How Alchemy’s Quest for the Philosopher’s Stone Led to Modern Chemistry

Alchemy emerged in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first century A.D., says Nummedal. It developed at a time of intellectual and artistic ferment. By this period, craftspeople were making eye-catching items with dyes and glass; the work of philosophers like Aristotle had become more popular; and there was a rise in temple magic and speculation over divine revelations. People wanted to understand the natural world. Together, these intellectual, spiritual and practical traditions helped to create an occult science centered around transforming matter.

Greenberg credits Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis as the first person to mention the philosopher’s stone. Zosimos wrote in his encyclopedia Cheirokmeta, published around A.D. 300, that the substance could turn metals into gold.

Over the next five centuries, in the early part of the Middle Ages, the idea of the philosopher’s stone traveled across the Islamic world, explains Nummedal. “So much of chemistry, alchemy and other scientific ideas that led to medicine and astronomy were developed in the medieval Islamic world,” she says. “The reason so many words in chemistry begin with “al”—like alkali and alcohol—is because they come from Arabic.”

However, Europeans did not begin translating these Arabic texts until the 12th century, notes Nummedal, when growing curiosity about alchemy spurred efforts to unlock their secrets.