Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Orichalcum, the rare cast metal said to be found in Atlantis, may have been recovered from a 2,600-year-old shipwreck off the southern coast of Sicily.
According to Discovery News, 39 metal ingots were recovered, and were being transported from Greece or Asia Minor to Gela in southern Sicily. The ship being used to carry them was probably caught in a fierce storm and sunk just prior to entering the port there.
Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily’s superintendent of the Sea Office, told the website that the shipwreck dates to the first half of the sixth century, and was discovered approximately 1,000 feed from the coast at a depth of 10 feet. The ingots, he said, were a unique discovery.
“Nothing similar has ever been found,” Tusa said, adding that he and his colleagues knew of orachalcum “from ancient texts and a few ornamental objects” but had never seen the mysterious metal. The substance was allegedly invented by the mythological character Cadmus.
In the fourth century BC, Greek philosopher Plato mentioned it in the Critias dialogue, describing Atlantis as “with the red light of orichalcum,” the website said. Plato also wrote that the metal was second in value only to gold, was mined at the mythical lost island, and was used to cover Poseidon’s temple interior walls, columns and floors.
According to International Business Times, orichalcum is a gold-colored bronze alloy that was made through the reaction of zinc ore, charcoal and copper. The ingots were analyzed with x-ray fluorescence and found to contain approximately 75 percent and 80 percent copper, between 15 percent and 20 percent zinc and small amounts of nickel, lead and iron.
“The finding confirms that about a century after its foundation in 689 BC, Gela grew to become a wealthy city with artisan workshops specialized in the production of prized artifacts,” Tusa told Discovery News. The ingots recovered were en route to those workshops, where they were going to be used in high quality decorations, but not everyone believes they are orichalcum.
Enrico Mattievich, a retired professor of physics who taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), said that the ingots are actually “lumps of latone metal, an alloy of copper, zinc and lead.” He also disagrees that orichalcum has a brass-like nature, and said that he believes it can trace its roots back to the Chavín civilization of the Peruvian Andes (1200-200 BC).
The name metal’s name, orichalucum, traces its origins back to the Greek word oreikhalkos, which literally translates as “mountain copper” or “copper mountain,” according to Ancient Origins. It has also been referenced in Vigil’s epic poem Aeneid, which said that the breastplate of Turnus was “stiff with gold and white orachalc,” and the “Antiquities of the Jews.”
Atlantis, which was first mentioned in the works of Plato, was described as a utopia of sorts that displeased the Greek gods, resulting in it being sunk to the bottom of the ocean, The Inquisitr said. Explorers and researchers have trying to find its location ever since, searching everywhere from the Mediterranean Sea to the polar ice caps to the South Pacific, the website added.
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