Mary the Jewess

Mary or Maria the Jewess , also known as Mary the Prophetess (<a href="/facts/Latin_language/pM3Kge85">Latin</a>: Maria Prophetissa) or Maria the Copt (<a href="/facts/Arabic_language/A1e66hVV">Arabic</a>: مارية القبطية, <a href="/facts/Romanization_of_Arabic/A760zaoa">romanized</a>: Māriyya al-Qibṭiyya), was an early <a href="/facts/Alchemy/CEx0U1Em">alchemist</a> known from the works of <a href="/facts/Zosimos_of_Panopolis/jowKprIQ">Zosimos of Panopolis</a> (fl. c. 300) and other authors in the <a href="/facts/Greek_alchemy/CEx0U1Em">Greek alchemical</a> tradition. On the basis of Zosimos's comments, she lived between the first and third centuries A.D. in <a href="/facts/Alexandria/hdg1twWA">Alexandria</a>. <a href="/facts/Marilyn_French/1yvga3t9">French</a>, <a href="/facts/F._Sherwood_Taylor/39XkFXFr">Taylor</a> and <a href="/facts/Edmund_Oscar_von_Lippmann/U5pCTows">Lippmann</a> list her as one of the first alchemical writers, dating her works at no later than the first century.
She is credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world.
Through Zosimos many of the beliefs of Mary the Jewess can be observed. Mary incorporated lifelike attributes into her descriptions of metal such as bodies, souls, and spirits. Mary believed that metals had two different genders, and by joining the two genders together a <a href="/facts/Rebis/gokpSJB3">new entity</a> could be made.

Mary the Jewess open-in-new

Mary the Jewess