Alchemy: Middle Ages And The Renaissance

Alchemy is a form of chemistry mixed with speculative philosophy that was practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The goals of alchemy was to discover methods to transmute base metals into gold, find the elixir of life, and create the philosopher’s stone.

Alchemy dates back to ancient Egypt, where the word ‘Khem’ was used to reference the fertility of the land after the Nile flooded. Greek philosophers became interested in alchemy when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC. The Greek views on matter being made up of four elements of nature were mixed with the Egyptian arts, turning ‘Khem’ into ‘Khemia’, which was the Greek word for Egypt. In the 7th century, when the Arabs conquered Egypt, they added ‘al-’ to Khemia, making

‘al-Khemia’ which means ‘the Black Land’. Not much more is known about the early history of alchemy because when Alexandria was invaded, the great library was burned and many alchemical works were burned.
Another reason why it was so hard to figure out anything about the works of most alchemists
Kings sometimes paid alchemists to transmute an element into gold. The kings funded the projects and sometimes kept the alchemist as a prisoner and threatened to execute them if they did not transmute the gold in a set amount of time.
A lot of the most famous alchemists were focused on finding or creating the Philosopher’s Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone is thought to be a bright red powder or stone that was capable of turning stones that did not have a lot of value into gold. It is also said to contain the Elixir of Life, capable of making people immortal. Nikolas Flannel was an alchemist that was said to have found and created the Philosopher’s Stone, yet it was never proven if he really dis or not. There are multiple stories around the Philosopher’s Stone, yet there has still never been proof that the Philosopher’s Stone really exists. Even if alchemists didn’t succeed in finding the Philosopher’s Stone, they still did made a lot of physical, chemical, and medical discoveries that are still highly useful to this day.