5 ms·
Why though? At least gold is very nonreactive, isn't it?
by ralfd 9y ago
Why though? At least gold is very nonreactive, isn't it?
- SolarNet 9y agoIt's also extremely soft (for a metal). Fossils survive in part because they are reactive and become harder in certain specific conditions.
- losteric 9y agoIt's also very soft
- thaumaturgy 9y agoSure, but that doesn't make it immune to the passage of time. Take Mesoamerican gold for instance: only about a thousand years have passed since much of it was made by humans, but it's still considered a rare and valuable archaeological find. (Granted, it was produced in smaller quantities than today.) Gold is melted by fires; gets scattered and buried by a million years of bioaccumulation; seas move, rivers appear or disappear, continents drift a little, climate changes, glaciers come and go and further destroy evidence. Google is feeding me a lot of really dumb stuff at the moment when trying to come up with numbers, but I'd guesstimate that most traces of our civilization would be buried a hundred feet below the surface after a million years' time. That makes it pretty difficult to find small things.
- sgt101 9y agoMesoamerican gold was looted and melted down wholesale (along with a lot more silver) by the Spanish. The artefacts were considered unchristian and so were deliberately destroyed, and this has meant that we have barely a fragment of the artistry of the Inca and Aztec. There is some hope though! It's thought that the melting process was done in Spain so as to allow a reliable royal assay, if so then some of the ships that sank in the trade may have holds full of crushed and squashed precious artefacts.
- mbroncano 9y agoThat’s interesting, can you provide any citations?
- garmaine 9y agoMesoamerican gold is quite common in the gilded church alters of Spain.