Page 64 - Handbook of Gold Exploration and Evaluation

Nature and history of gold 45

science were more advanced at this time in the Far East than in the West.
Amongst the discoveries unearthed at Ban Chiang close to the Mekong River
were a profusion of metal objects including a bimetallic spearhead with a forged
iron blade cast on a bronze socket. A socketed digging tool cast from pure
copper was found nearby at Non NokTha. Thorne and Raymond (1989) date
these tools at around 2,000±2,700 years BC. Discoveries of golden artefacts of
those times are rare, but gold panning in the Mekong River has apparently been
carried out for at least 5,000 years.
Between 1350 BC and the beginning of Christianity the Babylonians
introduced fire assaying to determine the purity of gold. In China, squares of
gold were legalised as a form of currency, and the first pure gold coins were
minted in Lydia, a kingdom of Asia Minor. Julius Caesar ransacked enough gold
from Gaul (France) to repay Rome's debts.
Around AD 330 the capital of the Roman Empire was transferred to Byzantium,
beside the Straits of the Bosporus, by Constantine the Great who renamed it
Constantinople. Centres of commerce then shifted to the East and the new
Byzantium Nation (AD 395±1453) became enormously rich. When the Prophet
Mohammed (AD 570±632) founded Islam, the destruction of Byzantium was an
important goal for an empire based on religion and sustained by gold.
Constantinople was twice besieged by the Arabs (AD 673±77, 718) but the
Byzantines retained Anatolia. Syria, Egypt and North Africa were lost to the
Empire during the 7th±8th centuries but under the Macedonian dynasty the
Byzantine Empire reached the height of its prosperity around 1056. The Byzantine
Empire was finally doomed when the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in
1204 and set Baldwin of Flanders on the throne.
The few records that still exist of scientific discoveries by Arabian scientists
during the period 4th to 12th century include one important thesis referring to
weathering and erosion, in a work called Discourses of the Brothers of Purity,
published by a group of Arab scholars somewhere between AD 941 and 949.
Later, another Arab scholar Ibn Sina (AD 980±1037) expressed views on the
effects of slow erosion over long periods of time. He classified mountains as
`those produced by uplifting of the ground, such as takes place in earthquakes;
and those which resulted in hollowing out valleys in soft rocks'. He regarded
fossils as unsuccessful attempts by nature to form plants and animals.
The development of agriculture in China, as in Mesopotamia, triggered the
growth of engineering sciences, which revealed great inventiveness and led to
revolutionary new technological achievements. These included `The Grand
Canal', stretching from Beijing in the north to Hangzhow in the south, which
was started in AD 70 and completed in AD 1527 and is still working perfectly
today. The Chinese invention of porcelain in AD 200 demonstrated a very
efficient control of kiln temperatures and metallurgical abilities that was not
matched in the West until the 15th century AD. China's geographical isolation
and the wall of mystery it has always built up around itself have tended to hide