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Well the choice was between Archaeology, Alchemy and Astral Projection. There was also Ancient History, but that seemed like such an obvious choice =P So, I'm going to look up more about alchemy despite loving archaeology and astral projection... You know, I'll probably end up finding out about all of them xD
All I know about alchemy is that there are people that try to turn to things to gold, or along those lines. There's also meant to be an elixir of life that supposedly Nicholas Flamel (whom I'd heard of before Harry Potter btw) had invented although it is a rumour, not necessarily true. Actually I think I'll look at that first, I think I've got a book somewhere that mentions it. It's this book if you should ever want to read it; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alchemy-Alchemists-Sean-Martin/dp/0785822313/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280350245&sr=1-3 . Ooo cool, it mentions the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling blows mind. It's supposed to have been the holy grail of alchemy, maybe even the Holy Grail itself. According to the Arthurian alchemist Parzival 'It is a stone of the purest kind... called lapsit exillas' which I presume is Latin. Oh maybe not, I translated it and it became 'fall thin'... Okay different language, maybe I should find out more about this Parzival guy. Well Parzival is Percival in English. He was one of the King Arthur's knights of the round table. Hmm Google is no help... it just finds the poem by Wolfram (A German poet) about Percival rather than the actual person. Ah well, shall look at Nicholas Flamel for now. He was a French Alchemist. Nicholas supposed to be have been born in 1330, although it's not entirely known, then was thought to have died in 1417. According to the story, an angel visited him one night and showed him a book in a dream. He reached out to touch the book but the book and angel vanished. However, he later recognised the book - It was by someone called Abraham Eleazer who, in the book, described trasmuting metals into gold. He didn't understand the book well so he travelled, experimented and so on for years but then the guy (called Canches) that was trying to help him died at Orleans (there's a relatively long story which doesn't seem entirely appropriate so I won't bore you more with it). So Flamel returned to Paris and worked alone for apparently 3 whole years and was said to have completed his work on 17/1/1382 with his wife, Perenelle, as his one witness. A few months after that they started to acquire a large wealth and used it too donate to churches, hospitals, etc. When Flamel died years later, a mob ransacked his house to look for the gold but none was found and Flamel + his wife's tomb was found empty. Wow, chills! They were later sighted in India near the year of 1700 then again in an opera house in Paris in 1761. Well well well, how strange.
There's been a lot of sources that have said Alchemists live longer lives than average humans, including Isaac Newton, particularly for their eras. I've flicked through the rest of the book and there doesn't seem that much that I'd like to expand on for you so lets see what else I can find.
Wow there are so many symbols. They remind of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. They represent all the metals and compounds used in alchemy, up until the 18th century according to wikipedia...
Well there's a lot more to the subject but this post is so unbelievably long already =P so if you'd like to learn more then research it yourself or you can mail me for my research if that'd be better (:
Letter B tomorrow.. This is fun =D
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