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→Early Use of Gold
By the early 3rd millennium BC, gold becomes symbolic with royal authority in Egypt. Expeditions were now organized for mines containing gold. <ref>For more information about gold expeditions, see: Der Manuelian, Peter, and Thomas Schneider, eds. 2015. Towards a New History for the Egyptian Old Kingdom: Perspectives on the Pyramid Age. Harvard Egyptological Studies, volume 1. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, pg. 445.</ref> In the Indus, by the 3rd millennium BC, and likely earlier, gold was also utilized extensively, reflecting its increased importance for elites and trade. Similar to other regions, gold was generally found as part of electrum, which is also a natural alloy. <ref>For more information about gold in the Indus, see: McIntosh, Jane. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO’s Understanding Ancient Civilizations Series. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, pg. 145.</ref>
In the New World, the region of the Andes, in Peru specifically, has the earliest dated gold finds, where objects date to around 2000 BC. Interestingly, these early gold finds are in the form of jewelry and found in burial context, similar to the Old World discoveries. <ref> For more information about the earliest gold artefacts from Peru, see: Aldenderfer, M., N. M. Craig, R. J. Speakman, and R. Popelka-Filcoff. 2008. “Four-Thousand-Year-Old Gold Artifacts from the Lake Titicaca Basin, Southern Peru.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (13): 5002–5. doi:10.1073/pnas.0710937105. </ref> This could suggest, similar to other regions, that as social hierarchy and stratification became established, gold was one object that differentiated the status of humans within society. In other words, gold becomes associated with wealth and power soon after it begins to be used (Figure 3). Interestingly, in many of the finds from the Old and New World indicate that gold was used for burials. Despite the rarity of the object, gold was used as a way to show power in the afterlife or as a reminder of the power and prestige of the individual to members of society after they had passed away. <ref>Boyle, Robert W. 1987. Gold History and Genesis of Deposits. Boston, MA: Springer US. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1969-6.</ref>
[[File:Peru Zeremonialmesser Sican EthnM.jpg|thumbnail|Figure 3. A ceremonial knife from Peru, dated to 850-1500 AD, showing that gold developed independently in the New World. ]]
