The word "silver" appears in Anglo-Saxon in various spellings such as seolfor and siolfor. A similar form is seen throughout the Teutonic languages (compare Old High German silabar and silbir). The chemical symbol Ag is from the Latin for "silver", argentum (compare Greek άργυρος, árgyros), from the Indo-European root *arg- meaning "white" or "shining".
Silver has been known since ancient times and the moon was used as a symbol to represent Silver. It is mentioned in the book of Genesis, and slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated from lead as early as the 4th millennium BC.
In the Gospels, Jesus' disciple Judas Iscariot is infamous for having taken a bribe of thirty coins of silver from religious leaders in Jerusalem to turn Jesus Christ over to the Romans.
A slave would work his whole life just to buy just an ounce of Silver, for the freedom of his son/daughter. About 70 years ago, an ounce of Silver could buy you 2-3days worth of food. Today it has almost the same purchasing power.
