Discovery of Silver

Silver has been in use since prehistoric times. We do not know who its discoverer was, although the discovery would almost certainly have been of native silver.

Nuggets of native silver metal can be found in minerals and sometimes in rivers; but they are rare. Despite native silver’s rarity, very large pieces of it have been found, such as “pieces of native silver as big as stove lids and cannon balls” found in the early 1900s in Northern Ontario, Canada. 

Silver has a special place in the history of the elements because it is one of the first five metals discovered and used by humans. The others were gold, copper, lead and iron.

Silver objects dating from before 4000 BC have been found in Greece and from slightly later in Anatolia (in modern Turkey). Silver artifacts have been found in the Sumerian city of Kish dating from about 3000 BC. 

Silver and lead often appear together in nature, for example in the mineral galena which is mainly lead sulfide. Galena actually looks metallic (see image) and would have caught the eyes of people looking for metals.

The silver objects found in Greece, Turkey and Kish were made of silver that was refined from lead-containing ores such as galena. (Humans have been successful chemists for a surprisingly long time.)

First the ore was smelted under reducing conditions to obtain a mixture of silver and lead. The metals then went through cupellation: the metals were heated to about 1000 ^oC in a strong stream of air. Under these conditions lead reacts with oxygen forming lead oxide, leaving liquid silver metal floating on top.

Our name for the element is derived from the Anglo-Saxon for silver, ‘seolfor,’ which itself comes from ancient Germanic ‘silabar.’

Silver’s chemical symbol, Ag, is an abbreviation of the Latin word for silver, ‘argentum.’ The Latin word originates from argunas, a Sanskrit word meaning shining. 

The historical association between silver and money is still found in some languages. The French word for silver is argent, and the same word is used for money. The Romans used the word ‘argentarius’ to mean banker (silver trader).

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