[HN Gopher] Medieval Africans had a unique process for purifying...
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Medieval Africans had a unique process for purifying gold with
glass (2019)
Author : mooreds
Score : 126 points
Date : 2025-06-06 22:21 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.atlasobscura.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.atlasobscura.com)
| gregschlom wrote:
| This made me realize that I have absolutely no idea what was
| going on in Africa during medieval times (and only a sliver of an
| idea in Europe).
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Mansa Musa is totally worth reading about, as are philosophers
| etc. like Ibn Khaldun and others (Ibn Khaldun wrote about Mansa
| Musa's pilgrimage, wealth, etc.).
|
| There was a lot going on in medieval Africa, I wish I had some
| good sources, if anyone knows any I'd be interested in
| expanding my knowledge as well!
| petepete wrote:
| There are episodes of In Our Time on The Empire of Mali (incl
| Mansa Musa) and Ibn Khaldun
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kgggv
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qckbw
| jorgen123 wrote:
| The wikipedia page about the Mali Empire [1] has a few books
| in the Further Reading section. This one looks promising:
| African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and
| Medieval West Africa [2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
|
| [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34928286-african-
| dominio...
| KolibriFly wrote:
| Same here, most of what I learned growing up barely touched on
| African history beyond Egypt or colonialism. Stuff like this
| really highlights how much was going on
| teleforce wrote:
| Fun facts, Mansa Musa (Musa Keita) who's king in Mali Empire in
| Western Africa is the richest person ever lived [1].
|
| It's reported that he unintentionally disrupted Eqyption economy
| for at least ten years. He did that by spending and giving
| charity in gold enroute to pilgrimage or Hajj in Mecca while
| staying about 3 months in Egypt. Allegedly he had hundred camels
| in towing, each camel carrying hundreds of pounds of pure gold.
| Pilgrimage to Mecca is the journey that every Muslim has to make
| once in a lifetime if they can afford it.
|
| [1] Mansa Musa: The richest man who ever lived (105 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19350951
|
| [2] Mansa Musa:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19350951
| opo wrote:
| As your wikipedia link states:
|
| >...While online articles in the 21st century have claimed that
| Mansa Musa was the richest person of all time,[91] historians
| such as Hadrien Collet have argued that Musa's wealth is
| impossible to calculate accurately.
|
| We don't know the exact wealth of Manda Musa and there really
| isn't a good way to compare wealth between different eras. Even
| in the same general timeframe, wouldn't the khanates of the
| mongol empire be considered more wealthy?
| teleforce wrote:
| Nobody really know for sure to be honest but he's most
| probably one of the top ten.
|
| The linked BBC article in the HN post has the list for top 10
| richest man in history with Mansa Musa at the very top but
| Shah Jahan the Mughal Emperor who's the owner of Taj Mahal is
| not even in the list [1].
|
| The 10 richest men of all time:
|
| 1) Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth
| indescribable
|
| 2) Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn
| (PS3.5tn)
|
| 3) Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China)
| wealth incalculable
|
| 4) Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India's Mughal dynasty)
| wealth incalculable
|
| 5) Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American
| industrialist) $372bn
|
| 6) John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate)
| $341bn
|
| 7) Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia)
| $300bn
|
| 8) Mir Osman Ali Khan (1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn
|
| 9) William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn
|
| 10) Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya)
| $200bn
|
| [1] Is Mansa Musa the richest man who ever lived?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47379458
| jl6 wrote:
| Mansa Musa's headline story is that his spending caused
| inflation in Egypt. I understand that estimate of Augustus
| Caesar's wealth is based in part on him considering Egypt,
| in its entirety, to be his personal possession. It feels
| like "owning the whole country" should probably outrank
| "causing inflation in that country", it's probably
| meaningless to try to compare across such vast gulfs of
| time and place.
| notahacker wrote:
| Musa had an empire too, one that possessed so much gold
| that his holiday tips devalued the principal store of
| wealth in foreign countries. Agree the comparisons aren't
| particularly meaningful; a lot depends on whether your
| consider having lots of gold to show off with to be more
| valuable than building an industrial empire, or even
| owning a bunch of now-common consumer goods and having
| access to healthcare more impressive than anything
| Augustus or Musa bought
| LunaSea wrote:
| Aren't Bezos, Musk, Gates & co richer the first half of the
| people on the list?
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Not until one of them buys the entire US armed forces,
| installs himself on the throne in Washington and declares
| all of California his own personal property - just to
| draw a parallel to the number 2 spot ;)
| euroderf wrote:
| Soon.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Democracy Dies in Richness.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Only for 50% of the population
| rayiner wrote:
| The fact that none of them could come close to doing that
| aptly illustrates why they're not nearly as wealthy as
| those in the past.
| saagarjha wrote:
| fwiw Mughal[?]Mongol
| bernds74 wrote:
| Some guy once famously noted that wealth is not measured in
| gold or silver, but in goods and services. Mansa Musa
| didn't have a Ferrari F40, or an RTX4090, or air
| conditioning. He couldn't buy a trip to low earth orbit or
| get cancer treatment if he needed it. Many people in this
| day and age are vastly more wealthy than he was.
| Winsaucerer wrote:
| That's definitely a reasonable way to think about it.
| Another though is in terms of social status and ability
| to direct human labor, in which case most people are not
| more wealthy.
| Retric wrote:
| On that scale Xi Jinping is likely the richest person to
| ever live. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping
|
| You rarely see modern dictators on these lists but
| populations and economic prosperity have exploded to the
| point where historic kings can't really compete.
| Winsaucerer wrote:
| I actually do think of him as a candidate for wealthiest
| person to have ever lived.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| yeah but he is "only" leader, he don't own entire china
| economy
| rayiner wrote:
| That one way to measure wealth. Another would be to
| measure it in terms of how much labor you can get from
| your fellow humans. Mana Musa was far more wealthy by
| that measure.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Indeed, it depends. I think the way this list works it's
| relative to the available resources at the time, i.e.
| what percentage of the available wealth did they control?
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| I visited the Biltmore Estate years ago, the home of the
| Vanderbilt family. It occurred to me during the tour that
| all the end result of all this wealth was approximately
| equivalent to having a 5 bedroom McMansion. A huge
| percentage of the sprawling property was dedicated to
| housing servants who performed tasks like laundry,
| changing the water in the (pre-chlorine) pool, taking
| care of the horses and carriages of visitors, or
| preparing meals that today are mostly completely
| automated or unnecessary. The end result was housing the
| owners and a few guests in conditions substantially worse
| than the average modern suburban home.
| aquova wrote:
| Is there a reason this list wouldn't include any of their
| successors, who inherited the vast majority, if not all, of
| their holdings? Did Tiberius not inherit enough of
| Augustus's wealth to make this top 10 as well?
| anton-c wrote:
| Iirc he gave some to his wife(?)
|
| Anyone who had multiple people in their will diluted it.
| Though I feel Augustus got all of Julius' will which goes
| against this, I imagine powerful people might have a few
| people they want to leave something for when they die.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Mansa Musa was illiquid and could not exchange much wealth
| for goods and services and had nothing to invest in during a
| time where the gini coefficient around him would have been
| 1.0
|
| It is marvelous he found gold and even then he could only
| give it away freely
| romaaeterna wrote:
| Document-only claim without any archeological support means
| that I'm highly skeptical.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| That's the vast majority of antiquity unfortunately.
| detourdog wrote:
| What I love about the process is that it seems to have developed
| by playing with fire.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it seems to have developed by playing with fire_
|
| Or someone melted down a glass and gold object and noticed the
| gold that floated (precipitated?) out was purer than that which
| went in.
| defrost wrote:
| Which is literally playing with fire.
|
| Even today various artists playing with fire rediscover that
| while gold doesn't naturally work into or onto glass it's
| still possible to adhere gold to glass if the timings and
| tempreptures are "just right".
| motorest wrote:
| > What I love about the process is that it seems to have
| developed by playing with fire.
|
| Also known as experimentation, which is the whole basis of the
| scientific process.
| detourdog wrote:
| What is the difference between the two? No where else did the
| scientific method develop this process. Play can produce
| surprising results and methodologies stagnates development.
| motorest wrote:
| > What is the difference between the two?
|
| There isn't.
|
| Referring to experimentation as "playing with" feels like a
| attempt to demean the output.
| euroderf wrote:
| "playing around with" sounds more dignified.
| detourdog wrote:
| I don't perceive the difference. "working with fire"
| maybe different but I'm still fine with my word choice.
| detourdog wrote:
| Sometimes it's best to interpret things in a neutral way.
| A negative point of view hampers insight. I think the
| output speaks for itself and doesn't need a defense.
| rdlw wrote:
| Only if you think there's something wrong with play.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, you could say that of basically all metallurgy prior to
| the 19th century.
| detourdog wrote:
| Ok lets say that.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Same for Vulcanization.
| kleton wrote:
| This is called cupellation. Romans used clay crucibles
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Cupellation is considerably earlier than this method. Some
| 2,000 years earlier. Cupellation is also very effective at
| removing base metals.
|
| I'm curious how pure they get gold with this glass method. If
| it's not as pure as Cupellation then that would explain why it
| wasn't widely used outside of west Africa.
| bcoates wrote:
| This article leaves me super unclear on the metallurgical process
| going on here--you fire gold ore on a bed of glass rubble and the
| impurities are adsorbed into the ceramic or ???
| colechristensen wrote:
| Yup.
|
| A whole lot of chemistry process is just _X_ dissolves in _Y_
| but not in _Z_ , and using that in order to separate and
| purify.
|
| In this case metal oxides dissolve in glass (sand, which is a
| silicon oxide, mostly) but gold doesn't A) oxidize under
| reasonable conditions or B) dissolve in the glass. Sand or
| glass waste is melted, the _not gold_ dissolves into the molten
| glass.
| KolibriFly wrote:
| Innovation doesn't just come from empire-scale institutions
| goodmunky wrote:
| Africa is a such a vast and diverse region that "Africans" is
| nearly meaningless in this context. But you already know that.
| snthd wrote:
| Can this displace the mercury process used by illegal miners?
|
| _Reuters - Insight: Amazon rainforest gold mining is poisoning
| scores of threatened species_
| https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/amazon-rainfore...
| latchkey wrote:
| Cyanide usage is pretty bad too.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| They had it in medieval Mali but it seems inaccurate to say
| "Africans" had it even though it might technically be true.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Anyone have a link to the paper?
| dondakirme wrote:
| interesting
| bargle0 wrote:
| How impure was the gold dust from the chemical supply company?
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