Orichalcum found...

[hal]

Hi All,

Thought you might enjoy this...

https://archaeology-world.com/oricha...Z9Kve6iSy9YTkE


Hal

[Phantasm]

While a fascinating read, I didn't see anything saying they have the ship's manifest which confirms that these were called "orichalcum" rather than simply "brass" (given the high zinc content in the ingots, they qualify as brass, which has been known for millennia).

(Also, I'd move this to "Other Geekery", but I'm not a mod.)

[hal]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

While a fascinating read, I didn't see anything saying they have the ship's manifest which confirms that these were called "orichalcum" rather than simply "brass" (given the high zinc content in the ingots, they qualify as brass, which has been known for millennia).

(Also, I'd move this to "Other Geekery", but I'm not a mod.)

Since Orichalcum tends to be seen as "Magical metal" - including in Dungeon Fantasy, it has bearing here.

None the less, while you may be right to be cautious about this being Orichalcum - I dare say that finding a 2,600+ year old Cargo Manifest may be problematical at this point in time. On the flip side? When you alloy Copper with other metals - tin in particular, you get a harder metal than simple copper.

GURPS MAGIC with its Orichalcum, and DUNGEON FANTASY with its Oricalcum - are free to do as they will. None the less, in an era where metallurgy may have been less than widespread, and all people knew was to work with Copper by itself - An alloy would be of note. Copper, Gold, Tin, or Zinc would have been interesting - but a wily metalsmith might also say that the "looking like Gold" style alloy was in fact, made with Gold just to jack up its appearent value.

<<shrug>>

Sharing a tidbit for those who might be interested. :)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by hal

Since Orichalcum tends to be seen as "Magical metal" - including in Dungeon Fantasy, it has bearing here.

None the less, while you may be right to be cautious about this being Orichalcum - I dare say that finding a 2,600+ year old Cargo Manifest may be problematical at this point in time. On the flip side? When you alloy Copper with other metals - tin in particular, you get a harder metal than simple copper.

Like many ancient materials, it's very difficult to tell what actual material a particular written reference refers to. Surviving writers tend not to have been in the same social classes as people who used or regularly traded in raw materials after all, their descriptions tend to be a bit vague and/or inaccurate. Nor is it uncommon for different things to trade under exactly the same name. This pretty much guarantees you will never get agreement on exactly what any slightly obscure thing known from ancient writings was.

It's reasonable enough orichalcum was brass. That bit about invented by Cadmus in the linked article certainly leans that way - though I'd never heard it before and the usual story for Cadmus would considerably post-date the supposed timeframe of Atlantis - because cadmia -> calamine is the Greek term for the zinc ores used to make brass - in that tradition of different things going by the same name it's historically any of the carbonate, oxide or a complicated silicate hemimorphite. But nobody can really say for sure.

Parenthetically copper alloyed with about a percent cadmium is sometimes used when you want high tensile strength electrical wire, so if you're looking for something that fits the old words and myths and aren't too concerned with historical chronology.... A few millennia from now I wouldn't be astounded if somebody thought that was orichalcum.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Like many ancient materials, it's very difficult to tell what actual material a particular written reference refers to. Surviving writers tend not to have been in the same social classes as people who used or regularly traded in raw materials after all, their descriptions tend to be a bit vague and/or inaccurate. Nor is it uncommon for different things to trade under exactly the same name. This pretty much guarantees you will never get agreement on exactly what any slightly obscure thing known from ancient writings was.

On the other hand, merchants often made a lot of writings, they just weren't preserved as enthusiastically. Once a contract was fulfilled and accounted for, there was little need to keep the record, but that doesn't keep us from knowing about Kushim.

As to what orichalcum actual was, I personally suspect it was originally Ancient Greek mithril: a made up metal that had amazing properties to fulfill a role in a story. The oldest known mentions are in mythological poetry, and then it was adopted by Plato for use in his allegorical dialogues. That some took Plato's works of fiction as fact, and that later the term was used to refer to an actual alloy (a good colored bronze used for coinage) just confuses matters.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by malloyd

It's reasonable enough orichalcum was brass. .

The word has been used that way in historical times.

In the mid-1600s a German gunsmith named Felix Von Werder used a copper alloy he called "orichalcum" to make gun barrels. This was not unusual at the time though Von Werder's were thinner-walled and better made.

I've been saving that factoid for a game that will probably never happen. :)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by RyanW

As to what orichalcum actual was, I personally suspect it was originally Ancient Greek mithril: a made up metal that had amazing properties to fulfill a role in a story.

Of course the name just means "mountain copper". It could be a straight up poetic epithet like "cold iron" - most mines are in the hills after all. Or there would be markets where you could get copper sourced from two or more different places with different impurities, and hence different properties. You would have needed to be distinguish them from each other somehow in the purchase orders. There's no shortage of possible sources for the term either.

It could even have been more than one of them. People in the modern world are bad enough at distinguishing materials - I've certainly heard people confused about differences in steels, or spouting nonsense about the risk of BPA in polyethylene water bottles. Ancient writers aren't going to do *better* with the materials science subtleties.

[ravenfish]

I mean, if orichalcum originally had the meaning of "a legendary metal of very high quality", it stands to reason that people selling metal they wanted perceived as being of good quality would try to give it orichalcum as a "trade name". Marketing wasn't invented in the twentieth century, after all.

[Flyndaran]

Wouldn't that be similar to how "basic" forge welding is now equated with the "cooler" name, Damascus steel?

[Anaraxes]

Or the other way around, as fans of the romantic notion of a lost art unapproachable by modern technology insist that the reconstructed method is really just a superficial imitation similar in appearance only, while true Damascus steel is just way better.

If only some Japanese smith named Ulfberht had relocated to Syria to make katanas, then you'd really be on to something.