“Tears of the Sun”

Gold

The history of gold begins in the remote and distant past.  Fossil studies have found that bits of natural gold were present in Spanish caves used by the Paleolithic (Stone Age) Man around 40,000 B.C. It should not be surprising therefore; that historical sources cannot agree on the date that gold was first used. One theory states that gold's recorded discovery occurred near 6000 B.C. Another suggests that the pharaohs and temple priests first used the metal for adornment in ancient Egypt in 3000 B.C.

GOLD is quite simply the oldest precious metal known to man.     There are numerous physical aspects of the yellow metal which are really amazing.  For example gold is the most malleable (able to be hammered into very thin sheets) and ductile (able to be drawn into a fine wire) of all metals known to man kind. It is so malleable in fact that a decent goldsmith can hammer one ounce of gold into a thin translucent wafer covering more than 100 square feet which is only five millionths of an inch thick. Put another way, it would be so thin that 1,000 sheets would be required to equal the thickness of one newspaper page.   Its ductility on the other hand is equally amazing. One ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire equal to 50 miles in length!   ONLY one ounce of this amazing metal is needed to plate a single thread of copper 1,000 miles long.

Additionally, Gold is also one of the heaviest metals known. It has a specific gravity of 19.3, which means it weighs 19.3 times as much as an equal volume of water. So, only one cubic foot of gold weighs 1,206 pounds; that’s more than half a ton! This most likely explains why there have NEVER been any large armed robberies of gold bullion throughout history. I mean, who could possibly carry it?

Gold was first most likely stumbled upon as shining, yellow nuggets in a stream of water. "Gold is where you find it," so the saying goes, and gold was first discovered in its natural state, in small water courses all over the world. There is little doubt it was the first metal known to early humans.   In fact the ancient  Incas referred to gold as the "tears of the Sun."

Gold, in short order, became a part of every human culture. Its radiance, natural beauty, shine, its great pliability (softness) and resistance to tarnish made it easy to work with.

When we think about the historical progress of technology, we typically consider the development of iron or copper-working as the greatest contributions to our economic and cultural progress but gold comes first.

It is the easiest of the metals to work and occurs in a virtually pure and workable state, whereas most other metals tend to be found in ore-bodies that pose difficulty in smelting or getting to; gold has always been some powerful stuff.

Although the earliest history of human interaction with gold is long lost to us, its association with the gods, with immortality, and with wealth itself are common to most cultures throughout the world.

Humans almost instinctively place a high value on gold, making it equal to power, beauty, and the cultural elite. In addition, since gold is widely distributed all over the globe, we find this same 'train of thought' about gold throughout both ancient and modern civilizations.

In the historical sense, gold, beauty, and power have always gone together. Gold in ancient times was made into shrines and idols ("the Golden Calf" for example), plates, cups, vases and vessels of all kinds, and of course, jewelry for personal ornamentation.

Gold has always had value to humans, even before it was used for money. This is easily demonstrated by the astonishing efforts made to find it. Prospecting for gold was a worldwide effort dating back thousands of years, long before the first money in the form of gold coins appeared sometime around 700 B.C.

As a matter of fact, gold gave rise to the concept of money itself: It was convenient, private, and permanent. Gold (and silver) in standardized coins came to replace barter arrangements, and made trade much easier.

Perhaps even more unbelievable than its physical characteristics is its scarcity. It is well known fact that the entire world's holdings accumulated during all of recorded history to the present is only about 120,000 metric tons (1 metric ton = 2,240 pounds or 1000 kilograms).  This is indeed a very small volume of material to have had such great an influence on so many people since even before biblical days. The total world's holdings of the rare metal could be transported by a single solitary oil tanker; that's if the famous insurer, Lloyds of London, would accept the insurance risk on this priceless cargo. The actual value of such a priceless cargo would be approximately $1.4 TRILLION!

Today, the world's annual gold mine production increases the total holdings by only 2.0% per year. That's an average increase in the world's gold supply of only 2,000 tons per year. In a similar comparison of say steel production just in the United States, there are approximately 10,500 tons of American steel made per hour (not year). So you see, gold is indeed quite rare!

Sources …

http://www.onlygold.com/tutorialpages/historyfs.htm                                                                http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/history_gold.html                       http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=15832&picture=three-golden-bricks