text: The metals of antiquity generally have low melting points, with iron being the exception.
  * Mercury melts at −38.829 °C (−37.89 °F)  (being liquid at room temperature).
  * Tin melts at 231 °C (449 °F)
  * Lead melts at 327 °C (621 °F)
  * Silver at 961 °C (1763 °F)
  * Gold at 1064 °C (1947 °F)
  * Copper at 1084 °C (1984 °F)
  * Iron is the outlier at 1538 °C (2800 °F), making it far more difficult to melt in antiquity. Cultures developed ironworking proficiency at different rates; however, evidence from the Near East suggests that smelting was possible but impractical circa 1500 BC, and relatively commonplace across most of Eurasia by 500 BC. However, until this period, generally known as the Iron Age, ironwork would have been impossible.
  The other metals discovered before the Scientific Revolution largely fit the pattern, except for high-melting platinum:
  * Bismuth melts at 272 °C (521 °F)
  * Zinc melts at 420 °C (787 °F), but importantly boils at 907 °C (1665 °F), a temperature below the melting point of silver. Consequently, at the temperatures needed to reduce zinc oxide to the metal, the metal is already gaseous.
  * Arsenic sublimes at 615 °C (1137 °F), passing directly from the solid state to the gaseous state.
  * Antimony melts at 631 °C (1167 °F)
  * Platinum melts at 1768 °C (3215 °F), even higher than iron. Native South Americans worked with it instead by sintering: they combined gold and platinum powders, until the alloy became soft enough to shape with tools.