Gold is virtually indestructible; almost all the gold ever mined still exists today... all 165,000 tonnes of it, only enough gold to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools. All it would neatly fit under the Eiffel Tower. That is not a lot. That is because you'll have to drill through 250 tonnes of rock, then pulverize it, then chemically treat it to get enough gold for only a single wedding ring. Gold also simply is beautiful to look at. These are the qualities that has always made gold one of the most sought-after precious metals with the price of an ounce trading for $1000 and more (see the history of gold prices).Gold is extremely malleable and pliable. A one-ounce piece of gold can be beaten down to 5 micrometers thick - that is 1/10 the diameter of a human hair - and laid out into 50 miles of wire. It can also be made so thin that it becomes a translucent sheet; in fact, astronaut's visors are covered in a thin gold film to protect their eyes from glare. Gold also has anti-inflammatory and other medicinal properties.
Ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iran and Iraq) were the first, at around 5,000 BC (some sources indicate 4,000 BC), to use gold for ornaments. The Egyptians would soon fall in love with the precious metal too. But gold was mostly use for personal adornment; the first gold coins were issued by Egyptian pharaohs only at around 2,700 BC. Large scale gold coinage for the monetary purpose was introduced in by King Croesus during his reign (560 - 546 BC) of Lydia (modern-day western Turkey). Croesus became one of the wealthiest persons ever.
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