In ancient Roman times, this name was applied to several types of stone that would create sparks when struck against steel; Pliny the Elder described one of them as being brassy, almost certainly a reference to what we now call pyrite ( Dana, James Dwight; Dana, Edward Salisbury (1911). Descriptive Mineralogy (6th ed.). New York: Wiley. p. 86.).

Pyrite splinters can be knocked off with a hard flint, which ignite and burn themselves in the air. This property was already used in Stone Age percussion lighters to ignite fire. Thus, pyrite nodules with traces of processing were discovered at various sites, which could be assigned to different epochs of the Stone Age.