A white, lustrous metal valued for its decorative beauty and electrical conductivity. It is found nearly as early as copper and gold, in the form of beads, trinkets, and display vessels. The main source of this metal in antiquity was the lead ore galena, in which silver sulfide occurs as an impurity. After smelting the ore, silver was recovered by the process of cupellation, where the lead is oxidized, leaving silver unaltered. Silver is soft and could be cold-worked but it was too soft for most purposes and was often alloyed with other metals, even in antiquity.