“… and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum.”
(electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion
Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive
“Plates of” especially makes sense. And you do recall correctly, electrum is a natural alloy, which means they wouldn’t have had to create it from scratch.
Just looked on wikipedia and they say
“… and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum.” (electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive
“Plates of” especially makes sense. And you do recall correctly, electrum is a natural alloy, which means they wouldn’t have had to create it from scratch.