Talk:History of alchemy

message: This needs a better name. Cultural influences in alchemy, perhaps?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it could use a better name too, but I don't the article is more than cultural influences. Maybe just History of Alchemy? Which is, I just found, redirected to Alchemy instead of this article. --T. Baphomet 18:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought about that one but does it really talk about that? It seems like it's discussing 'history by region'...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If we keep it in line with the other histories of early sciences it would be, as Baphomet suggested, History of Alchemy (or History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry).  There still needs to be some historiographical material moved / copied from the main article to give this some structure.  --SteveMcCluskey 22:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Name

message: Removed from the article: 
: One of the most famous Egyptian Alchemists was Marik Alu-Kurard or shortened to Marik Alucard (in English). He was known mostly for making stones and first proposed an idea for the philosophers stone. Not else is known just fragments of script found in King Tut's tomb showing that King Tut had a liking to the skills possessed by Marik Alucard.
"Marik Alu-Kurard" doesn't look like a genuine ancient Egyptian name. Possibly Arabic -- but Arabic wasn't spoken in King Tut's time. And if Marik Alu-Kurard's had been found in Tut's tomb, it would have been mentioned in one of the standard histories on Egypt. I smell a hoax. -- llywrch 01:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suspicious contirbution 

message: The whole Ancient Egyptian section needs to be strickedn--it takes the hermetica as pre-Greek compositions!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.0.49.132 (talk) 00:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ==

message: I just removed a sentence linking herbal medicine with spagyric. While some individual herbalists may link alchemy into their practice, herbal medicine is a specific discipline (not just herbalism) that has little, if anything, to do with alchemy. See, for example, here for an explanation of herbal medicine. Fuzzypeg★ 04:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herbal medicine 

message: I removed some old quotes from Durant and Briffault which are misleading because they are outdated scholarship—they say that the "Arabs" or "Saracens" invented the alembic, distillation, or sublimation at this time, but these things are now believed to have been invented earlier. Spacepotato (talk) 02:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotes

message: The page says, "According to legend, he wrote what were called the forty-two Books of Knowledge, covering all fields of knowledge—including alchemy." This is Clement's list of the 42 Hermetic books:  
:(1) Hymns [in honour] of the Gods, and the other
:(2) Reflections on the Kingly Life.
:(3) the Ordering of the apparently Fixed Stars
:(4 and 5) with the conjunctions and variations of Light of the Sun and Moon
:(6) with the Risings [of the Stars].
:(7) Cosmography
:(8) Geography
:(9) the Constitution of the Sun and Moon
:(10) of the Five Planets
:(11) the Survey of Egypt
:(12) the Chart of the Nile
:(13) the List of the Appurtenances of the Temples
:(14) of the Lands consecrated to them
:(15) the Measures
:(16) Things used in the Sacred Rites.
:(17) Sacrifice
:(18) First-fruits
:(19) Hymns
:(20) Prayers
:(21) Processions
:(22) Feasts
:(23-26) the like.
:(27-36) treating of the Laws, and the Gods, and the whole Discipline of the Priests.
:(37) the Constitution of the Body
:(38) Diseases
:(39) Instruments
:(40) Drugs
:(41) Eyes
:(42) with the Maladies of Women.
Alchemy is not explicitly listed here. Kramden (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hermetic books 

message: Merge into Alchemy. Seems to be the general agreement. Any objections? Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 23:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: upon coming to this article, I was surprised at how long it was compared to the "parent" topic article of alchemy itself. I suspect at some point there was a POV forking that went on. Active Banana  (bananaphone 02:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

text: I dunno.  It's huge(as is the history)...  there's regional subpages. And there's certainly more that could be added to the parent. I agree with Active Banana but would this be the best approach to fixing the prob? What about one of those series box thingies to tie stuff together instead?Car Henkel (talk) 03:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that an agreement or an objection? I was thinking along the lines that people who view Alchemy are likely looking for history, and History of Alchemy is not so easily found, especially by people who are not frequent Wikipedia users. It's very easy to skip your eyes over the link to here. It would therefore make sense to merge them. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 07:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Cautious agreement.  I was just thinking it'd end up fairly long but the Spanish version of the Alchemy article seems to pull it off with good article status. Their model might be a good one to strive for.Car Henkel (talk) 00:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

text: It seems like people looking at Alchemy are looking for the historical information, so I agree with this merge Ice Truck Killer (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge Proposal