For my readers who are aficionados of the history of myth and magic:
Mary - probably Miriam, originally - lived sometime during the First to Third Centuries of the Common Era. Zosimos of Panopolis, a Fourth Century Gnostic Christian, is the first writer to mention her that we know of.
She was said to be able to make caput mortuum (a purple dye that was a big deal among alchemists) and to have invented several pieces of alchemical equipment, some of which are still in use today - the bain-marie double-boiler, for instance.
She also left us the following cryptic comments (everything the alchemists said was cryptic - go with it):
Join the male with the female, and you will find what is sought; and
One becomes Two, Two becomes Three, and out of the Third comes the One as the Fourth.