Tracing the history of world’s most sought-after metal, gold
We all know that gold is a high-priced metal. Recently, its price has skyrocketed in India. This happened right after the Federal Reserve declared that the foreign banks have slowed down on their interest hikes once again, leading to a rise in inflation and thus hitting the gold prices in the country. In fact, the gold prices are now the highest ever in the last five months. But let the adults worry about gold prices, while we take you through the story of gold discovery.
Gold was first discovered in ancient Egypt
While historians and other experts still can’t ascertain when or who discovered the first ever gold, it is believed that the metal was first found by the ancient Egyptians around 2450 B.C. It has been credited to an Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos who, while mining for something else, chanced upon gold in a region called Nubia. Guess what they used the gold for? As a means of exchange and rarely to make ornaments. After all, it was the time when other metals were either undiscovered or scarce.
What’s interesting however is that, the oldest known gold artifact doesn’t belong to Egypt. It can be traced back to 8th century B.C. Turkey and has been accredited to King Midas.
Gold discovery in the USA
While the Chinese and Africans ended up mining gold in the prehistoric ages, Americans on the other hand found it a lot later. The year was 1848 when an American carpenter and sawmill operator named James Wilson Marshall accidentally unearthed gold in the Coloma region of California, USA. Guess how that happened? Well, Marshall was busy building a mill near a stream for an entrepreneur named John Sutter. On the morning of January 24, he noticed some shiny flecks along the shores. Curious to find out what it was, Marshall and his men performed tests on it and concluded it was gold. This news spread across the country and abroad, giving an impetus for what later came to be known as California Gold Rush. More than 300,000 people from across the globe migrated to the region in search of gold, while the American economy got its much-needed boost. The rest, as they say, is history.
Two controversies surrounding gold mining
In case you are thinking that the California Gold Rush was the only historical gold mining incident, it’s not. There have been more in the recent years itself. Let’s look at two instances, which have controversies associated with them.
Pascua-lama gold project, Chile: In 2011, along the borders of Argentina and Chile, where the Andes Mountain is located, a seasoned Canadian gold mining company called Barrick Gold initiated the project. However, in 2013, the locals started protesting against it as it had detrimental effects on the environment, especially with respect to the glaciers present in the mine’s vicinity. By the end of the year, the project was permanently halted.
Rosia-Montana gold mining project, Romania: A Romanian gold mining company called Rosia Montana Gold Corporation in 2013 planned to reopen one of the ancient gold mines in Romania near the Transylvania Mountains. However, soon, the project faced a lot of criticism from the public as they were afraid that the cyanide used to extract gold would harm their environment and also destroy their cultural heritage. In 2014, the project had come to a brief stop but continued when the Romanian government introduced stricter mining laws.