Gold

Gold in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Neb// or //Nwb//


 * Hieroglyphics:**



Gold was the metal of choice for the ancient Egyptians, and it was used extensively throughout the history of pharaonic Egypt. Egypt was richer in gold than any other country of the region, and there were many gold mines around Egypt and in nearby Nubia. The Assyrian king Ashur-Uballit, when he received an unsatisfactory gift from the pharaoh Akhenaten, complained in a letter that "I know that the gold is in your land like the dust!"

The Egyptians distinguished between gold of different colors and qualities. In their inscriptions they used expressions like "fine gold," "gold doubly refined" "gold of three times," "white gold" (electrum, a gold-silver alloy), "green gold," and many others. The addition of copper and other metals was practiced early on. The inclusion of silver resulted in a grey or green looking metal, and copper or iron resulted in gold that had a reddish hue. When silver was used together with gold, they symbolized completeness, the moon and sun.

The sun was gold and carried the qualities of being imperishable, eternal, and indestructible. Thus anything portrayed as gold in ancient Egyptian art generally carried this connotation. The skin of the gods was believed to be made of gold. Thus statues of gods were often made of, or plated with gold. Mummy masks and coffins of the pharaohs, thought to be gods themselves, were often made of gold. The body of the deceased was sometimes covered in gold leaf.

Sacred animals of the gods were portrayed as gold, such as the cow of Hathor and the falcon of Horus. Entire falcon mummies were sometimes gilded with gold, to underscore their association with divinity and the sun. Golden jewelry and protective pendants were very popular with the Egyptian people. The golden "Fly of Valor" was awarded for bravery in battle.

Some chapters of the Book of the Dead require that funerary jewelry be made from gold, and many of the most important Egyptian amulets, such as the Ankh, Shen ring, Ab, and Aegis, were made of gold. This was thought to associate the deceased with the sun-god Ra, and symbolized that the person would be restored to life and live as long as the sun shines, rising again like Ra himself.

In the area of gold working, the products of Egyptian craftsmanship were unparalleled in the ancient world. The Egyptians used gold in enormous quantities for making statues, furniture, coffins, barques, plating silver, copper, and wooden objects, and even used it to cover the walls of temples. The tops of pyramids and obelisks were covered in gold. Gold's main use, however, was for jewelry. Gold was represented by the hieroglyph of a gold necklace, Shebyu.

Gold was what ancient tomb robbers were after. It has been suggested more than once that it was the black market in recycled precious metals robbed from the dead that allowed the Egyptian civilization to survive as long as it did. Had the prodigious quantities of gold buried in the tombs of kings and noblemen remained there undisturbed, the economy would have collapsed under the strain of constantly needing to replenish stocks.

Egyptian Metals