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Zosimos of Panopolis

Alchemist of the 4th century CE

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Zosimos of Panopolis was an alchemist and Gnostic mystic. He was born in Panopolis, and likely flourished ca. 300 AD. He wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, which he called Cheirokmeta, using the Greek word for "things made by hand". Pieces of this work survive in the original Greek language and in translations into Syriac or Arabic. He is one of about 40 authors represented in a compendium of alchemical writings that was probably put together in Constantinople in the 7th or 8th century AD, copies of which exist in manuscripts in Venice and Paris. His fellow Egyptian alchemist Stephen of Alexandria is another.

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The public source identifies “Zosimos of Panopolis” as alchemist of the 4th century CE. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Zosimos, Panopolis and Alchemist.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 105-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Zosimos, Panopolis and Alchemist providing the first useful test.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Zosimos of Panopolis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.