One of the things that struck me on recent visits to museums in Crete and Santorini was the sheer amount of gold and jewellery on display. Much of it dated from millennia ago. And the workmanship was often exquisite, as you can see.
Made me think about what that means in practice.
Imagine goldsmiths working in Crete in 1500 or 2000 BC. They would be working with the relatively soft Bronze-Age tools—no acetylene torches for them; no hard steel implements, because smelting of iron didn’t start till around 1300-1200 BC—and with only experience and handed-down skills to guide them in their manipulation of metal and fire. Continue reading