Page 212 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

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CHAPTER 13 METALS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES
CHAPTER 13 METALS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES 191
Sodium , Sulfur , Lead
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14
All three are pure substances (elements). Neter or borit is assumed to be made
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mainly of sodium (N a), the AW of which is 22.9898. Gofrit (sulfur ) has an AW

4
of 32.066. Finally, oferet (lead ) has an AW of 207.2.
Brass

For brass, the calculation of the AW is somewhat more complex. To calculate the

required AW, we refer to the sort of brass produced in ancient times. Since puri-

fication of substances was not developed as in modern times, the brass used in
ancient times was Calamine brass . In the following explanations, we were assisted
by Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamine).
Calamine brass is brass produced by a particular alloying technique using

calamine , a zinc ore, rather than metallic zinc. Calamine brass was produced in

ancinet times using proportions of two-sevenths fine copper , four-sevenths cala-

mine, and one-seventh shruff (old plate brass). Calamine brass was the first type

of brass produced, probably starting during the first millennium BC, and was not
replaced in Europe by other brass manufacturers until the eighteenth century (it is
likely that Chinese and Indian brass manufacturers had developed more advanced
techniques some centuries earlier).
“Calamine” is the common name for an ore of zinc . Calamine brass is obtained

by mixing copper with calamine . During the late eighteenth century, it was dis-

covered that what had been thought to be one zinc ore was actually two distinct
minerals:
• Zinc carbonate : ZnCO 3;
• Zinc silicate : Zn 4Si 2O 7(OH) 2.H 2O.

(Zn is zinc , Si is silicon, C is carbon, H is hydrogen, and O is oxygen.)

The two minerals are usually very similar in appearance and can only be

distinguished through chemical analysis. The first to separate the minerals was the
British chemist and mineralogist James Smithson in 1803. In the mining indus-
try, the term “calamine” is still used to refer to both minerals indiscriminately, but

the zinc carbonate is the more abundant mineral in nature and was probably used
in ancient times to produce calamine brass .
To obtain the AW (for brass ) that will be used in the pursuing statistical analy-

sis, the AW of zinc carbonate was first calculated