The ancient world knew and worked with seven metals—gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, & lead. The ancient world also knew seven “planets”—the two luminaries (Sun & Moon), plus the proper planets visible to the naked eye, Mercury through Saturn. Common belief held that the influence of these celestial bodies engendered physical formation of metals in the earth, with one planet responsible for each metal. The correspondences between the seven metals and planets vary slightly over time from their Babylonian inception, but the associations most common to alchemical doctrine are as follows:
- The Moon rules silver
- Mercury rules mercury (shocker!)
- Venus rules copper
- The Sun rules gold
- Mars rules iron
- Jupiter rules tin
- Saturn rules lead
Those familiar with planetary meanings may immediately derive some interesting connections from this list. Some of these associations might seem obvious, such as the Sun & Moon ruling gold & silver. Others may not seem as clearly related. However, our cultural and societal relationship with these metals, as well as their innate physical properties, reveal striking similarities to the planets traditionally associated with them.
Take Saturn’s rulership of lead. Saturn’s the slowest classical planet, associated with darkness, and lead is highly dense and dull in appearance. Beyond that, numerous cultural uses & associations of lead have Saturnian qualities.
Thus begins a new, monthly-ish semi-regular series wherein I’ll explore each of the ancient planet/metal pairs to reveal connections in both ancient & modern context—a niche investigation that nobody asked for!
Many of these connections relate to health & medicine, which is unsurprising if you consider the historic integration of astrology with the sciences of medicine & alchemy. After covering the classical planets, I’ll also look at the modern planets—Uranus, Neptune, & Pluto—and their respective namesake metals. Many details of these radioactive metals and their discoveries bear interesting correlation to the associations of their patron planets.
Stay tuned for the first installment, which will begin with what’s nearest—the Moon, and its rulership over silver.
