For more than 6,000 years, gold has been the object of a continuous hunt, yet overall production hardly exceeds 120,00 tons which, if melted into a single ingot, would give a cube with sides not larger than 18 yards.

Gold was wrought with amazing skill in the Middle and Near East as long as 3,000 years before Christ and the workmanship techniques have practically remained unchanged despite the introduction of modern technologies. Today, a goldsmith’s workbench is much the same as that of a Sumerian goldsmith in the fourth millennium before Christ.

Gold is obtained in small quantities and through elaborate process. Tons of quartz ore have been crushed, and tons of sand have to be sifted to win a mere handful of gold particles. As a matter of fact, no more that 15 or 16 grams of gold are contained in a ton of ore.

Karat Gold Content Chart

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