The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell.

  • George Farrer Rodwell
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The birth of chemistry / by G.F. Rodwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Herodotus tells us that Ecbatana had seven walls, the outermost of which was the lowest, and the others gradually ascended like steps to the highest, which enclosed the king’s palace. They were each painted of a particular colour; the outermost white, the second black, the third purple, the fourth blue, the fifth red, the sixth the colour of silver, the seventh the colour of gold. Undoubtedly these had reference to the seven greater heavenly bodies. It is impossible to account for the colours, but it is curious to notice the particular colour which would fall to any par- ticular metal. Placing the planets in order as applied to the metals, we should have gold to gold, silver to silver, red to copper, blue to iron, purple to tin, black to lead, the most despised of the metals. It is pro- bable that the Sabseans associated these colours with the seven heavenly bodies. The temple of Bel- Merodach, rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, and called by him the “ Wonder of Borsippa,” appears also to have consisted of seven terraces differently coloured. The following is a portion of the inscription from a clay cylinder found among the ruins of the temple:—“ I (Nebuchadnezzar) have completed the magnificence of the tower with silver, gold, precious stones, enamelled bricks, fir, and pine. .... This most ancient monu- ment of Borsippa is the house of the seven lights of the earth.” How the symbols conferred upon the planets and afterwards upon the metals arose it is difficult to say; they are undoubtedly of Chaldaean origin, but to what extent they have since been modified no one can tell. They exist in early MSS. on Alchemy.
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