Hey dear Hive Community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a weekend that has brought numerous positive experiences into your lifes! In this post, I would like to talk a little about ancient Egypt and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.
Here you can see pictures of Lapis Lazuli and Azurite which were of great importance in ancient Egypt and I think it is a good motif to write something about the alchemy and in addition I have photographed a work of art that present the eye of Horus which is on paper made of papyrus. Together with ancient Greece, Egypt was considered one of the origins of alchemy and in the old Egyptian alchemy it was not only about transforming base metals into gold or silver, but also the further development of the personality as well as spiritual insights until the awakening was of great importance. As one of the fathers of hermetics, which in turn was considered the cornerstone of alchemy was Hermes Trismegistus who was a mixture of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thot and he saw himself as the creator of wisdom or mythical teachings. Hermes Trismegistus is also considered the author of the Emerald Tablets, which were also known as Tabula Smaragdina and deal with the knowledge of humanity in a few sentences and are considered the basis of hermetics or alchemy and it is also often associated with secret knowledge. Thot was also considered the creator of pyramids as well as temples and a typical symbol for him as well as alchemy was the pyramid in ancient Egypt and a lot was also associated with mythology and cosmic primal power. Alchemy was regarded as a separate branch and not everyone could call themselves alchemist and it was important to have knowledge about different metals and it was also important to know how to process the metals and therefore it was advantageous to master the art of blacksmithing and also knowledge in other areas such as natural philosophy were an important basis.
Already in ancient Egypt metals were already assigned to the power of certain planets at that time and it were especially the priests who dealt with alchemy and similar to other cultures, which was a very divided topic and some focused more on the scientific aspects while others had associated it more with religion or esotericism. The priests were also often regarded as scholars as well as carriers of mysteries or mystical knowledge and through different stages of transformation, the priests also became the carriers of supernatural or divine secrets in the course of their alchemical training and many cults have also emerged among the priests. Some priests also saw themselves as representatives of divine beings who had the task of performing works on earth and the subconscious as well as the development into a higher being was also important in Egypt, similar to the alchemy of the Middle Ages. The principle of the transformation of metals also provides an important basis for later processes of the synthetic production of substances and alchemy can also be considered the cornerstone of chemistry in ancient Egypt, which increasingly resulted from it. Things such as the production of color pigments could also be regarded as alchemical steps and also early on they also dealt a lot with medicinal plants and their extraction and for the extraction natural processes were used in ancient Egypt, which were often created by coincidences and contributed a large part to the collection of new insights. The ancient Egyptians also already knew the alcoholic fermentation and also the discoveries about reactions of substances under certain influencing factors such as fire were no secrets and people were considered very eager to experiment and already produced their own ink, cosmetics and this high culture at the time had a lot of influence on research in alchemy. The ancient Egyptians are also very concerned with the research of eternal life and to this day Egypt is considered one of the places full of mysteries where alchemy plays an important role.
Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!