People are willing to take huge risks and short-term financial losses to accumulate gold against the possibility of fiscal inflation. The rest of the world's accumulated gold was held in official reserves by central banks or was used or lost industrially. Today, gold can be bought and sold on many markets. The largest is in London, England. Others exist in several nations of continental Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Past and Current Uses: Gold was probably found on the ground and used by prehistoric man as a tool. Highly sophisticated gold and jewelery objets d'art discovered by archaeologists in the royal tombs of Ur, in what is now southern Iraq, date back to around 3000 BC. Similarly, goldsmiths of the Chavin civilization in Peru made ornaments by hammering and embossing gold in 1200 BC. Gold is usually alloyed in jewelery to give it greater strength and the term karat describes the amount of gold present (24 karat is pure gold ). It is estimated that all the gold in the world, hitherto refined, could be placed in a single cube measuring 60 feet on a side. It is metallic, yellow in color when in mass, but when finely divided it can be black, ruby ​​or purple. It is the most malleable and ductile metal; 1 ounce (28 g) of gold can be struck up to 300 square feet. It is a soft metal and is usually alloyed to give it more