Opus Magnum

Japanese: オプス・マグヌム - おぷすまぐぬむ
Opus Magnum

…In Egypt, alchemy was thus linked to the myth of Osiris, the supreme god of mystery religions who rose from the dark dead, and Osiris was identified with lead, a black metal with a mysterious transformation. Alchemy is generally said to be the "Great Art (opus magnum)" that deals with the process of refining precious metals from base metals, but lead, as a base metal, was a metal with an extremely important divinity due to its transformative nature. As the Greek word chymeia (art of melting metals, art of alloying) indicates, for example, from the point where white, shining silver flows out of lead ore (which actually contains silver) through cupellation, a technique was sought to freely transform metals, and this was linked to the religious and philosophical ideas of the Hellenistic period. …

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Opus Magnum" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

Japanese:

…錬金術は,こうしてエジプトでは暗黒の死からよみがえる密儀宗教の最高神オシリスの神話に結びつき,オシリスは変幻の妙ある黒い金属,鉛と同一視された。錬金術は,一般に卑金属から貴金属が精製されていくプロセスを扱う〈大いなる術(オプス・マグヌムopus magnum)〉だといわれるが,卑金属としての鉛は,その変幻性とあいまってきわめて重要な神性をそなえた金属であった。ギリシア語のchymeia(金属溶融の術,合金術)が示すとおり,例えば鉛鉱石(実は銀を含んでいるもの)から灰吹法により白く輝く銀が流れ出してくるところから,自在な金属の転換を目ざす術が探求され,これがヘレニズム時代の宗教・哲学思想と結びついた。…

※「オプス・マグヌム」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典|株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第2版について | 情報

<<:  Saburo Obusuma - Masaburo Obusuma

>>:  Opus Hermeticum

Recommend

Intervening sequence - Intervening sequence

Introns are the parts of a gene that have no genet...

Pseudocholera infantum - Pseudocholera infantum

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by in...

Bad Kande

A North Indian musicologist. Through thorough rese...

Podocarpus macrophyllus (Thunb.) D.Don

It is an evergreen tall tree of the Podocarpus fam...

Corday - Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday d'Armont

1768‐93 The woman who assassinated JP Marat during...

Amateur radio station

…It is one of the hobbies known as ham, but accor...

Ibn al-Balad

...Also, when the plural of Balad is used, bilād ...

Non-voting stock - Non-voting stock

Also known as non-voting stock. In the past, the J...

Kitsurifune - Kitsurifune

An annual plant of the Balsaminaceae family (APG ...

Henry III and his court

…He wrote over 300 works in a wide range of genre...

Mughal Empire

The largest Muslim dynasty in Indian history (152...

Strelitzia nicolai (English spelling) Strelitzianicolai

…[Ichiro Sakanashi]. … *Some of the terminology t...

Shklovskiy - Shklovskiy (English notation)

Russian critic. Born to a Jewish father and a Rus...

Ohashigawa River

A river in northeastern Shimane Prefecture that co...

Air micrometer

When the gap between the tip of the nozzle that s...