[2] Mohs was born on 29 January 1773, in Gernrode, in the Harz mountains, Anhalt-Bernburg (present-day Saxony-Anhalt, Germany).

[3] He showed an interest in science at an early age and received private education before entering the University of Halle.

[3] In 1798, he joined the Mining Academy in Freiberg, Saxony, being a student of Abraham Gottlob Werner.

[3] After acquiring the job of a foreman at a mine in 1801, Mohs relocated in 1802 to Austria, where he was employed in trying to identify the minerals in a private collection of the banker J. F. van der Nüll.

[7] As part of this task, he started classifying minerals by their physical characteristics, instead of their chemical composition, as had been done traditionally.

However, both Theophrastus and Pliny the Elder had compared the relative hardness of minerals known to them during ancient times, including diamond and quartz.