The origin of Western alchemy may generally be traced to Hellenistic Egypt. The Hellenistic city of Alexandria was a center of Greek alchemical knowledge, and retained its preeminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. Here, elements of technology, religion, mythology, and Greek philosophy, each with their own much longer histories, combined to form the earliest known records of alchemy in the West. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote the oldest known libros on alchemy while Mary the Jewess is credited as being the first non-fictitious Western alchemist. They wrote in Greek and lived in Egypt...
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