Orichalcum, a valuable metal second only to gold, is mined extensively.
Metals, to begin with, both the hard kind and the fusible kind, which are extracted by mining, and also that kind which is now known only by name but was more than a name then, there being mines of it in many places of the island – I mean ‘orichalcum,’ which was the most precious of the metals then known, except gold.
Critias 114e
Plato’s Atlantis
Plato’s account of Atlantis mentions a mysterious metal known as orichalcum. He describes the use of this metal in the construction of the city’s walls and temples. The walls were coated with brass, tin, and orichalcum, which sparkled like fire. This metal is said to have been of great value, second only to gold.
Pliny the Elder, in his work Natural History, refers to orichalcum, describing it as a metal that was once in high demand but had since become scarce. He suggests that the earth had been exhausted of this metal, indicating it might have been a naturally occurring regional alloy.
Hypotheses About Orichalcum
Several hypotheses exist regarding orichalcum’s composition. It could have been a naturally occurring alloy, or it may have been a man-made additive that was lost to history. Its scarcity could be due to the disappearance of the people who knew how to produce it.
Other ancient texts mention orichalcum. Virgil’s Aeneid describes armor made from a blend of gold and orichalcum. In Homeric mythology, orichalcum is also referenced in relation to Aphrodite’s jewelry, further supporting the idea that it was considered valuable.
Discovery of Orichalcum in Shipwrecks?
In 2015, a Greek shipwreck off the coast of Sicily yielded 29 ingots made of a copper-zinc alloy. Many historians believe these ingots could be orichalcum. Another shipwreck in 2017 revealed 47 more ingots of the same composition, reinforcing the possibility that this metal is orichalcum. However, some scholars remain cautious about confirming this theory.
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The Secret Metal From Atlantis Temples Found?
Orichalcum, also called “mountain copper,” coated the inner wall of the city. It was a popular metal in Atlantis, but its composition is somewhat of a mystery. From Plato’s description we know Solon and the priests of Egypt were not familiar with it, although they knew it “sparkled like fire.” In ancient Greek, the language of Solon, the word chalkos, which is the basis of the word orichalcum, applied to all metals, therefore orichalcum literally meant “gold metal.”
Plato describes orichalcum as something that in his time was only known by name, but was once a metal more precious than any except gold. Memories of the orichalcum of Atlantis appeared 600 years before Plato’s time in the works of the Greek poet Homer, who mentions it as a golden metal in the hymn of Aphrodite. Hesiod, another pre-Plato Greek poet (eighth to seventh century B.C.), also refers to it.
Atlantis: Insights from a lost civilization
