---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

History of Silver and Silver Jewelry - discovered in prehistory at the same time as copper and gold, silver was considered a sacred metal. Gold was considered perfect and circular, whereas silver was near-perfect and semi-circular. Because of the semi-circular appearance and color, silver had symbolic connections with the moon.

Famous Silver Mines

In the Middle East, scum from mines suggests that mining for silver began around 5000-4000 BCE. Silver and lead are found on the same ore, so, in order to obtain silver, miners had to extract the silver from lead. Lead is very poisonous and miners were killed often. Free men would not mine for silver, because of its apparent danger. The most famous silver mine in history was on Grecian land. Laurion was near Athens. At about 500 BCE, miners found an abundance of silver in Laurion. It was enough silver to pay to build Athen’s navy and make Athens one of the most powerful city-states.

Other famous mines were in Spain. Around 250 BCE, during the First Punic War, the Carthaginians conquered the land, took over the mines, and used the silver as income to pay the Romans. During the Second Punic War, the Romans took over the mines themselves, using the silver to pay for further conquest.

Main Mineral and Alloy

The main silver mineral is argentite (Ag2S). It can be found with lead and copper sulfides. Lead, copper, and cobalt and gold arsenide are the main ores and sulfides with silver being a by-product. Although, some mines are devoted only to the extraction of silver.

Nitrate is the most important silver inorganic compound, because it is used in many other processes. Silver nitrate is used in painting, xerography, batteries and, in medicine, a catalyst. Silver chloride is used in dynamite and other explosives.

Sterling Silver Jewelry

Fine silver is 99.9% silver, but is too soft to produce objects. Sterling Silver or Standard Silver is most used in jewelry. Sterling Silver is 92.5% silver and the rest mass metal, most popular of which is copper. Copper gives strength, ductility, and beauty to silver.

Originally used for sacred ornamentation and coins, silver quickly became precious metal for jewelry. Today’s world’s largest suppliers of silver are the USA, Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, the former-USSR, Australia, and Germany. Silver jewelry can come in many forms: earrings, bracelets, necklaces, chains, brooches, pins, rings and more.