Metals of antiquity Metals of antiquity The metals of antiquity are the seven metals which humans had identified and found use for in prehistoric times: gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury. These seven are the metals from which the modern world was forged; until the discovery of arsenic in the 13th century, these were the only known elemental metals, compared to the 86 known today. The metals of antiquity generally have low melting points, with iron being the exception. While all the metals of antiquity but tin and lead occur natively, only gold and silver are commonly found as the native
Group 10 element have a known biological role, but platinum compounds have widely been used as anticancer drugs. Aside from nickel, the elements are toxic for organisms. Group 10 element Group 10, numbered by current IUPAC style, is the group of chemical elements in the periodic table that consists of nickel (Ni), palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt), and perhaps also the chemically uncharacterized darmstadtium (Ds). All are d-block transition metals. All known isotopes of darmstadtium are radioactive with short half-lives, and are not known to occur in nature; only minute quantities have been synthesized in laboratories. Like other groups, the members of this group