I, for no reaqson, have recently been wondering why gold, a really useless metal except for decorations. has been worshipped by every civilization on earth since we started recording history. I can understand why the ancient civilizations in Eurasia had this connection because they traded among themselves. The puzzle arises when you read that the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca civilizations also had this need to have gold. There is little to connect the South American areas with the Eurasion areas. Is the importance ogf gold the these people in S.America only because Europeans wrote the history books and they loved gold Thanks Peter

-- Peter Lachambre (tworooms@primus.ca), July 22, 2003

Answers

Part of the reason that many cultures "worshipped" gold is the simple fact that it is malleable and has interesting properties when molten. It is rare, and has a fairly large labor to weight ratio. Also, it is standardized, which is great for trading.

-- Anonymous (foo@bar.com), January 25, 2004.