Something I can't seem to figure out, the egyptians, the Mayan, the chinese all treasured gold, few thousands years BC but how come gold was known to all this 3 ancient civilization? Unless they're trading and somehow have connection. It can't be that the 3 of them stumble to gold and 3 of them also value it. Anyone can help out in this..thanks.

Dude you mine the gold, then trade in it.

All these civilizations you mentioned MINED the gold.

I know they mine and process the gold, I'm sure the gold doesnt just drop from the sky, my question was how come 3 of them value the gold to make it so valueable into currency like.

its shiny. the women love it.
seriously, gold is a wonderful metal...





the women nagged the men to mine gold. thus .........

I have often wondered about this as well? Guess people just stumbled onto it?

A lot of cultures worshipped the sun...the sun brought light, heat, nourished crops...and gold is yellow and shiny like the sun, so maybe that's partly why it bacame so popular. Just putting it out there.

Yes. Gold nuggets can be found on the earth's surface, literally for the picking. Gold also gets washed out of rocks by streams and rivers, and can be extracted by relatively simple mechanical treatment, panning or sluiceing, of the top sediment in the stream bed, even today.

As mining took hold as an economic activity, people found visible seams of gold at accessible depths. Just that much, the solar metal existing underground, made an impact on mythology. Mining gold, i.e. bringing the solar representative above ground, became a sacrament.

Purification of even fairly low-grade ore is low-tech. One conjecture about the origins of alchemy is that it was inspired by the spectacle of ordinary-looking rocks "turning into" gold.

But as has already been pointed out, ladies love the stuff, so the rest is just detail.

For the record, however, guys like it, too.

Two things that made it valuable.

It's pretty (So people want it)

It's "relatively" rare (So not every peasant could have his/her piece of gold.)

Supply and demand. More demand than supply=valuable.


They're two very basic principles so it's not unusual that different cultures all valued gold.

Although I hear it was quite plentiful in certain parts of south america, and consequently it was considered much less valuable.

Tough question. But while pondering it try to remember that
not all people really value gold even today.

Before language there was probably extremely little interest
in gold. While seeking a place to live peoples' primary concern
would be water. They might walk right by stream laden with
shiny pretty gold and look for more dependable water sources.
After language the desire to make jewelry and the knowledge
of gold melting would quickly become common. While gold has
always been rare there might not have been enough demand
to deplete the resources. The value of gold would have been
largely the cost of walking to the stream and bringing it back.

I'd guess it was much later before people began to really trea-
sure gold. Around the time of the rise of the cities in 10,000BC
the gold supplies should have been mostly exhausted and peo-
ple began looking for mining and learning to smelt the metal from
the ore. By 3500 BC gold began to take on some characteristics
of money but it was not until around 1000 BC that any places exi-
isted where gold had taken on most of the aspects of money.

The first real money arose around 680 BC and was electrum (a
mixture of mostly gold and silver). It's a little surprising that
this took so long since tokens had been used for 2500 years by
this point. Perhaps part of the reason was that initially money
was thought of as payment for large values. The concept of
buying a small item like a gallon of milk was just unheard of.
It was only later that people realized the utility of "bartering"
gold money for less expensive objects was just as convenient.
This caused silver and copper money to arise. China started
with copper money a little later and didn't issue silver or gold
until much later. There was no true money ever invented in the
Americas. Wampum (stringed shells) came very close but they
lacked the "legal tender" attribute which defines true money. Of
course now we know that money is a belief held by the people
who use it much moreso than anything else.

Until trading was widespread the value of gold would depend on
its location. It probably had very little value until agriculture was
common and its value was probably nominal until around the
fourth millineum BC. It likely peaked in value around 1800 AD
but has to date lost little value. Gold production soared in the
1860's because of new technology and has remained at high and
usually increasing levels ever since. Around 98% of all the gold
ever produced has been since this time.

Gold doesn't tarnish much. 600 year old gold bars or coins found on the seabed today are still shiney.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Chinese and the Maya actually valued jade higher than gold.

from all the replies that I've seen this is the most possible answer.. most of the Ancient Civilization were Pagans/ Sun Worshipers.

Good question, I always wondered what is it about gold that makes it so desired?

If we are talking about ancient civilizations, didn't they usually want something that was easy to work with (which gold was soft enough for) but that would strong and durable (which gold isn't) and that practical (when has gold EVER been considered practical? lol)

And as far as it's rarity, is it really that rare? I mean, we still dig tons of it out of the earth every year, and you can go into any pawn shop now and find pounds and pounds of it.

As far as it not tarnishing, that's true, but back then, people would not have really been able to know that a gold bar can still be shiny after 600 years.


Good questions, and I hope you find the answers, cause I surely don't have them!

People have always been well aware of its tarnish resistence.

The rarity is in comparison to other metals. All the gold ever mined
would form a cube of about 30' on a side but the equivalent amount
of iron is a few weeks production.

What's truly interesting is that silver was always valued around sixteen
to one with gold while silver has always been far more useful so is con-
sumed. It disappears from the face of the Earth dissolved in the oceans
or landfills. For a generation we've been consuming 50,000,000 ounces
more than is produced each year. There is less silver in the world than
gold yet it sells for a tiny fraction of the price.

Gold does have some special properties which makes it desirable. Peo-
like the heft and color. It was the basis of money until 1933 and was
still considered money until 1971. Today most of the worlds gold is tied
up in huge warehouses under the strongest security. The price is largely
controlled by the governmental owners of this gold but the demand soars
when people expect inflation and few including governments want to sell.

I agree, that was the best answer....

Drop from the sky

I wonder if when it was first discovered it was not coveted in any way but was just thought of as a nice shiny material. Then as they tried to mine more of it they found it wasn't so common and eventually to have it was found to be unusual, perhaps, because of this, not much of it went around in the beginning. Eventually being, as Insomniac stated, "relatively rare" a high price was put on it which followed until the present day.

1. Gold is attractive. Its yellow color catches the eye.
2. Gold does not tarnish. Copper in its natural state is bluish green (verdigris). Iron in its natural state is reddish brown (rust).
3. Melting and refining gold is low-tech.
4. It is easily malleable. You can pound it flat with a rock, then bend it, given a big enough piece.
5. Gold does not get stress fractures and break like other minerals. In northern India, they put a little piece between two pieces of leather and pound it evenly with a flat-bottomed rock. The result is gold leaf, which may be only a few microns thick. To my knowledge, no other metal can do that; at least not with such a primitive method.
6. It can be obtained relatively easily, in areas thick with it. In the American West, particularly during the Gold Rush to California, a few people made it rich with only a shovel and a gold pan.
7. Gold is rare, making it fairly portable insurance if you're fleeing an invading Army or just suffered a natural catastrophe.
8. Everyone values gold. It can be used to purchase food, water, weapons, medicine, and transportation to aid your flight when other commodities would be turned away. Having a wagon-load of wheat is fine, but it's clumsy to barter with if you're on the run.
9. The ladies love it. Culturally, women have always liked attractive, shiny things. What better way --- in days of yore and somewhat today --- to get an attractive mate but with the lure of gold?

All of the above are common to every culture: the need for security, the need to obtain the basics to survive, the need to protect yourself from enemies. These needs have never changed and never will.

If modern civilization collapses, gold will still be useful. But more useful will be those things that primitive manufacturing cannot create: matches, ammunition (particularly .22 rimfire ammo), metal pots and pans, some medicines (particularly painkillers), etc.
In times of chaos, a brick of .22 rimfire ammo and a small cooking pot may be far more valuable than a brick of gold!
Ponder that!