The Age of Alchemy

Conventional wisdom tells us that chemistry was ‘invented’ in the eighteenth century. In truth, it emerged gradually over the course of thousands of years, as scientific knowledge was discovered, collected, lost, rediscovered and refined. The first chemists were Sri Lankan steel forgers in the first century BCE; alchemists in third-century Egypt; herbalists in seventh-century China. Whether attempting to transform base metals into gold, cure disease or achieve immortality, these earliest figures blurred science and mysticism in search of answers. Science writer Kit Chapman criss-crosses the globe to uncover chemistry’s debts to these earliest innovators, revealing the illuminating story of how they broke new ground and shaped the scientific method.