In classical Greece

Even before alchemy became a subject of study, many chemical reactions were used and the products applied to daily life. For example, the first metals used were probably gold and copper, which can be found in the metallic state. Copper can also be readily formed by the reduction of malachite—basic copper carbonate, Cu2(C03)(0H)2—in charcoal fires. Silver, tin, antimony, and lead were also known as early as 3000 BC. Iron appeared in classical Greece and in other areas around the Mediterranean Sea by 1500 BC. At about the same time, colored glasses and ceramic glazes, largely composed of silicon dioxide (Si02, the major component of sand) and other metallic oxides, which had been melted and allowed to cool to amorphous solids, were introduced. 

To bring the problem into focus, we may distinguish between three ways in which economic and political phenomena can be separated from one another. First, they may be sustained by entirely different groups of people. This was approximately the case in classical Greece, where production was largely carried out by slaves, and trade by free non-citizens. M. 1. Finley quoted Xenophon on the measures that should be taken by the state in order that every Athenian may be maintained at public expense", and adds that the scheme reveals "a mentality which pushed to the extreme the notion that what we call the economy was properly the business of outsiders". ... 

Fire walkers with bare feet walk across beds of glowing coals without apparent harm. The rite is found in many parts of the world today and was practiced in classical Greece and ancient India and China, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Alchemy in classical Greece and post-classical Alexandria... 

Smith, A. E., and D. M. Secoy. Forerunners of Pesticides in Classical Greece and Komt Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 23 (1975) 1050-55. 

The paintings produced in ancient Eg5q)t have been shown to incorporate gum arabic, gelatin, egg white, and beeswax. In classical Greece, paints were used extensively in sculpture (for hair, lips, and eyes of statues), architecture, and in painting ships as well as in interior decoration. 

Catalepton Festschrift fir Bernhard Wyss, edited by C. Schaublin, pp. 31-44. Basel. Labarre, G. 1998. Les metiers du textile en Grtee ancieime. Topoi 8 791-814 Lacey, W. 1968. The Family in Classical Greece. London. 

Reeder, E., ed. 1995. Pandora Women in Classical Greece. Princeton. 

Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1995. Male and Female, Public and Private, Ancient and Modern. In Pandora Women in Classical Greece, edited by E. Reeder, pp. 111-20. Princeton. 

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