Cupellation is a refining process in metallurgy, where ores or alloyed metals are treated under very high temperatures and have controlled operations to separate noble metals, like gold and silver, from base metals like lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, antimony or bismuth, present in the ore. The process is based on the principle that precious metals do not oxidise or react chemically, unlike the base metals; so when they are heated at high temperatures, the precious metals remain apart and the others react forming slags or other compounds.