---
title: "Alchemy"
chunk: 2/12
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:38:25.858667+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre-eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. Following the work of André-Jean Festugière, modern scholars see alchemical practice in the Roman Empire as originating from the Egyptian goldsmith's art, Greek philosophy and different religious traditions. Tracing the origins of the alchemical art in Egypt is complicated by the pseudepigraphic nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of Zosimos of Panopolis, the earliest historically attested author (fl. c. 300), can help in situating the other authors. Zosimus based his work on that of older alchemical authors, such as Mary the Jewess, Pseudo-Democritus, and Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, the Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus, were probably written in the first century AD.
Recent scholarship tends to emphasize the testimony of Zosimus, who traced the alchemical arts back to Egyptian metallurgical and ceremonial practices. It has also been argued that early alchemical writers borrowed the vocabulary of Greek philosophical schools but did not implement any of its doctrines in a systematic way. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote in the Final Abstinence (a.k.a. the Final Count) that the ancient practice of "tinctures" (the technical Greek term for the alchemical arts) had been taken over by certain "demons" who taught the art only to those who offered them sacrifices. Since Zosimos also called the demons "the guardians of places" (οἱ κατὰ τόπον ἔφοροι, hoi katà tópon éphoroi) and those who offered them sacrifices "priests" (ἱερέα, hieréa), it is fairly clear that he was referring to the gods of Egypt and their priests. While critical of the kind of alchemy he associated with the Egyptian priests and their followers, Zosimos nonetheless saw the tradition's recent past as rooted in the rites of the Egyptian temples.

==== Mythology ====
Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. Alchemical writers used classical figures from Greek (e.g., Hades), Roman (e.g., Lucius), and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation. These included the pantheon of gods related to the classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others.
The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, 'Hermes the Thrice-Greatest'). His name is derived from the god Thoth and his Greek counterpart, Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge.

==== Hermetica and Emerald Tablet ====

The Hermetica are a compendium of texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Many of them have close historical connections with Western alchemical philosophy and practice (which was sometimes called the Hermetic philosophy by its practitioners). By modern convention, the Hermetica is usually subdivided into two main categories: the "technical" and "religio-philosophical" Hermetica. The "technical" Hermetica deals with alchemy, astrology, medicine, pharmacology, and magic. Its oldest parts were written in Greek and may go back as far as the second or third century BC.
Many of the texts in the "technical" Hermetica were later translated, first into Arabic and then into Latin, often being extensively revised and expanded throughout the centuries. Some of them were also originally written in Arabic. In other cases their status as an original work or translation remains unclear. These Arabic and Latin Hermetic texts were widely copied throughout the Middle Ages. The most famous of these texts is the Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Table or the Tabula Smaragdina, a compact and cryptic text. The earliest known versions of it are four Arabic recensions preserved in mystical and alchemical treatises between the 8th and 10th centuries AD—chiefly the Secret of Creation (سر الخليقة, Sirr al-Khalīqa) and the Secret of Secrets (سرّ الأسرار, Sirr al-Asrār). From the 12th century onward, Latin translations—most notably, the widespread so-called Vulgate (not to be confused with the late-fourth-century Latin translation of the Tanakh and Christian New Testament known as the Vulgate)—introduced the Emerald Tablet to Europe, where it attracted great scholarly interest. Medieval commentators such as Ortolanus interpreted it as a "foundational text" of alchemical instructions for producing the philosopher's stone and making gold.

==== Technology ====
The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, extending back to 3500 BC. Many writings were lost when the Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria (AD 292). Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the Stockholm papyrus and the Leyden papyrus X. Dating from AD 250 to 300, they contained recipes for dyeing and making artificial gemstones, cleaning and fabricating pearls, and manufacturing of imitation gold and silver. These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of Bolus of Mendes (or Pseudo-Democritus), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements. Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art.

==== Philosophy ====
Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Stoicism, and Gnosticism that formed the origin of alchemy's character. An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter rather than the modern quantitative elements' natures, according to Titus Burckhardt: 