Ancient Greek Gold/Gold In Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek gold was a very important part of ancient Greece. Now as the end of 550 BC approached, the Greeks had already started to mine for gold all over the Middle East region as well as the Mediterranean region.

The Greeks thought that gold basically came from a mixture of water along with sunlight. In around 344BC, Hellespont was crossed by Alexander the Great and 40,000 men. This started an extraordinary campaign in the Greeks military history.

Now the booty that they got from this military campaign was lots and lots of gold which was from the Persian Empire. Now gold was actually one of the main reasons of many conflicts in ancient Greece.

According to a myth, the king of Mycenae, Agamemnon and the leader of the famous expedition to Troy was believed to have lived around the time of 1550 BC. His funerary mask which was made of ancient Greek gold was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann, a German archeologist in 1876, at Mycenae.

Now areas from Gibraltar to around Asia and Egypt, was mined by the ancient Greeks. After this, they planned on practicing alchemy, so that they could turn all the base metals into gold. This way, they would not have to mine so much anymore. Now the alchemists werent very successful since gold turned out to be an element but then from their efforts one can tell their desirability for gold.

Now the gold which was acquired by the Greeks was often used in minting money. The gold coins would help in paying for goods and so on. It was also widely used in making jewellery for women. This gold was sometimes also crafted as small figurines, animals, birds and so on.

Now since the Greek kings were very wealthy, they started to develop a very intricate taste in artifacts which were made of ancient Greek gold. Now the goldsmiths used to increase their repertoire by using motifs which were exotic in nature. For example, the crown of Isis, the crescent and also the Hercules knot which is also known as the reef knot.

Ancient Greek Life History / Ancient Greece Facts for Kids

We owe a lot to Ancient Greek Civilization. History of ancient Greece is a fascinating. On this site, we have given information on various ancient Greek life aspects - Arts, Boys and Girls, Architecture, Dancing, Gods, Myths, Medicine, Inventions, Houses, Government, Religions, Wars, Politics, Weapons and ancient Greece Cities.