Aryan history
The metallic elements known in Aryan antiquity were Au: hiraNya; Ag: rajata; Cu: tAmra; Sn: trapu; Pb: sIsa; Zn: kAmsya/dastA; Fe: kR^iShNAyas/loha. Yet the ancients went really “fundamental” in postulating 5 underlying components of matter!
It shows how non-trivial the concept of a chemical element is. In its most primitive form in late IE tradition the 5 fundaments were: 1. H20; 2.Air N2+O2+…; 3. Fire O+X; 4. “earth”: everything. 5. vacuum.
Of course, the proto-scientific tradition in India understood these differently; still but modern chemistry…
Emergence
Source: TW
Only a few elements formed in the big bang, others had to wait till the 1st stars died in different ways. Yet others formed from the dead remnants, the neutron stars, merging. But what I find it rather amazing is that the final set needed life to emerge from all the prior genesis.
wouldn’t those unstable elements have emerged in small quantities and disappeared beforehand?
astronomers continue to search for that. However, they note current detection capacity should find element Cf if it is naturally formed in a neutron star merger (1/2 life= ~2 yrs). No evidence. Only Th, U & Pu (with short 1/2life have been detected. Hence, the current evidence suggests that nothing beyond Pu is formed by N-star merger. If Cf or some of the other superheavies were formed, we would clearly see signals in kilonova lightcurves/spec. See this for what has been detected.