Sought after since the beginning of recorded history, gold remains a highly valued metal, reaching record highs recently, climbing over 135% in value in the past year alone. The recent rise in the price of gold comes just as annual worldwide mine production has decreased - down by nearly 8% since 2001. In human history, only 161,000 tons of gold have been mined - more than half of that extracted in just the past 50 years. Collected here are a handful of recent photographs of people searching for, mining, rediscovering, celebrating, buying and selling gold.

Hava Katz, the head of the national treasures of Israel's Antiquities Authority, holds up a 1,000-year-old gold coin minted in Egypt and dated 1,095 AD, supposedly brought to Jerusalem by Muslim pilgrims, during an exhibition at the Davidson Archeological center in Jerusalem's Old city on November 11, 2009.

An artisan makes gold ornaments at a jewelery factory in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata November 13, 2009.