Adamantium myths (need help)

[jester47]

here is what the OED has to say:

Adamant

Name of an alleged rock or mineral, as to which vague, contradictory, and fabulous notions long prevailed. The properties ascribed to it show a confusion of ideas between the diamond (or other hard gems) and the loadstone or magnet, though by writers affecting better information, it was distinguished from one or other, or from both. The confusion with the loadstone ceased with the 17th c., and the word was then often used by scientific writers as a synonym of DIAMOND. In modern use it is only a poetical or rhetorical name for the embodiment of surpassing hardness; that which is impregnable to any application of force.

adamantine

1. Made of, or having the qualities of adamant; incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated; immovable, impregnable.


Adamantine is a word used in a lot of translations of greek myth. It refers to unbreakable stuff. I would say that in that context it is an adjective. An alloy with that as a trait is adamantite/ium.

Aaron.

 

[tarchon]

Hi everyone.
As a material scientist I work everyday with materials that would be considered magical. But for once we need info on a magical material:
I need to know every thing about adamantium/adamantine/adamantite. In particular where does this myth comes from and what does each myth describe it as? I know this metal isn't only in DnD (since Adamantine is the name of a variety of yellow saphire and the name is derived from "HARD")
I know that the ENworld is the best place to ask for obscure fact like that

It's Classical, from Ancient Greek natural philosophy, adamas being the usual noun form. The sense was of the hardest material in nature, but it's often difficult to identify Classical names of materials with minerals now known. It probably often referred to some type of hard iron (perhaps even steel) as well as what we now call diamond, and probably a number of other things as well. "Diamond" comes from a variant form of the term.
Modern sci-fi often sticks -ium/-ite on it to make it sound more technical, but "adamantine" goes back to Classical times as the adjective meaning "like adamant." Traditionally, the noun form is just "adamant" but the usage has become muddled by er... non-standard usage among certain genre authors.
Plato refers to it in the Timaeus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:div1=Tim.:section=59b
and elsewhere
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0172:div1=Stat.:section=303e
For other references, see
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=#1145

 

[megamania]

Greek Mythology- Prometheus

If I remember it right, Admantium was first mentioned in the Greek Myth involving Prometheus. Zeus chained him down so that his liver could be eaten out everyday by ravens as punishment for giving man the power of Fire. The chains were made from unbreakable Admantium. It's the earliest mentioning of the word I know of.

 

[tarchon]

Re: Greek Mythology- Prometheus

If I remember it right, Admantium was first mentioned in the Greek Myth involving Prometheus. Zeus chained him down so that his liver could be eaten out everyday by ravens as punishment for giving man the power of Fire. The chains were made from unbreakable Admantium. It's the earliest mentioning of the word I know of.

Liddel-Scott gives Hesiod as the earliest reference to it as the name of a material, in a mythological context, the material of the blade of the sickle used to castrate Cronos (from the Theogony). The English translation of the Perseus Project reference translates it as "grey flint." The other Hesiod reference would seem to concur with the idea that Hesiod thought of it as a really hard stone, illustrating the great difficulties in puzzling out ancient materials techology.

 

[Xeriar]

number 3 is also pretty much a trait of Titanium. Once it has been put into a shape it is very hard to get it out of that shape. Anything better than titanium woulf have the same property but even more so.

Aaron.

Titanium is actually quite soft. There are a few titanium-beta alloys that approach the hardness of some steels (while still being half the weight), but they are very, very expensive, and many steels are still far stronger.

Titanium has a higher strength to weight ratio than steel, it is not 'stronger'.

 

[coyote6]

I seem to recall that some myth, story, or poem had the gates of Hell (or some underworld) being made of adamantine. But, boy, is that a hazy memory.

 

[Drawmack]

Everyone knows that Adam Ant was simply the greatest pop star of the early 80s and that all previous references to this term are simply future seers that are disguising their prophesy so that they are not killed for herecy or devil worship.

 

[abri]

Thanks everyone.
This will help me especially the references.
As I expected the sources are very contradictory.