Gold - decoration and symbol of the Sun God
The first native gold
most likely found in water
People first became acquainted with gold in its native form. A very rare, yellow, shiny and non-tarnishing "stone" that does not split upon impact, but only changes its shape, initially acquired in primitive society a tremendous symbolic, almost divine value.
Due to the bright yellow glow in the sun - gold becomes symbol of the sun deity... The property of gold does not tarnish over time (does not oxidize) made it symbol of eternal life.
Gold is the king of metals, a symbol of wealth and power
With the accumulation of gold and the appearance of social stratification in the tribes, the leaders became its owners in one way or another, - gold becomes symbol of power... And the symbols of power must be displayed, and in the best possible way! - There is a need for gold processing. It was here that people learned about its properties such as malleability and plasticity. Gold becomes a material for making ceremonial jewelry.
At the same time, gold begins to be used in commodity exchange - gold also has a very high exchange value. As the exchange value of gold grew, so did the number of people eager to get it.
Probably it was gold that brought humanity from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Just as modern chemistry and the chemical industry originated from the attempts of alchemists to create the philosopher's stone in the Middle Ages, so in prehistoric times, the first copper was smelted from attempts to extract gold from the stone. Gradually, people learned how to mine a whole group of low-melting metals. Metals appeared in the everyday life of mankind and gold was put at the head of them, as a noble metal!
With the emergence of statehood and the growth of the exchange value of gold, its divine symbolism fades into the background - gold becomes a symbol power, power and wealth.
Centuries passed, some fell apart and other ancient states were created in their place. To facilitate exchange, gold began to be used in the form of pieces of metal identical in weight and shape - these were the first gold coins. In relation to coins, they began to correlate the value of everything that was offered for exchange - money appeared and gold became the main measure of their value.
People have learned to make various alloys from gold. There was a problem of counterfeits. Remember the task set to Archimedes by King Hieron about the gold content in the crown. As a result of solving this problem, Archimedes' law was discovered. Gold is still a stimulator of progress!
But this stimulation does not always lead to a straight road. In the era of late antiquity, the Alexandrian followers of the metaphysical philosophical school were seriously puzzled by the question: “If every substance and its properties are determined by the combination in a certain proportion of the primary elements that form it - fire, earth, water, air and ether (or quintessence, according to Ptolemy), then perhaps one substance can be transformed into another by changing the content of primary elements in it ”. They not only created a new philosophical movement - "hermetism" (on behalf of one of the founders - Hermes Trismegistus) tried to translate this into practice.
The primary task, which found support from those in power, was, of course, the transformation of base metals into gold. Ironically, it was during this era that Alexandria was famous for its wealth and gold reserves! After the destruction by the Romans of part of the library of the Alexandria Library, a legend developed that the task of converting base metals into gold was solved, but the solution itself was lost. The only thing that has reliably survived from this era is the designation for gold introduced by the Alexandrians: ☉ is the sign of the Sun, and that they considered fire to be the fundamental essence of gold, and attributed to it a mutually pervasive relationship with the fire signs of the zodiac, first of all - this, and then the signs Aries and Sagittarius ... It should be noted that already at that time, most Hermeticists believed mercury the most suitable metal for producing gold
And the legend about the possibility of converting base metals into gold turned out to be so tenacious that the Arabs, having conquered Egypt, revived the search for a method of such transformation and created alchemy, enriching knowledge with new methods of purifying metals and liquids, as well as creating new legends and myths (the philosopher's stone). But the Europeans, to whom it came from the Arabs as a result of the Crusades, became the champions in the hoax of alchemy, however, they received much more results in terms of obtaining practical knowledge (for example, they obtained “aqua regia” - a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids, in which even gold dissolves) It was from European alchemy that modern chemistry was born. Despite the misconceptions, the main merit of the alchemists is that they discovered many of the properties of gold as a chemical element.
The symbolic perception of gold by people also changed from era to era. With the advent of monotheistic religions, the spiritual symbolism of gold begins to revive. For Christians, gold symbolizes divine light, sun and christ (gifts of the Magi), nobility of soul, purity of spirit and faith.
Gold in the modern world
The modern perception of the properties of gold as a precious metal, chemical element and reserve means of payment began to take shape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The discovery by our compatriot D.I. Mendeleev of the periodic law of chemical elements overthrew gold from the throne of the king of metals - now it began to occupy 79th place in the periodic table between platinum and mercury.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the governments of economically developed countries learned to maintain a stable circulation of "paper money" (banknotes: banknotes, credit and treasury notes, etc.) - gold was no longer used for mass production of banknotes. All mined gold was divided into two streams - the reserve accumulations of state funds (gold was then still used for international settlements) and for the needs of the industry, mainly jewelry. This state of affairs has survived to this day, with the only difference that now the flow of gold for the needs of industry is many times greater than the flow for reserve accumulations. Gold, still the main metal used for jewelry making, has found widespread use in electronics.
In 1947, the dream of alchemists of all times and peoples came true - it was artificial gold obtained from mercury, by irradiating it with slow neutrons in a nuclear reactor. But alas, dreams are shattered against reality - it is many times more expensive to purify such gold from accompanying radioactive contamination than to mine gold in natural deposits!
No wonder they say: “New is a very well forgotten old!”. Recently, another characteristic of a person associated with the date of birth has come into vogue - his zodiac sign. It would seem just a game ... But even recruiting agencies began to use this characteristic for the preliminary selection of candidates. The fact is that 60-70% of people born in the northern hemisphere largely correspond to the indicators of the temperament of their sign.
The jewelry industry now provides a large selection of gold jewelry, both in terms of price and aesthetic qualities. When choosing a gift for a loved one, or choosing a jewelry for themselves, many involuntarily think about the compatibility of the jewelry and the zodiac sign of its future owner. So, I can reassure the adherents of Christianity - gold suits them all, regardless of the sign of the zodiac.
Especially for those who were born under the water signs of the zodiac (Scorpio, Virgo, Pisces) and very much believe in their fate, it should be said that it is better to supplement gold (if the gold is not of the highest standard, then there is no need to worry - jewelers about this already taken care). In general, in such cases, you need to follow the postulates of your own inner faith - if a person believes that the gold ring helps him, then it is!
But back to the golden symbolism:
- What do you think are the most common symbolic gold jewelry in the world?
- Correctly! Wedding rings.
The tradition of giving each other rings at marriage, as symbols of fidelity, purity of feelings and eternity of love, now spread throughout the world.
Another example of modern associative symbolism associated with gold is the gilding of temples and works of art. - "Life is short, but art forever”. The radiance of the gilding of the bell towers in the rays of the rising sun, visible from kilometers away, involuntarily reminds divine Light.
Now it is difficult to find a person who would not be, a free or unwitting owner of gold. Even if you do not wear gold jewelry, you probably have a piece of gold with you ... in your mobile phone!
The word "Gold" - meanings, history of origin
The word "gold" can mean not only a precious metal, but also symbols and properties associated with it.
For example, to emphasize the value of an employee, they say “Not an employee, but gold!”, Or, emphasizing exceptional luck: “Mother-in-law is just gold!”. In literature and poetry, the visual perception of the precious metal is quite often, allegorically used: “Gold of fields, turquoise of meadows”.
But the adjective “golden” derived from the word “gold” began to possess a much larger number of semantic shades. On the basis of the words “gold” and “gold”, the people have created a great variety of winged phrases and sayings: golden hands, golden words, golden wedding, golden autumn - you can't list everything, so from the sayings it is worth limiting ourselves to only one: “Word -, silence - gold".
The historical roots of the word "gold" go much deeper than the time of the appearance of writing. And now it is impossible to establish the origins of the word for certain.
The methods of etymological reconstruction lead to two Proto-Indo-European roots consonant with the Proto-Slavic “zolt”, the first of them means “yellow”, the second “shining”, “sunny” (Indo-Europeans are our ethnic ancestors). The official etymology is inclined to believe that in the XI-XII, as a result of the phonetic transformation of the Proto-Slavic “gold” (gold), the word “gold” (full agreement) appeared in the East Slavic languages, and “gold” (incomplete agreement) in the South and West Slavic languages. ... Personally, I believe that in our particular case, the common Slavic word was “gold”. The fact is that even in the Russian language “gold” and “gold” were in equivalent use until the beginning of the 19th century. Remember, in Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila": "... A golden chain ... ... There, Tsar Kashchei withers over gold ..." and at the same time the fairy tale "The Golden Cockerel" ... It is thanks to the variety of semantic meanings and the frequency of use of the adjective “gold”, only the consonant “gold” remained in use. Despite the fact that the history of the word “gold” contains many moments that can give rise to heated discussions, its most important result: “ The word gold is native Russian!”
Work on the article "Gold - symbol, metal, element. The word" Gold "- meanings, history." is still going on.
Sergey Ov (Seosnews9)
Properties of gold as a metal and a chemical element.
Gold Au (from the Latin Aurum) is a heavy yellow metal, soft, malleable and ductile.
Under normal conditions, the density of gold is 19320 kg / m 3;
- specific heat 132.3 J / (kg K);
- specific thermal conductivity 311.48 W / (m · K);
- specific electrical resistance 2.25 · 10 -8 ohm · m;
- linear coefficient of thermal expansion 14.2 · 10 -6 K −1.
The melting point of gold is 1064.43 ° C, the specific heat of fusion is ≈ 67 kJ / kg.
The boiling point of gold is 2856 ° C, the specific heat of vaporization is ~ 1800 kJ / kg.
As a chemical element, gold in most stable compounds exhibits an oxidation state of +3, less often +2; there are compounds with oxidation states of +5 (fluorides), +2 (complex salts), and even -1 (aurides). It is important to know that some gold compounds are toxic and have a cumulative effect (accumulate in the body).
The metal crystal lattice of gold, as a simple substance, is a face-centered cubic structure of close-packed spheres with a coordination number of 12, a \u003d 4.704 Å. The atomic radius of gold is 1.44 Å, the ionic radius of Au + is ~ 1.37 Å; Au 3+ ~ 0.82 Å
Only one isotope of gold is stable in our universe 197 Au, the number of protons p - 79, neutrons - 118, the spin of the nucleus is 3/2 and the parity of the nucleus is +, the configuration of the outer electron shell 5d 10 6s 1.
Feedback
In this window you can propose a topic for discussion on the forum, leave a comment, message, feedback.
Jewelry online store "Treasure Island" offers to choose and buy the feng shui hieroglyph from gold and silver of Russian production from a huge assortment of feng shui hieroglyphs, with delivery in Russia and abroad. We have presented the female hieroglyphs of the Feng-shey of such manufacturers as: CJSC "Kostroma Jewelry Factory", YK "Almaz". We are constantly increasing the range and adding products of new Kostroma and Ivanovo jewelry manufacturers and try to provide the most favorable price conditions for our customers.
How to buy the Chinese character Feng Shui in the "Treasure Island" online store in Russia?
With the help of the filter, the buyer can make a quick search for variants of feng shui hieroglyphs according to the given characteristics: metal, price and name of the manufacturer and other characteristics. You look through the options you like, choose the feng shui hieroglyph, indicate and add the product to the cart and place an order. Our manager will call you back, confirm the acceptance of the order, answer all your questions, specify the methods of payment and delivery, specify the applied discounts.
Prices for each gold and some silver jewelry are recalculated for individual weights. This information is listed on the page of each piece. We take into account the terms of the manufacturers' pricing policy, therefore, discounts apply to a number of jewelry, and the golden feng shui hieroglyphs, for which the minimum markups are made, are shipped only by prepayment. ...
Delivery of jewelry to Russiaabroad is made: a) by courier or pickup from the pickup point in Russia and regional centers:; b) By Russian Post throughout the territory of the Russian Federation (with cash on delivery - silver and jewelry, up to 2500 rubles, orders up to 700 rubles and more than 2500 rubles, all gold jewelry - shipped on a prepaid basis). Methods and cost of delivery abroad are specified in each case. ...
To buy rings in the online store in Russia "Treasure Island" is a guarantee: factory quality, reliability of characteristics and authenticity of jewelry. We have many years of experience and are the official representatives of the largest jewelry manufacturers. All jewelry undergoes mandatory factory quality control, assaying and branding at the Verkhnevolzhskaya Inspectorate for Assaying Supervision in Krasny-on-Volga, Kostroma Region All jewelry comes with a factory warranty.
In Chinese, gold is denoted by the hieroglyph "jin". It also designates metals in general, as chemical elements. What parts does the hieroglyph "gold" consist of and what is its meaning in the traditional culture of the Celestial Empire?
The modern hieroglyph for "gold" (Palladian transcription: "jin", pinyin: Jīn) looks like this:
Chinese hieroglyph "gold". Illustration: Evgeny Dovbush / website
In ancient times, the Chinese character for "gold" looked like this:
The ancient style of the hieroglyph "gold". Illustration: Evgeny Dovbush / website
According to the ancient Chinese etymological dictionary "Shoven tszezi" *, the hieroglyph "gold" consists of two main elements:
The upper part of the hieroglyph "gold" - "jin" ("today")
The lower part of the hieroglyph "gold" - "tu" ("earth")
In the solid hieroglyph "gold" its lower part "tu" merged with the upper part "jin".
The upper element "jin" (pinyin: jīn) literally means "today". It is often used as an independent hieroglyph. However, "Chauven" explains that in this case the upper element only determines the pronunciation of the hieroglyph "gold" - "jin". That is, this grapheme only acts as a phonetics.
The lower grapheme "tu" (pinyin: tǔ) denotes soil, earth. The ancient dictionary interprets the lower element as follows: “In the bowels of the earth lie 2 gold nuggets”. The two dots on the sides of the "earth" grapheme denote the two nuggets that lie in it.
This beautiful metal is not subject to corrosion and oxidation, therefore the hieroglyph "gold" has been used since ancient times to emphasize the noble qualities of a person, the value of an object or the importance of a phenomenon.
For example, a Chinese proverb about the value of time says: "an inch of time is an inch of gold."
* The fundamental work on Chinese writing - the etymological dictionary "Showen Jiezi" ("Explanation of Simple and Analysis of Composite Hieroglyphs") - was compiled by the outstanding linguist Xu Sheng during the Eastern Han Dynasty (about 147 AD).
Evgeny Veres. The Epoch Times, Ukraine
The general meaning of the word is precious metal.
Value as an economic concept - a commodity universal equivalent, material for expressing value, high-grade money, reserve means, object of thesavration.
It is difficult to trace the history of the word, since gold was known even before the advent of writing. However, it is known that in the Slavic languages \u200b\u200bit had a common root with the word " yellow", and the original version of the word is written as" zolto ". It is noteworthy that in European languages \u200b\u200bthe word gold also means yellow. The Latin (Etruscan) name for gold" aurum "(Aurum, ancient Ausum) is yellow and is related to Aurora (Aurura) - dawn. It is noteworthy that the ancient Persians had gold - zarania or zar
Some associate the origin of the word "gold" with the word "sun", the root of which is the oldest Indo-European root "Sol" - the Sun. But in general, there is no sufficiently reliable information about the origin of the word. In European languages \u200b\u200bthe word "gold" is associated with the Greek sun god Helios. As you can see, the "solar" hypothesis substantively intersects with the "yellow hypothesis".
The modern economic role of gold - reserve facility... World bank gold reserves are estimated at 32 thousand tons (weight of a cube with a side of 12 meters). The largest gold reserve was accumulated by the USA in 1949 - almost 22 thousand tons. Today this figure for the United States is almost 3 times less (8135 tons in 2004), which corresponds to the fiduciary nature of modern money. Another function of gold these days is inflation indicator... Its price rises when inflation persists in the world economy, which is always fraught with instability.
The most important concepts associated with gold:
- Gold share - share with special voting rights. This is usually a government action. It allows you to veto decisions of the shareholders' meeting and carry out the decisions needed by the government.
- Golden bond - a bond backed by gold. Typically produced by gold mining companies. Interest payments on it are pegged to the price of gold.
- Golden handshake - the dismissal of one of the company's executives with the payment of significant monetary compensation to him in many cases in order to avoid a public scandal. In other cases, it is an early retirement benefit.
- Gold Certificate - a document certifying the ownership of the gold deposited in the bank.
- Golden boys ("Golden Boys" or "Whiz Kids") - the best graduates of US universities, hired by financial institutions (banks and brokerage companies) to conduct operations in the stock markets.
- Golden coins - gold coins issued in many countries. They are considered legal tender, but in practice they are bought and sold at market prices and in this regard they do not fulfill the function of money. Hence the modern characterization of their role - no modern country has gold coins in circulation.
Chinese interpretation of the word "Gold"
Gold in Chinese is 金 (jin). The fact that this word consists of one hieroglyph speaks of its significance.
In Chinese, the word "gold" has a much broader meaning than in Europe. Besides the main meaning of "gold", this word also means " metal", "money", "jewelry".
The hieroglyph has an ancient etymology and is originally associated with metal (bronze). In the very first recorded version, the hieroglyph consisted of two parts - on the left two slabs, apparently bronze, which were used for blacksmithing, and on the top right there is an arrow, and an ax below. This is what you can do with bronze. At some point in the evolution of the hieroglyph, it was mistakenly assumed that there was a gold nugget between them, since gold also required processing, and as a result hieroglyph began to mean gold and metal at the same time... Gradually, the hieroglyph was ordered and eventually became symmetrical. It is curious that the element "earth" appeared in it, which makes it even closer to metals and gold in particular.
As the meaning of "metal", the hieroglyph is most often used as part of other hieroglyphs. For example, it is present in all hieroglyphs of the chemical elements of metals.
The connection between gold and money and jewelry is common throughout the earth, but the Chinese language has especially strongly preserved this connection. This hieroglyph is one of the basic ones in modern Chinese. Many words, both financial and everyday, have it in their composition.... For example: "funds" \u003d "resources" + "gold", or "cash" \u003d "now" + "gold". The hieroglyph "money" consists of parts "gold" and two swords.
The hieroglyph "gold" has become an integral part not only of Chinese writing, but also of Chinese culture... This hieroglyph can always be heard in everyday speech and found in any text.
Category:
Related concepts:
reserves, property, fiduciary
fiduciary, property, reserves
