The study and practice of chemistry was not made in scientific laboratories or research centers, nor were the reports of their research findings announced in scientific conferences, as is done nowadays. In Greco-Roman antiquity experimentations for the casting of metal and the production of alloys took place within the local laboratories and were due to the inquisitive spirit of the artisans, who wanted to improve both their work and the strength and appearance of their devices. Besides, work within the trade unions did not favor the notification of methods, tools and techniques to a wider audience.

The involvement of Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita with the perfumery around the mid-11th century provides a characteristic example of the practice of Chemistry outside the guild’s boundaries. Michael Psellos specifically states that the Empress did not got involved at all with weaving, as she ought to, but had turned her apartments into a perfumer’s workshop like those who performed “crude arts and crafts subject to fire levy” on the markets: there were many fires over which aromatic materials were baked or boiled, while handmaidens helped her by rubbing, pounding or making aromatic essences, ointments and other cosmetic products that were prepared. The raw materials of perfumery were mainly imported from the East by Arabs and merchants from Trebizond; the perfumers were, according to the Book of the Eparch of Leo the Wise, responsible for the purity of the materials used.

The workshops of the "crude arts and crafts subject to fire levy” were restricted to the neighbourhood of Chalkoprateion and to arcades to the north of Tetrapylon in Constantinople, while in Thessalonica were found around the Church of Panagia Chalkeon. We know that empress Irene of Athens in 801 granted financial concessions to artisans for the revitalization of the arts, and Leo the Wise with his 81^st law gave to individual craftsmen the right to produce and sell objects made of precious metals and stones, abolishing thus a privilege previously reserved for royal workshops during the Justinian period. The main source of metals came from Eastern Macedonia and Asia Minor, mainly from Paphlagonia, Pontus and Cilicia, as well as from northern Syria, where iron, copper, lead, tin, silver and gold were mining up until the 11^th century; in later years Byzantium increasingly relied on smaller mines in the Aegean, like Troy in Asia Minor and Halkidiki, the Pangaion Hills and Thassos in Greece. Extraction and in situ processing of ores was accomplished using traditional techniques and methods in use since Roman times. Skilled goldsmiths were in charge of improving the purity of gold, while special state officials, the public weighers would test the purity of metals on entry.

In Late Antiquity there were many centers producing precious metals objects all over the empire (Constantinople, Antioch, Damascus, Tarsus, Cyprus and England). However, from the 10th century onwards gold and silver artefacts were only made in Constantinople, and possibly also in a handful of other commercial centers, where excavations have revealed jewelry’s matrixes, such as Corinth and in capitals states which were under the influence of Byzantium like Pliska and Kiev.
Production appears to have declined in mid-Byzantine times – there are no descriptions of precious artefacts in the imperial palace, not even as gifts to foreign rulers. Over the years it seems that there was competition with the West, where the technology for purifying ore by mills and water-powered bellows had already emerged. Financial problems prevented Byzantium from incorporating such devices into the production process. In mid-Byzantine times limited are the mentions of precious artefacts that were either found in the palace or were send as diplomatic gifts to foreign rulers – in the 14^th century only the excessively rich Theodore Metochites used silver utensils for washing his hands and feet. The renowned scholar Vissarion in a memorandum send to Constantine XI Palaeologus asked for the transfer of technology from the West by installing mechanical mills and large water-powered bellows in the mines for the rinsing and separation of the ores. However, the economic recession of the state in the years just before the Fall did not allow the transfer of the aforementioned technology; water-powered bellows were first settled in the mines of Sidirokafsia of Halkidiki in the mid 16th century.

The production of all kinds of metal objects in Byzantium was based on the extensive and systematic recycling of old metal objects and coins. However, metal flakes could be collected in metal bearing areas, which was a pastime for the villagers. The melting, casting, forging and the creation of sheets and foils were made in special workshops where fires burned at high temperatures, using hand bellows. The decoration of precious utensils was taking place in special goldsmiths’ workshops, which also undertook the gold plating of silverware using the technique of heating mercuric gold and the consequent evaporation of mercury. The operation of small workshops of blacksmiths, coppersmiths, locksmiths, manufacturers of nails, farriers, knife makers, chain manufacturers and goldsmiths in monasteries and imperial cities is attested by monasteries’ typica , documents transactions and other written texts. On the other hand, the excavations in Middle Byzantine settlements, such as Rentina, brought to light few remnants of foundries, the production of which did not seem to surpass the limits of small family businesses.

The people working in such workshops are unlikely to have been familiar with the literature on alchemy: although these peculiar writings were constituted in Late Antiquity, there are still difficulties in classifying and interpreting them. The philosophical foundation of alchemy was based on the idea of ​​"sympathy" of natural phenomena, expressed mainly in the theories of neoplatonic philosophers, such as Poseidon, Proclus and Iamblichus. Furthermore, alchemy was based on experience accumulated from the art of dyeing wool and textiles in Egypt, which was then transferred by analogy to altering the physical properties of matter and, consequently, led to the idea of ​​transforming stones and metals; this in turn led to the idea of transforming stones and metals. Indeed, it is no coincidence that among abstract, incomplete and often falsified recipes for manufacturing gold or silver there are also instructions for dyeing with imperial purple. The few manuscripts that preserve alchemists’ works show that the Byzantines not only copied old formulas, but also added magical instructions to those already known. The circulation of these manuscripts was undoubtedly limited; they were read by very few and had no practical application. Even Michael Psellos in his Peri chrysopoiias work refers to theory, as he does not propose any laboratory manufacture of gold, and sees the existing valuable world as mean for the search of the "transuranic good."