Gold: Beyond the Glitter

If we are asked to name which element holds the most value, our answer falls upon a single one: gold. The shiny yellow metal on jewelry is, in our minds, by far the most precious metal that exists on planet Earth. It always has been, it is, and it likely always will be.

Gold has always fascinated me. Not so much for its status as a noble metal (in the sense that it confers a tone of wealth and power to those who wear it), but for the fact that it is incredibly important in many key sectors. Are you ready to discover everything, and I mean absolutely everything, about gold?

What is Gold?

Gold is a symbol. Sure, I could also say it is a chemical element with atomic number 79 and the symbol Au (from the Latin aurum), but that isn't what gold truly is. My God, officially in nature it is "just a metal" (just as a diamond is), but in society, it is an element of wealth and power. Perhaps it is the ultimate element when thinking of wealth and power. For millennia, and still today, the most famous shiny metal on the planet is the one that, since its discovery, has always divided humanity into social castes. Now we have money: whoever has more money in their bank account is higher up the social pyramid because they can afford more. Previously, gold held that same role: those who had more gold and jewelry were powerful and dominated others who had none. For centuries we have killed, fought, destroyed, and even sacrificed our own children to get our hands on as much gold as possible in our short lives.

And what if I told you it wasn't always like this?

History of Gold.

Initially, gold carried no connotation of power.

Gold was "discovered" in different parts of the world and in different periods. There is no connection whatsoever between the discovery of gold in Europe, Asia, or America. The only common thread is the location. As soon as the first human communities began gathering stones from rivers, they noticed that in particular areas, with particular soils, something yellow and shiny was visible. At that point, those "evil geniuses," driven by that shimmer like magpies for silverware, did nothing but scoop up the bottom, figured out how to filter it, until they obtained that golden powder. They didn't know that this process would change human history forever.

Initially, around 7000-5000 BC, man gathered native gold and beat it with stones to flatten it. He could create sheets or rudimentary wires, but he was not yet able to change the mass of the metal or join multiple pieces into a single solid block. This part of the relationship between man and gold is called the "cold phase," since there was no heat in the production of gold.

Then a spark fell on some wood, or dry foliage, a fire broke out, and man was so ecstatic about the phenomenon that he sought to reproduce it. When he succeeded, that source of heat changed man's perspective. Finally, nocturnal animals were no longer a danger, winter wasn't quite so cold, and food could be cooked, allowing people to stay alive longer because cooking made food more digestible and less dangerous.

That fire, hundreds of years later, had another effect: it was also used to produce ceramics and—useful for this post—melt metals. This is where the magic happens, by learning to master high temperatures in enclosed spaces. Thanks to the experience accumulated with ceramic kilns, which could reach high temperatures, the craftsmen of the time discovered that gold melts at approximately 1064°C. This allowed them to take that powder, melt it, and pour the liquid metal into molds, creating complex three-dimensional objects. This was the era of casting (around 4500 BC).

The oldest evidence of gold worked in this way dates back to the Neolithic. In 1972, a necropolis dating back to 4600-4200 BC was discovered containing the oldest gold artifacts in the world. Over 3,000 objects (jewelry, scepters, decorations) were found at that archaeological site, demonstrating that already 6,500 years ago, man had developed goldsmithing techniques.

From that moment on, that powdery material, which could become fluid and then solid, would mark human history forever.

Antiquity: Symbol of Divinity

Ancient Egypt: The Flesh of the Gods

Gold is cold, eternal, and indestructible. Because it never lost its luster and remained the same forever, the Egyptians believed that gold was the skin of the gods, as if the gods were molting. I’m not joking: Egyptian religious texts explicitly stated that the bones of the gods were made of silver and their flesh was made of gold. Keeping this mentality in mind, gold was used for something noble and "close" to the divinities. For example, it was used for funerals. Gold was intended to guarantee immortality. Funerary masks (like the famous one of Tutankhamun) and sarcophagi served to preserve the deceased for eternity. Obviously, it didn't work, because gold does not grant immortality and does not change biology. While the mummified bodies might not be in perfect condition (though excellent, given the time passed), the gold only preserved the sarcophagus.

Or it was used in architecture. The tips of obelisks and the pyramidions at the top of pyramids were often covered in electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver) to reflect the first rays of the sun, paying homage to the god Ra. According to the Egyptians, it was almost a symbol for humanity to try to reach the gods with what the gods themselves had left behind.

Mesopotamia and the Near East.

A few thousand kilometers further East, the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians were great masters of technical goldsmithing. They introduced filigree—meaning interwoven gold wires—and granulation (small gold spheres soldered onto a surface). Furthermore, in the royal tombs of Ur, incredibly complex helmets, harps, and jewelry were found that served as insignias of power for the sovereigns.

If the Egyptians used gold to honor the dead and the gods, in the Fertile Crescent, they used gold to produce objects for humans and to demonstrate their temporal power. Gold was the symbol of royal power and social hierarchy in a much more marked and "human" way compared to Egyptian divine isolation. The objects found by various archaeologists throughout history (such as Meskalamdug's gold helmet or the bull-headed harps) are among the most refined artifacts of antiquity and confirm that gold served to exalt the figure of the sovereign "here and now."

Pre-Columbian Civilizations: Tears of the Sun.

In my blog, every time I have described the history of any element or concept, I have always spoken of Europe and North America. I have never spoken of Central America, the cradle of mythical, mystical, and millennial cultures. In Central and South America (Incas, Aztecs, Muisca), gold had immense spiritual value, but economic value, much like with the ancient Egyptians. The Incas called gold "tears of the sun" (in Egypt, it was the skin of the gods) and it was used to cover, for example, the walls of the Coricancha Temple in Cusco, as described by the Conquistadores in their exploratory reports. Chronicles report that the temple garden even contained life-sized reproductions of plants and animals made entirely of gold.

Even the peoples of Colombia (Muisca) celebrated the investiture rite of a new leader: a golden man (El Hombre Dorado). The sovereign would be covered in resin and gold dust and would purify himself in a lake, throwing precious offerings to the bottom during the same ceremony.

This definition, "El Hombre Dorado," is the actual basis that then fueled the distorted myth of the Spaniards.

Greeks and Romans: From Myth to Currency.

Returning to Europe, in the classical age, gold transitioned from being pure aesthetics and celebration to a value of exchange.

This transition did not happen with the Greeks. The Greeks, all busy philosophizing and creating democracy, didn't give the slightest thought to the enormous potential of gold as a rare commodity. It was simply used to celebrate aesthetics and perfection (think of chryselephantine statues, made of gold and ivory). Statues such as that of Zeus at Olympia or Athena in the Parthenon were literally "gold and ivory," symbols of a beauty that had to be eternal. In the daily economy, however, the Greeks rarely used gold coins, as their daily economy was based on silver.

Instead, the Romans, pragmatic people to the last cell of their bodies, took it and created the first modern monetary currency from it: the Aureus. Rome was the first great historical civilization that transformed gold from something beautiful and cute to put on the table as decoration into the backbone of the imperial economy. The Romans realized that gold was rare, so they intuited that such a rare material could have a very strong exchange value. Think of the idea itself. It went from bartering (ten pears for ten apples) to "one coin for ten apples," allowing one not only to buy apples but also to keep the ten pears in the meantime. They killed two birds with one stone. The gold coin allowed for the "stocking" of wealth in a small space, something that was impossible with the bartering of perishable goods.

There was only one problem: having enough gold to create currency. Control of the mines (like those in Dacia or Spain) allowed for the minting of the Aureus, the coin that paid the soldiers and financed public works.

During the Empire, gold was not only used to create currency but also became a sign of social distinction for the equestrian and senatorial classes, used in signet rings and buckles. From Rome onwards, gold was not just decorative, but became a currency and a symbol of power.

Far East: Symbol of Enlightenment.

We also have another new entry for this blog: Asia.

Moving towards the East, between the peaks of the Himalayas and the great Chinese plains, gold takes on yet another guise. On the Asian continent, gold has historically been linked to religious devotion. Not that this is a huge novelty. The two most striking examples are the Buddhist religion and India.

In Buddhism, gold represents the supreme light and the incorruptible nature of the awakened mind. The use of gold leaf to cover Buddha statues symbolized the achievement of enlightenment and spiritual purity, something that still lives on today in countries like Thailand, Myanmar, and China.

Then we have India, the second most populated country in the world. India is historically one of the largest consumers of gold in the world. Even today, the legacy of ancient civilizations survives in a cultural obsession with the yellow metal, considered auspicious and an essential part of the wedding dowry. Not only that, for centuries gold was the only form of wealth that women could legally own (through the dowry or Stridhana), making it a tool for empowerment and economic security.

The Middle Ages and Alchemy.

And we return to Europe. While the Roman Empire used gold to pay the legions and stabilize the economy, finding a brilliant and very advanced way to use that rare metal (currency and display of power), in the Middle Ages, gold took one step back and one step to the side. The step back was that after the fall of the Roman Empire, gold almost disappeared from daily circulation in Western Europe. With Charlemagne's monetary reform, Europe switched to "silver monometallism." Gold had become too rare and precious for the exchanges of a feudal society; silver was more practical for daily life. For centuries, the only reliable gold coins were the Bezant of Constantinople and the Arabic Dinar.

Only towards the end of the Middle Ages, in the 13th century, did gold return to vogue as currency with the explosion of trade by the Maritime Republics. In 1252, Florence and Genoa began minting pure gold coins again: the Florin and the Genovino, followed by the Venetian Ducat. These coins became the "dollar of the era" because they were the only currencies merchants trusted from London to Beijing.

While gold lost its value in daily life for centuries, it unexpectedly took on an almost mystic connotation. Here is the step to the side. Around this metal, the myth of alchemy was born. It was a popular belief, but also a "scientific" one of the era, that all "base" metals (like lead) naturally tended to become gold over the passing centuries (the concept of Transmutation). The alchemist sought only to accelerate this natural process in the laboratory via the Philosopher's Stone. The reason? Purely religious: obtaining gold meant having achieved spiritual purity and healing from all physical corruption. Let's not judge the alchemists too harshly: they were just victims of their time... a time where doctors (meaning science) claimed that bloodletting cured every illness.

Although every single attempt failed (with hindsight we’d all say "who would have thought!"), the experiments of those crazy dreamers still gave us something good: they laid the foundations of modern chemistry. Alchemists invented the experimental method, the bain-marie, filtration, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and aqua regia, phosphorus (discovered by Hennig Brand while looking for gold in urine), antimony, arsenic, and alcohol. All to convert lead into gold.

The Age of Discovery.

With the Renaissance, everything was reborn. And curiosity was reborn too. The world asked: "Are we sure the world is exactly as we see it?" Yes, because Australia had not yet been discovered and neither the American populations nor the European kingdoms yet knew of the other's existence. That was the beginning of the great exploration, to cover all those holes the map still had to fill.

The 15th century was the turning point for everything: Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, Magellan circumnavigated South America, and Africa was explored. Australia was mapped only centuries later.

While at first it was just "curiosity," after those explorations it became pure theft. When Columbus arrived in Central America, he robbed the indigenous populations of goods and gold that he brought to the King of Spain. This convinced the Spaniards to continue explorations in those parts of the world. Without the promise of gold, European sovereigns would never have financed such risky and expensive journeys. Gold was not just the goal, but the political "fuel" of colonialism. It didn't matter if they robbed the riches that those innocent peoples had created and guarded for centuries. Even today, the massacres and barbarism of the Spanish conquistadores echo, lured by the greed for gold and that unreachable myth of El Dorado. The madness of that moment is that, due to a colossal "lost in translation," the Spaniards thought that "El Hombre Dorado" (a golden man) was "El Dorado" (a city made entirely of gold). Because of this stupid mistake, the Spaniards exterminated people and undertook bloody and expensive campaigns just to find it, obviously without success.

This exploration led to a massive influx of gold into Europe, causing two horrible side effects: the collapse of civilizations like the Inca and Aztec, and the influx of so much gold and silver from the Americas was so massive that it caused the "Price Revolution" in Europe, leading to inflation never seen before. (I talked about it here).

The Gold Rush (19th Century).

Now let's take a leap forward. In the 1800s, the great European powers—England, Holland, France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal—possessed vast colonial empires that they exploited at will to extract food, raw materials, and power. However, in that very century, something extraordinary happened that changed the planet's geography.

Sensational discoveries occurred: massive gold deposits were found in California (1848), Australia, and South Africa. These events triggered unprecedented mass migrations. The most famous is certainly the American one, where infinite caravans moved relentlessly from East to West. This migratory flow helped outline the borders of what are today the 50 United States, but it tragically signaled the death knell for Native American dominance over the continent.

The U.S. government rode the gold rush to realize the ideology of Manifest Destiny: the belief that the USA had a divine right to expand from one ocean to the other. Gold became the perfect bait to drive the population to colonize territories that otherwise would have remained deserted or under the control of Mexico and the natives for much longer.

In California, the impact was devastating. It rapidly shifted from a form of cultural resistance—the ancestor of 20th-century racial segregation—to a literal systematic extermination, often financed directly by the State, to clear the lands for the prospectors. It was a brutal process in which entire peaceful tribes were literally wiped out.

Thousands of people abandoned all certainty to try their luck. These gold rushes accelerated at a dizzying pace the colonization of immense territories and the construction of transcontinental railroads, necessary to speed up the transport of not only goods but the people themselves.

If gold had not been found, the United States would not be the nation we know today. The same applies to Australia: before 1851, the continent was seen primarily as a penal colony where British prisoners were confined. Gold transformed it into a land of opportunity, attracting waves of free citizens and doubling the population within just a few years.

The Gold Standard and the Modern Era.

Throughout the 1800s and until much of the 1900s, the use of currency for daily purchases was by then consolidated; bartering was but a distant medieval memory. In this period, the great nations undertook a coordinated and intelligent move: they adopted the Gold Standard. According to this principle, every banknote issued had to be convertible into a fixed quantity of gold held in the State's vaults.

This system acted as a natural brake on inflation: money could be printed only if, on the other side, the gold equivalent existed to justify its value. It was a rigorous strategy that guaranteed stability and trust in international markets. However, this balance ended definitively in 1971, when the United States unilaterally suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. From that moment, we entered the era of "fiat money," a system that opened the door to that constant inflation we know well today and which often weighs on our pockets.

Properties.

The question that arises now is: why gold? Aside from the fact that it has that beautiful dark yellow color that reflects and gives a sensation of nobility, why is gold still so used and desired today?

Well, there are several reasons.

Incorruptibility.

Gold is the noblest of metals, not because it is the richest, but because it is chemically inert. It knows no oxidation, it does not rust, and it never loses its luster, even if buried for millennia or submerged in seawater. It does not react with oxygen and with almost all acids. The only mixture capable of dissolving it is aqua regia (a combination of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid). It is non-toxic and is not rejected by the human body, which is why it has been used for centuries in dentistry and medicine.

It cannot be attacked, it cannot be destroyed, and it is not harmful to the human body. Now do you see why ancient populations worshipped it, as if it were a divine creation? Gold is like a God: impassive, incorruptible, and merciful toward humanity.

Workability.

It is an extremely dense metal (its specific weight is about 19.3 g/cm³). A cube of gold only 37 cm per side would weigh a ton. At market value, it would be worth millions. At the same time, it is an incredibly soft metal. It is the most malleable metal in absolute terms. It can be beaten until transparent sheets are obtained (gold leaf) only 0.0001 mm thick. That is how thick all those gold leaves used on meat or in paintings are. It is so ductile that from just one gram of gold, you can obtain a very thin wire nearly 3 km long.

Conductivity.

Ancient civilizations could not have known this, because electricity was discovered only very recently (compared to human history), but gold is an excellent conductor, one of the best for electrical conduction. Unlike copper or silver, gold contacts never oxidize, guaranteeing perfect signal transmission over time.

It reflects visible light very well and infrared rays (heat) even better. This is why the visors of astronauts' helmets and satellite circuits are coated with a thin layer of gold. This characteristic makes it indispensable for modern industry.

Uses.

If we stopped using gold today, it wouldn't just be the jewelry market that would collapse—with the subsequent hysterical madness of women and rappers—but a large part of our advanced technology would come to a halt.

Electronics and Technology.

This is the most critical use of the modern era. If you are reading this text, you are doing so thanks to a small amount of gold, because a computer, a tablet, and a smartphone contain very small amounts of gold, as it is present in connectors, microprocessor pin contacts, motherboards, and cable connectors (like HDMI). Being an excellent conductor that does not oxidize, it ensures that the passage of data and electricity remains perfect for years. Every smartphone contains about 0.03 grams of gold.

Multiplied by billions of devices, this represents a huge technological deposit. If you are wondering why there is so much focus on recycling the old, it’s for all those materials, like gold, that can be extracted from a phone, collected, and resold, creating a nice fortune. Because it is much more profitable to recycle than to find new areas to extract gold.

Aerospace Sector.

In space, gold is not a luxury, but a vital necessity. Let's start with a fundamental concept: space lacks an atmosphere. That precious ozone layer that filters harmful solar rays on Earth, letting only the "good" ones through, does not exist. If we went out into space in a swimsuit, we would be literally fried by radiation or freeze instantaneously due to the extreme cold, which nears absolute zero (-273.15 °C).

To survive in such a hostile environment, protection out of the ordinary is needed. Gold is formidable at reflecting infrared rays, i.e., heat. Those golden films that wrap satellites, probes, or lunar modules are not decorations: they serve to protect delicate onboard instrumentation from the blinding solar heat.

But the most iconic use is on astronauts' visors. The helmets of space suits feature a thin layer of gold, so fine as to be transparent to the eye, but capable of shielding the eyes from radiation and extreme heat without preventing the astronaut from seeing clearly what surrounds them. Without this metal, exploration of the cosmos would be simply impossible.

Medicine and Dentistry.

Thanks to its biocompatible nature (it does not react with human tissues), gold has been used for millennia in health. In dentistry, gold alloys are used in crowns and bridges for their magnificent resistance and zero toxicity. The gold tooth seen in the past had nothing to do with some desire to show wealth, but was because gold is digested, whereas lead much less so.

In oncology—perhaps the part of medicine with the fastest development—certain gold nanoparticles are used to carry drugs directly into tumor cells and it is also employed in some rapid diagnostic tests.

Finance and Investments.

We all know how deep the link is between gold and the world of finance, where it is still considered the "currency of last resort." Its role manifests primarily on two levels.

Firstly, Central Banks all over the planet keep tons of gold bars in their vaults: it is a simple fundamental guarantee for national economic stability.

At the same time, gold is the absolute protagonist for private investors. Buying coins or bars is the most common strategy to protect one's savings from inflation and stock market turbulence. Its true strength lies in risk management: many investors choose to invest in gold during dark times, then sell their gold reserves when the market stabilizes, reinvesting the proceeds into riskier but potentially more profitable assets. In this way, gold acts as a financial lung that allows one to weather crises without burning through their capital.

Jewelry and Art.

I could have started here, but I wrote it last, because it is the most obvious sector. It is the oldest and most visible use, absorbing about 45-50% of annual production. It is used for rings, watches, and necklaces. Since pure gold (24kt) is too soft, it is used in alloy (usually 18kt) to make it durable. In architecture and art, very thin sheets of gold are applied to furniture, frames, or church domes to create brilliant surfaces that never darken.

Small Reflections.

Ultimately, gold is the mirror of our history: incorruptible while everything else changes. We have worshipped it as the flesh of the gods, used it to finance wars, and today we hide it in our smartphones to make them work. It is the golden thread that connects a pharaoh to a NASA engineer. Perhaps its true value is not in the price per gram, but in the way that, for 6,000 years, it has managed to tell the story of who we are and how far we are willing to go to shine.

M.