Alchemy: Middle Ages And The Renaissance

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Recommended: Comparisons between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Alchemy is a form of chemistry mixed with speculative philosophy that was practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The goals of alchemy was to discover methods to transmute base metals into gold, find the elixir of life, and create the philosopher’s stone.
Alchemy dates back to ancient Egypt, where the word ‘Khem’ was used to reference the fertility of the land after the Nile flooded. Greek philosophers became interested in alchemy when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC. The Greek views on matter being made up of four elements of nature were mixed with the Egyptian arts, turning ‘Khem’ into ‘Khemia’, which was the Greek word for Egypt. In the 7th century, when the Arabs conquered Egypt, they added ‘al-’ to Khemia, making

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