Alchemy is a misunderstood science that’s past is scattered throughout our history. From legends of a powerful stone able to turn lead into gold to mystical liquid concoctions able to keep people alive much longer than a human’s natural life span. What most people know of these stories misunderstanding that what alchemy was actually predecessor to modern day chemistry. Though it was not fully conceptualized in its time on Earth it did help push humanity into the right direction of the scientific methods.
To help explain and debunk the myths of Alchemy this paper is aimed at tracing back the historical footsteps of Alchemy starting off in Egypt with the cult of the dead. From Egypt Alchemist would move to the Middle East where the myths of the Philosopher’s Stone. While that was still a major goal of alchemist a lot of head way was made on metallurgy and discovering many of the elements in said metals. The main reason we know so little of about the actual research and processes done by the Alchemist was the way they wrote their research scrolls down in. Alchemist would cypher their work so not to allow the information of their research to fall into the wrong hands. To this day many of the scrolls are still shrouded in mystery.
When the Holy Wars broke out the Catholic Church found out about the alchemist and worked to either kidnap or hire Alchemist to work for them to further the Church’s power. One such goal for the Church’s enrollment with Alchemist was to create gun powder or as it was referred to back then black powder. Though some stories and information links results of black powder to the Middle East the most head way of the volatile mixture was found in China.
In China black powder flourished because of the naturally accruing peat bogs found in the soil. The Middle East and China would trade supplies to China to help excel China’s productivity on the product thus fueling the popularity of Alchemy.
To help explain and debunk the myths of Alchemy this paper is aimed at tracing back the historical footsteps of Alchemy starting off in Egypt with the cult of the dead. From Egypt Alchemist would move to the Middle East where the myths of the Philosopher’s Stone. While that was still a major goal of alchemist a lot of head way was made on metallurgy and discovering many of the elements in said metals. The main reason we know so little of about the actual research and processes done by the Alchemist was the way they wrote their research scrolls down in. Alchemist would cypher their work so not to allow the information of their research to fall into the wrong hands. To this day many of the scrolls are still shrouded in mystery.
When the Holy Wars broke out the Catholic Church found out about the alchemist and worked to either kidnap or hire Alchemist to work for them to further the Church’s power. One such goal for the Church’s enrollment with Alchemist was to create gun powder or as it was referred to back then black powder. Though some stories and information links results of black powder to the Middle East the most head way of the volatile mixture was found in China.
In China black powder flourished because of the naturally accruing peat bogs found in the soil. The Middle East and China would trade supplies to China to help excel China’s productivity on the product thus fueling the popularity of Alchemy.