Search Results: Silver

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...

The Spanish conquistadors might have gained a lasting reputation as the great gold-seekers of history, but they were actually far more successful in acquiring silver. Over 100 tons of gold were extracted from the Americas from 1492 to 1560...

Professor Emeritus David Gitlitz is one of the world’s leading experts on Jewish-Catholic interactions in Iberia and the Americas. While initially drawn to the literature of the Spanish Golden Age as a student at Oberlin and Harvard, the...

Gold, chemical symbol Au (from the Latin aurum meaning 'shining dawn'), is a precious metal which has been used since antiquity in the production of jewellery, coinage, sculpture, vessels and as a decoration for buildings, monuments and statues...

Roman coins were first produced in the late 4th century BCE in Italy and continued to be minted for another eight centuries across the empire. Denominations and values more or less constantly changed but certain types such as the sestertii...

A silver Continental dollar minted in 1776. This currency is thought to have been designed by Benjamin Franklin and minted by Elisha Gallaudet at a private mint in Freehold, New Jersey. This early run of coins was produced for approval by...

The Oxus Treasure is a collection of 180 artifacts of precious metal, dated to the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE), which were discovered on the north bank of the Oxus River near the town of Takht-i Sangin in Tajikstan between 1876-1880...

This lyre was found in the 'Great Death-Pit', one of the graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur. From Ur, southern Mesopotamia, Iraq. Early dynastic period, 2600-2400 BCE. (The British Museum, London)

From the 16th to 18th centuries, two treasure fleets sailed each year, one to Mexico and the other to Central America, then part of the Spanish Empire. There they collected precious eastern goods and the riches of the Americas, including...

A gilded silver ladle from the Hoxne Hoard. Discovered in Suffolk, in the east of England in 1992 CE, the incredible collection contains 14,865 late-4th and early-5th century CE Roman gold, silver and bronze coins, and 200 items of silver...