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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 3666344, member: 57463"]In a different topic, this came up. We should discuss this because Latin has no word for "zinc." The metals of the ancients were gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, and lead. I agree that we identify orichalcum that way in our time. I am not sure how they perceived it. It bears also on our beliefs about "electrum" or "white gold." Tin, for example, while called "stannous" in Latin, is also called "plumbnum album" or "white lead" in some texts. Lacking an atomic theory of matter the ancients did not perceive metals as we do today. Electrum was considered a separate metal, even though it could be made from silver and gold. Silver and gold were recognized in astrology, for example, as being identified with the moon and sun, but no celestial body is identified with electrum. So, too, with bronze on the one hand and orichalcum on the other, are distinctions perhaps not theirs. Copper was identified with the planet Venus - Aphrodite having been born on or near Cyprus - but no "bronze planet" exists. I agree that we make these distinctions among metals and their alloys. I am not sure whether, how, or why they did. Among the many cultural disconnects is that by academic publications going back to the Renaissance, we have a long tradition of intellectual hegemony. The ancient world did not.[/QUOTE]