Ancient Alchemy

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Ancient alchemy refers to the theory and experimental processes practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans attempting to transform mundane materials into purer forms. The earliest Greek alchemists worked during the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE) in Egypt and their version of alchemy applied to more than just making gold. Instead, they tried to change more common metals into gold or silver, to create precious stones from ordinary materials, and to dye wool purple (the most expensive and difficult color to dye) using more readily available dyes. Over time, the purview of alchemy narrowed down to focus primarily on the transmutation of common metals into gold.

Narrative: Origins and Theory of Alchemy

Ancient alchemy has clear roots in early metal-working. Ancient peoples did not fully understand the chemical processes behind the making of alloy, which meant that, for example, the creation of bronze from copper and tin could seem very mysterious. After all, both parent metals have very different properties than the resulting bronze, which is harder and stronger than either copper or tin. One would expect the product of two materials combined to have a mixture of the properties from the starting materials, rather than completely different ones. Similarly, when the ancients refined materials like cinnabar (a red mineral) into mercury (a silver, liquid metal), the process behind such a drastic transformation was obscure and mysterious--maybe even magical.

It is because of this seemingly magical process that such transformations became important to ancient ritual practices. In Egypt, the focus lay on causing color changes--for example, turning copper black, or gold purple using chemical reactions. These color changes were mainly used for statues of gods and pharaohs. The Egyptians, however, unlike the later Greek and Roman alchemists, did not believe that these color changes were capable of changing the actual substance of the metal. It was when the ancient Greeks came into contact with these Egyptian ritual practices that true alchemy was born--the Greeks aimed to change the substance of one metal into another.

The Greeks believed these transformations or transmutations were possible based on Aristotle's theory of the elements, which asserted that all things in the world were made up of the same four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) in different proportions. The alchemists figured that, if everything is made of the same elements, then they should be able to break a material down into its component elements. From there, they could add whatever ingredients were necessary to alter the proportions of the elements so they matched the makeup of a different material. Then, when the elements were recombined, they would produce an entirely different substance than what the alchemist had started with.

The ancient alchemists, however, had different explanations for their origins. Many of the oldest alchemists wrote under pseudonyms--often the names of earlier philosophers (like Pseudo-Democritus who used the name of Democritus the atomist who lived several centuries before him) or even gods (one of the oldest alchemists we know of used the name Hermes, after the messenger god). This tendency to attribute their works to older, more respected figures was a way for alchemists to claim legitimacy for their works and discoveries. It also contributed to the mysticism and mystery which surrounded alchemy. Some later Roman authors leaned into these near-mythical origin stories and attributed the original discovery of alchemy to angels.

Narrative: Important Figures

Pseudo-Democritus

Pseudo-Democritus was an alchemist writing in the first century CE, most famous for his "Four Books", which are lost to us except in epitomized versions. These writings were published under the name "Democritus", referencing the Pre-Socratic philosopher, but considering that the extant writings are from half a millenia after Democritus would have lived, experts recognize this as a pseudonym, hence the name "Pseudo-Democritus". Modern scholars think that the actual identity of Pseudo-Democritus would have been Bolus of Mendes, a known Egyptian alchemist, but ultimately there's no way to confirm this hypothesis. Pseudo-Democritus is especially important as the "Father of Alchemy" to the ancient practice, his extant writings being some of the oldest alchemical sources in existence. Primarily, his practices dealt with the debasement or changing of metals, but he also recipes for the dyeing of wool and the creation of crystals, two other tenants of ancient alchemical practice. His recipes are foundational in how we approach ancient alchemy, and are what we used for our own experimentation.

Maria the Jewess

Where Pseudo-Democritus is the "father" of ancient alchemy, Maria the Jewess would be the mother. Pseudo-Democritus provided a lot of the theoretical foundation for further alchemical experimentation, but Maria is the one who finalized the technical aspects of ancient alchemy, perfecting various apparatuses. She's credited with "kerotakis apparatus, the hot-ash bath, the dung-bed, and the water bath" (Taylor, 1930), which are still in use today. The Kerotakis apparatus, also known as a modern distiller, is her most famous invention, and even in the millenia since her design, few changes have been made and we still use something remarkably similar in modern chemistry. Additionally, the water bath, or "Bain-Marie", is supposedly named after her, and is still in use as what we call a "double boiler" today. None of Maria's writings survive for us to observe, but later alchemists like Zosimus comment greatly on her influence in the discipline, which is how we know so much of her influence. Maria complete evolved the technical aspect of alchemical practice, setting the foundation for years of experimentation and development of modern chemistry.

Zosimus of Panopolis

Zosimus of Panopolis is a different kind of figure than Pseudo-Democritus or Maria the Jewess, and his importance to alchemical knowledge comes from the breadth of his surviving writings. As a Greco-Egyptian alchemist writing in the third century CE, he's most famous for his "Cheirokmeta", a chemical encyclopedia for ancient alchemy. Other than that though, he has ten other extant works for us to draw upon, much of which references previous alchemists in the discipline, and is how we can understand what alchemical experimentation looked like in the centuries before Zosimus. Both Pseudo-Democritus and Maria the Jewess have little writing to study, so much of their importance is related from the references that Zosimus makes, and the ways in which he praises their influence in the alchemical discipline. It should be mentioned that Zosimus marks a transition in alchemical practice towards a much more mystical view, and his writings often reflect his hermetic belief. This doesn't discount his importance in understanding how alchemy transitioned over the centuries, and exists as a synthesis of scientific and magical belief.

Pages one and two of the Stockholm Papyri

Narrative: Extant Evidence of Experiments

A great deal of our practical knowledge of ancient alchemy comes from two documents: the Leyden and Stockholm Papyri. These papyri have a wealth of written recipes for various alchemical uses, and work as a kind of instruction book for all the different ways you can conduct certain transformations. They were written in Greek in the 3rd or 4th century CE, but were discovered in Egyptian burial chambers, showing the spread of alchemical knowledge over the mediterranean. Within the recipes, there's a great deal of repetition, but a general pattern for the four types of alchemical experiments emerges: turning metals into silver, turning metals into gold, creating precious gems, and creating various colored dyes. There are some other sources that include alchemical recipes, like Greek Magical Papyri, which can showcase the very beginnings of alchemical experiments.

Narrative: Use in the Ancient World

Alchemy's Egyptian and Babylonian origins situated it as a cultic practice, but as alchemy shifted into Greek practice, alchemy also became an economic and industrial art. The recipes that alchemists are using are focused on the visible: like finding easier ways to achieve the visible finish of gold and silver, without having to actually use the metals. Alchemists would have used their recipes not just for theories sake, but also to sell and work with, and provide a service for alternate metals and gems at a cheaper price. The focus on wool dyes especially showcases how alchemy adapted into an industrial sector, because of how much wool production was an commercial art and was linked with the economy of the ancient world. Wool dyeing and weaving was a huge part of the ancient world-- just see the other section of this website, and so alchemy being connected with such a broad industrial sector situates it within that commercial space. Alchemy was mystical, it's origins came from cult practice and much of the language and recipes were obscured by specific knowledge, but also it represents the synthesis of mystic belief and practical usage.

Drawings showing the distilling apparatuses used by alchemists, which closely resemble those used until the 18th century.

Narrative: Conclusions

As you can see, alchemy was not a static art--new techniques and beliefs developed over time. Moreover, this development was not so simple as a dissolution into mysticism and unscientific practices. Certainly, as in the writings of Zosimus, mysticism became a more significant part of alchemy over time, but ultimately the scientific and technical side of alchemy persisted. In this way, alchemists were much like other ancient scientists/philosophers--even the most stubborn rationalists sought ways to explain the divine.

Additionally, it is important to remember that alchemy was a very real science. Certainly, the alchemists did not get the results they wanted--but they relied on the prevailing scientific theories of their times, the elemental theory of Aristotle. The theory of the elements has since been proven incorrect, but it was broadly believed even through the Renaissance.

For all that their experiments proved unable to create gold, the alchemists made valuable scientific discoveries in distilling methods (some of their stills are used, in modified form, to this day!) and imitation gold (an alloy developed by Maria was used in imitation gold jewelry until nearly modern times).

Our Experiments

We took four experiments, three from the Leyden Stockholm Papyri and one from a series of Greek Magical Papyri, and conducted them ourselves to try to see how alchemical recipes hold up today. In the spirit of following the ancients, we did no outside research on the potential reactions and results we might see beforehand, and just did exactly what the recipes instructed. This did lead to some interesting results, so we hope you enjoy these videos of our process!

Making Copper into Silver

Making Emeralds from Verdigris

Turning Wool Purple with Red Ochre

Turning Bronze into Gold with Sulfur

Annotated Bibliography

Betz, Hans Dieter. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Including the Demotic Spells. Volume 1. Texts / Edited by Hans Dieter Betz. University of Chicago Press, 1986.

The last experiment we did-- turning bronze into gold, we took from the Greek Magical Papyri, which are a collection of spells from Greek magical practice. Specifically, we took our experiment from the section of "Demokritos' table gimmicks" (PGM VII. 167-186), in which the bronze to gold gimmick is an example of the beginning of Greek Alchemy. We wanted to include this experiment not only because it involved turning a substance into gold-- which is what most people think of when considering alchemy, but also because it's a recipe from the very beginning of alchemical practice, and thus a contrast to the collection of later recipes from the Leyden and Stockholm Papyri.

Caley, Earle Radcliffe, and William B. Jensen. The Leyden and Stockholm Papyri: Greco-Egyptian Chemical Documents from the Early 4th Century AD. Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati, 2008.

The Leyden and Stockholm Papyri, as mentioned in the Narrative section, are largely one of the best sources for alchemical recipes from antiquity. When considering recipes to try out for our experiments, we drew almost completely from the ones mentioned within the Papyri. The variety of recipes for the same result was extremely helpful in finding ones that we could replicate with simple ingredients, and also showcases how diverse alchemical thought was, and how much vast experimentation took place within the Greek alchemical corpus.

Fraser, Kyle. Science and Medicine in the Classical World, “Distilling Nature's Secrets: The Sacred Art of Alchemy.” Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2018. p. 721-742.

This source describes the history of ancient alchemy from its origins in Ancient Egypt ritual to the writings of Zosimus in the fourth century CE. It gives a broad, but comprehensive overview of alchemical theory while spending little time on the details of alchemical experimentation and the processes alchemists developed in order to transmute materials. Throughout, Fraser argues against the long-held and long-time prevailing opinion among scholars that alchemy originated as a completely scientific practice and devolved into mysticism over time. He claims, quite rightly, that the scientific and mystical sides of alchemy existed together coherently, not in opposition to each other.

Keyser, Paul T. “Alchemy in the Ancient World: From Science to Magic.” Illinois Classical Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, 1990, pp. 353–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23064297.

This article focuses on how the natural transformations of substances in metal-working and the refining of minerals like malachite and cinnabar into metals gave rise to ideas of transmutation. Keyser also goes into greater detail about the color-change reactions used by first the Egyptians and then the alchemists. His mention of the purple gold of Tutankhamun sparked several, ultimately futile, searches for color-images of such purple gold ornaments. Towards the end of the article, Keyser turns toward the topic of mysticism in alchemy--he avows the older, less accurate understanding of alchemy's relationship with the mystical and asserts that later alchemists turned toward the mystical and largely set aside the scientific and technical side of alchemy.

Martelli, Matteo. “The Alchemical Art of Dyeing: The Fourfold Division of Alchemy and the Enochian Tradition.” 2014. Laboratories of Art, Springer International Publishing. https://ebooks.ohiolink.edu, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-05065-2_1.

Here, Martelli examines the division of alchemy into four distinct types--the transmutation of gold, the transmutation of silver, the creation of precious stones, and the dyeing of wool purple. These divisions are attributed to Pseudo-Democritus (who wrote four books, now largely lost, each dealing with one of the types of alchemy). Martelli's exploration of this division of alchemy concludes that, though the fourfold division existed in early alchemy, the other three types largely faded into the background as alchemists became more interested in transmuting gold than other things. Martelli also describes some of the origin myths of alchemy--namely the attribution of the discovery of alchemy to angels who, as described in the Book of Enoch, came down to earth, married mortal women, and taught their wives the secrets of nature.

Taylor, F. Sherwood. “A Survey of Greek Alchemy.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, 1930, pp. 109–139., https://doi.org/10.2307/626167.

This survey is a great place to get a summary of what the alchemical world looked like in antiquity, and the various alchemists and concepts that were important to the practice. It's somewhat outdated, but it also gives a great timeline of the different schools of alchemical thought and also provides a lot of explanation for the different apparatuses they used, and breaks down the common experiments that are seen a lot in the Papyri, and how to execute them. It's not a particularly in-depth source, but it covers broadly the ancient alchemical world, and has a huge bibliography of additional sources to reference for further research.

Wood, R. W. “The Purple Gold of Tut’ankhamūn.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 20, no. 1/2, 1934, pp. 62–65. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3855004.

This article describes the purple gold of Tutankhamun and how we know that the purpling was intentional rather than accidental. Essentially, the purple gold is used to create decorative patterns in jewelry discovered in the tomb, which proves that the altered color was part of the design. While this article does not strictly deal with alchemy, Wood goes into detail about how this color change could have been produced.

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