist their own narrative to match an agenda.

smell ya latter

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

www.youtube.com...

However, apart from these rather
rough and ready techniques for testing
precious metals the Greeks knew of three
quantitative methods for assaying gold
and silver and all three are still in use
today, two of them in the assay offices of
the world (fire assay and the touchstone)
and the third in various museum
laboratories for the nondestructive
analysis of gold coins (specific gravity
measurement by the Archimedes
method).

Source

Also:
Link

That second link has results of analysis on some ancient Greek gold. Coins and bracelets.

Harte

a reply to: I8THATAPPLEFRITTER

Romanian Gold Artifact testing?
Why would that have anything to do with the subject?

Although after thinking about it, somebody might of been "gold plating the Orichchalum" or low Grade Gold in the latter part of Ancient Egypt and passing it off as gold, probably not that many students of Archimedes walking around at the time.

www.amergeog.org...

Pretty advanced Metallurgy though

Its an Onion,
Maybe someday I will do a little more research on the subject

...

The ancients knew that gold weighed 19 times as much as water---Archimedes lived, and performed his famous experiment (showing the the king's crown had been made of an alloy, and that the royal jeweler has stolen some of the gold), at Syracuse, not that far from this shipwreck.

The main roman coin, the sesterce, was made of this alloy. The ingots were probably going to be made into coins, which were also used as weights in ancient times.

The ancients knew all about alloys of copper. Mixed with tin, it makes bronze armor. Mixed with silver, it keeps the silver from tarnishing so quickly. And raw copper ore often has gold alloyed with it. The ancients were very careful to extract the gold before selling and trading the copper.