Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	Dark gray metal melting point 1663 °C; 3025 °F boiling point 3395 °C; 6143 °F density 9.84 g/cc; 614.29 pounds/cubic foot
1907 Georges Urbain, France / Carl Auer von Welsbach, Austria
Lutetia Parisorum = Paris (Latin)

The story of discovery and naming of this element began with Carl Gustav Mosander splitting old yttria into three new elements, yttria proper, erbia, and terbia (see the special Rare Earths page).

In 1860 the Swedish chemist Nils Johan Berlin (1812-1891) denied the existence of Mosander’s erbia, and gave this name to his terbia. In 1878 Marignac split Berlin's terbia in two new earths, terbia proper and ytterbia. Then Marignac's ytterbia, in turn, was split by Nilson in 1879 into scandia and a new ytterbia.

Finally, Nilson's ytterbia was separated by Georges Urbain (1872-1938) in 1907 into neoytterbia and lutecia, with the elements Neoytterbium and Lutecium (note). Urbain named the element after Lutetia Parisorum, the Latin name for Paris:

Auer von Welsbach proposed for these elements the names Aldebaranium and Cassiopeium. (The variant name Celtium, found in some sources, is an error, cf. Hafnium). In the report of the International Commission on Atomic Weights of 1906 it was mentioned that Urbain and Auer had independently proved that the old Ytterbium was a mixture of two elements, for one of which Urbain had suggested, and the Commission approved, the name Lutecium. In 1949 the official IUPAC spelling was altered in Lutetium (note).

Somewhere in the immediate area was the chief settlement or oppidum of the Parisii, a Gallic people who settled in the area during the 3rd century BCE. However, dendrochronological study of wooden pilings beneath the lowest stratum of the Roman north-south axis date the road's construction after 4 CE, more than fifty years after the Roman pacification of the region.

Roman Lutetia was founded above the flood-prone point where the Bièvre stream reaches the river Seine, centered on the slopes of the hill later dedicated to Saint Genevieve, on the left bank of the Seine (modern-day Latin Quarter). There were outlying suburbs on an island across from the confluence, the Île de la Cité, which was the Merovingian and modern centre of Paris.

The primitive Λουκοτοκίαν (Strabon), Λευκοτεκία (Ptolemeus), Lutetia (Caesar) maybe contain the Celtic root *luco-t- 'mouse' + -ek(t)ia = 'the mice', Breton logod, Welsh llygod, Irish luch (cf. Bibracte, *bibro 'beaver' + -acti = 'the beavers')[1] or another Celtic root luto-, luteuo- 'marsh', 'swamp' (Gaelic loth 'marsh', Breton loudour 'dirty') like in Lutudarum (Derbyshire, England); Lodève (Luteua); Ludesse (France); Lutitia (Germany), etc. (note).

• Robert Plohn, "Seltene Erden". Zeitschrift 'Die Koralle', Sept. 1929 (on-line).
• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
• Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).