Silver was valued more highly than Gold in ancient times.

SilverPlatinum

Source#1: Essay by Deborah Schorsch (Department of Objects Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art):

"Silver was used to fashion beads as early as the Predynastic Period (ca. 4400–3100 B.C.) and remained important for personal ornaments and cult objects in Egypt through Roman times. Temple inscriptions suggest that for much of Egypt’s history, silver was valued more highly than gold."

Link: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/silv/hd_silv.htm

Source#2: Journal Article by (N. H. Gale and Z. A. Stos-Gale):

Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3856605

Sapyx

Such disparities can only exist when civilizations exist in isolation, with minimal contact or trade between them.

If you were a Mesopotamian merchant and found out that those crazy Egyptians were happy to trade their worthless gold for your precious silver at 1:1 or thereabouts, you can be sure you would rapidly get yourself over there with camel-loads of silver and help relieve the Egyptians of their shiny burden.

There are very few records from the Old and Middle Kingdom periods that allow us to determine things like the relative value of goods. The Pharaohs boasted in their tombs and temples about their conquests and about their faithfulness to the gods, but not about the price of gold and silver. There are of course no coins to use as evidence, since coins weren't invented yet. We essentially have to extrapolate such things from the surviving archaeological artifacts themselves, or from the mythologies that arose during that time and were recorded. For example, the belief that the Egyptian gods had skin of gold, but bones of silver.

That silver was relatively unknown in earliest Egypt is attested by the fact that they originally didn't seem to have a hieroglyph for it. They used two heiroglyphs to call it nebu hedj, literally "gold white". When they eventually gave silver it's own hieroglyph, it was a modified form of the nebu hieroglyph for gold. Thus, they seemed to regard silver as just a different form of gold, rather than a separate substance.

cladking

@Sapyx said:
Such disparities can only exist when civilizations exist in isolation, with minimal contact or trade between them.

If you were a Mesopotamian merchant and found out that those crazy Egyptians were happy to trade their worthless gold for your precious silver at 1:1 or thereabouts, you can be sure you would rapidly get yourself over there with camel-loads of silver and help relieve the Egyptians of their shiny burden.

There are very few records from the Old and Middle Kingdom periods that allow us to determine things like the relative value of goods. The Pharaohs boasted in their tombs and temples about their conquests and about their faithfulness to the gods, but not about the price of gold and silver. There are of course no coins to use as evidence, since coins weren't invented yet. We essentially have to extrapolate such things from the surviving archaeological artifacts themselves, or from the mythologies that arose during that time and were recorded. For example, the belief that the Egyptian gods had skin of gold, but bones of silver.

That silver was relatively unknown in earliest Egypt is attested by the fact that they originally didn't seem to have a hieroglyph for it. They used two heiroglyphs to call it nebu hedj, literally "gold white". When they eventually gave silver it's own hieroglyph, it was a modified form of the nebu hieroglyph for gold. Thus, they seemed to regard silver as just a different form of gold, rather than a separate substance.

There's actually ample evidence that there was extensive trade even before the great pyramids were built around 2800 BC. The great value for silver in Egypt and the southern Levant was quite likely a holdover from more ancient times when gold was relatively plentiful in Egypt and silver and electrum much less so. It's entirely possible that silver was being consumed for various purposes in Egypt which could serve to sustain its higher value even beyond the the first of the several dark ages known as the "First Intermediate Period". Real records don't actually start until ~2000 BC but the evidence is reasonably clear. I believe it would be far more clear but no systematic examination of the artefacts has been performed in Egypt since Petrie left in the 19th century. This means modern knowledge and instrumentation has not been used ever except piecemeal and is most highly incomplete. This is because the answers are assumed so data are unnecessary. When data does appear it usually contradicts Egyptological theory so they are loathe to even permit testing and publication of results.

Most of the words were apparently compounds of existing words. This is just a hypothesis but I wouldn't be surprised if "white gold" became the name of silver because the earliest referent was electrum which is mostly gold with a little silver (usually), and is typically white.

Thanks for the post. I found it very interesting and informative.