About Silver in ancient times
Wrapped link ancient style
As was the case with gold, silver was always rare enough that almost everything made from it was a decorative or prestige item rather than a work tool.
The area of Anatolia (modern Turkey) is considered the first major source of mined silver, having provided the resource to craftsman throughout Asia Minor. Silver from the Anatolian region largely served as the source of silver for the Western cultures flourishing in the Near East, Crete, and Greece.
A concentrated effort to mine silver began sometime after 3000 B.C. The first sophisticated processing of silver ore was attributed to the Chaldeans in about 2500 B.C., who used a "cupellation" process to extract silver from lead-silver ores. The need for traditional silver (particularly for the flourishing Minoan and later Mycenaean civilizations) resulted in the location and exploitation of silver deposits in what is now Armenia.
Silver craftsmanship was centered largely in Asia Minor and Greek Islands, along with areas of mainland Greece dominated by the Mycenaean culture. Asia Minor provided most of the supply for the flourishing silver market.
Unlike gold, silver rarely occurs in a pure form in a sufficient quantity to be useful. Usually it has been procured by smelting other ores, of which it can be thought of as almost a by-product. In antiquity a common ore used to produce silver was galena, or lead sulfide, although it appears that lead carbonate (cerussite) was also used.
Silver, like lead, is a very soft metal, easily damaged when used by itself, and it was therefore often alloyed with other metals to increase its hardness. The admixture of a small amount of copper was usual for this purpose.
Archaeological silver objects are often found to be embrittled to some extent. Presence of chlorine, sulphur and carbon at grain boundaries of the Ag-Cu based object suggest that most likely the substantial embrittlement is caused by an inter-crystalline corrosion attack. Corrosion and embrittlement explain the relative paucity of truly ancient silver jewelry
An alloy of gold and silver (which can occur naturally or be deliberately created) is called electrum and was sometimes regarded as more valuable than pure gold. It may have been far more common in Mesopotamia that present identification of gold or silver suggests.