Silver is more active than gold. Although its abundance in the crust is about 15 times that of gold, it rarely exists as a single substance, so it was discovered later than gold. In ancient times, people already knew how to mine silver ore, because the amount of silver obtained at that time was very small, which made its value more expensive than gold. From BC 1780 to BC 1580, the Egyptian code stipulated that the value of silver was twice that of gold. Even in the17th century, the value of Japanese gold and silver was equal. Silver was first used as decorations and tableware, and later used as currency.
Silver, namely silver, is called silver because of its white color, as opposed to gold. Think of it as money and decorations. In ancient times, money was called silver. Silver always shines like the moon. The original meaning of silver paper is "bright". In China, silver characters are also commonly used to describe white and shiny things, such as the Milky Way, Ginkgo biloba, whitebait, tremella, screens and so on.
In ancient China, silver was often juxtaposed with gold and copper, which was called "only gold". Gong Yu records that "gold is the only product", which shows that silver was discovered in China as early as the 23rd century BC, that is, more than 4,000 years ago. In nature, silver often exists in the form of pure silver. People once found a piece of pure silver weighing 13.5 tons! In addition, it also exists in the form of chloride and sulfide, and often coexists with minerals such as lead, copper, antimony and arsenic.