At various times in history silver was even more valued than gold and had a mystical allure to it, often being associated with the sea, moon and lunar goddesses. The discovery of Silver is estimated to have happened shortly after that of copper and gold. The oldest reference to the element appears in the book of Genesis.
The Egyptians considered gold to be a perfect metal, and gave it the symbol of a circle. Since silver was the closest to gold in perfection, it was given the symbol of a semi-circle. Later this semi-circle led to a growing moon symbol, probably due to the likeness between the shining metal and the moon glow. The Romans called silver argentum, keeping this as the international name of the element, from where its chemical symbol derives.
Just as gold, silver was considered by the Ancients an almost sacred metal and consequently restricted its use. Its malleability and ductility made it ideal for ornamental purposes. It was also used for paying debts, decoration in personal and religious places, and in utensils of the wealthiest houses.
Some mineral scums in old mines of the Near-East and in some islands of the Aegean sea seem to reveal that by 5000 B.C. a method was already known to separate silver from lead. The gold and the silver were extracted from its ores and bonded to lead. After oxidation of this mixture, it was possible to obtain the precious metals.
People first mined silver in the Bronze Age, for jewelry. Silver was pretty easy to find all over Europe and West Asia. The big problem was, silver ore (the rocks that had silver in them) generally also had lead in it, so that lead mining and silver mining were the same thing. But lead is very poisonous, so the men who were mining the silver were also being poisoned by the lead. Most lead-and-silver miners died of lead poisoning in two or three years. Because of this, most free men wouldn't work in the mines, and so they forced slaves to work in the mines instead. One famous silver mine was Laurion, near Athens in Greece. About 500 BC, the Athenians found an enormous silver mine right near Athens, on land that belonged to the government. This mine was what paid to build Athens' first navy, and helped Athens to become a powerful city-state.
Another famous set of mines were in southern Spain. These mines were already being worked in the Bronze Age. After the First Punic War, in the 250's BC, the Carthaginians took over these mines and used the income from them to pay the money the Romans demanded. Then in the Second Punic War the Romans took over these mines and used the money they got from the mines to pay for more conquests.
