(Photo : Wikimedia) ‘Atlantis gold’ was found just off the coast of Gela, Sicily.
This cast metal called orichalcum was apparently found in an ancient shipwreck of 2,600 years that is located some 1,000 feet below the coast of Gela in southern Sicily.
According to Sebastiano Tusa, the superintendent of the Sea Office, the wreck was dated from the first half of 6 B.C.E. where divers found a total of 39 lumps of metal inside the shipwreck.
Scientists believe that the ship was en route to Gela from Greece or Asia Minor also known as Anatolia, where it encountered a big storm and sunk before it was made to dock.
Tusa says that there aren’t any existing metals similar to orichalcum. Orichalcum was vaguely mentioned in ancient texts and inscribed in ornamental relics.
Orichalcum was also believed to be invented by the Greek Phoenician mythological personality named Cadmus as it was also mentioned in 4th century B.C.E. by the famous philosopher Plato in his Critias dialogue.
In that dialogue, Atlantis was described as beaming with the red light of orichalcum. The Temple of Poseidon and Cleito in Atlantis were apparently gilded with the said metal where a pillar of orichalcum stands in the center of the temple.
Orichalcum can be described as a golden bronze alloy from the cementation of zinc core, charcoal and copper. Analysis of these ingots yielded a result of 75 percent copper, 15-20 percent nickel along with lead and iron.
Tusa also adds that these findings confirm that about a century after 689 B.C.E., Gela developed into a wealthy city that was filled with artisan workshops that are involved with producing valuable artifacts that sheds light to the economic history of Sicily
