Metal: Did you mean...?

Silver had great value and aesthetic appeal in many ancient cultures where it was used to make jewellery, tableware, figurines, ritual objects and rough-cut pieces known as hacksilver which could be used in trade or to store wealth. The metal...

Orichalcum ("mountain copper") or aurichalcum ("gold copper") was a metal used in coins during ancient times. Orichalcum was a golden-yellow coloured mixture consisting of both copper and zinc and referred to as brass. The Romans were the...

The coinage of ancient Greece has given us some of the most recognisable images from antiquity as they were stamped with designs to proudly declare the identity of the city which minted them and guarantee their value. One of the great archaeological...

Defining Thracian art is a difficult task due to the fact that what we call today Thrace was never a single unified state but, rather, a collection of many independent communities (or tribes) who formed both alliances and rivalries with each...

The production of steel during the British Industrial Revolution became cheaper and more reliable thanks to the Bessemer converter, a type of blast furnace that removed undesirable impurities from pig iron. The superior strength and durability...

The staggering quantity of gold the conquistadors extracted from the Americas allowed Spain to become the richest country in the world. The thirst for gold to pay for armies and gain personal enrichment resulted in waves of expeditions of...

Money may take many forms, from the digital code of cryptocurrency to the woodpecker scalps favoured in early California. People have also used cattle, cacao beans, cowrie shells, chewing gum, grain, and giant stones as money. Early cultures...

The assignat was a paper bill issued by France between 1789 and 1796, during the French Revolution (1789-1799). First issued in the form of bonds, the assignat was meant to stimulate France's economy as a quick means to pay off national debt...

The SS Great Britain was a steam-powered ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) which sailed on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in May 1845. It was the largest passenger ship in the world at the time and showed...

West Africa was one of the world's greatest producers of gold in the Middle Ages. Trade in the metal went back to antiquity but when the camel caravans of the Sahara linked North Africa to the savannah interior, the trade really took off...