Bronze, history

Craddock, P. T. (1992), A short history of the patination of bronze, in Jones, M. (ed.), Why Fakes Matter - Essays on Problems of Authenticity, British Museum, London, pp. 63-70. 

Metals have characteristics that make them desirable for construction, implements, and ornamental uses such as in jewelry. Metals have been so important that the names Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron Age have been applied to epochs of history. Metals have an enduring quality. They are solid, durable, and attractive. The first draft of this passage is being written with a pen made of sterling silver (an alloy consisting of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper). The lure of metals has drawn adventurers to remote places, and they have been the spoils of war. Their intrinsic value is exemplified by the ornaments we wear and the role of metals in monetary systems. 

Redox reactions are involved in some very important industrial processes, such as iron and steel production. However, the widespread use of metals has occupied a relatively small part of human history. In the Stone Age, humans relied on stone, wood, and bone to make tools and weapons. The Stone Age ended in many parts of the world with the start of the Bronze Age, which was marked by the use of copper and then bronze (an alloy of copper and tin). In the Iron Age, bronze was replaced by the use of iron. The dates of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age vary for different parts of the world. 

Another interesting bit of history regarding tin came around 500 BCE, when the tin mines of the eastern Mediterranean region were depleted. This created a problem because tin, a rather rare metal, was very necessary to make the hardened bronze alloy for weapons and tools. This also is thought to be the first time in human history that a mineral was depleted in a region due to mining. 

Copper is one of llic few metals found free in nature. That is why it was used long before historic times for weapons and utensils. The main trouble with it was its softness. This was remedied when some early coppersmith discovered that copper and tin (also found free in nature) melted together formed an alloy that was much harder than either of the two metals. This alloy gave its name to more than two thousand years of human history — the period called the "Bronze Age. ... 

The Sung Dynasty (960 - 1280 A.D.) was one link in a chain of imperial dynasties throughout the history of China. At the time of the manufacture of the coins used in this study, established practice dictated that the coins be cast in clay molds, in a traditional manner that was already nearly one thousand years old. Thus, the coins analyzed in this study are all round, with a square hole in the center, have four characters on one side and none on the other, and are said to be of copper, bronze, or brass (/, 2). The characters on such coins are read from top... 

The Baltimore Museum of Art hosts the Cone collection including many works by Matisse. Bronze sculptures by Matisse were cast using different methods (lost wax and sand cast) and in different foundries. Ann Boulton of the Baltimore Museum of Art initiated a project aimed at determining whether or not different compositions of Matisse bronze sculptures could be correlated to different manufacturing techniques or locations. The project started while the author was a post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education, now Museum Conservation Institute, and involved other analytical techniques (12). The results presented here were obtained at the Field Museum of Natural History. 

Ar human civilization. Indeed, archaeol-Y ogists organize early human history in terms of materials—the Stone Age, in which only natural materials such as wood and stone were available the Bronze Age, in which implements were made of copper alloyed with tin and the Iron Age, in which ornaments, weapons, and tools were made of iron. Copper and iron are still of enormous importance. Copper is used to make electrical wiring, and iron is the main constituent of steel. 

As early as 1969, Pedersen was intrigued by the intense blue colour observed upon dissolution of small quantities of sodium or potassium metal in coordinating organic solvents in the presence of crown ethers. Indeed, the history of alkali metal (as opposed to metal cation) solution chemistry may be traced back to an 1808 entry in the notebook of Sir Humphry Davy, concerning the blue or bronze colour of potassium-liquid ammonia solutions. This blue colour is attributed to the presence of a solvated form of free electrons. It is also observed upon dissolution of sodium metal in liquid ammonia, and is a useful reagent for dissolving metal reductions , such as the selective reduction of arenes to 1,4-dienes (Birch reduction). Alkali metal solutions in the presence of crown ethers and cryptands in etheric solvents are now used extensively in this context. The full characterisation of these intriguing materials had to wait until 1983, however, when the first X-ray crystal structure of an electride salt (a cation with an electron as the counter anion) was obtained by James L. Dye and... 

People have long defined civilizations in terms of the materials societies have used to build and make objects. Historians often divide human history into periods such as the Old, Middle, and New Stones Ages the Bronze Age the Iron Age and, much later on in history, the Age of Plastics. 

The approval of Taxol for marketing in December 1992 was the culmination of 35 years of work. During this period of time the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) collaborated to collect, identify, and screen U.S. native plant material for antitumor activity. The year 1992 also marked, coincidentally, the discovery of the Ice Man in the Italian Alps. This Bronze Age man, who died 5300 years ago, was found in possession of a pure copper axe set in a yew wood handle and an unfinished 6-foot yew bow. Obviously, the yew tree has played a number of important roles for humans throughout history. 

It may be deduced from numerous useful and decorative articles to be seen in centres like the British Museum or the National Archeological Museum at Athens that considerable practical knowledge of the properties and applications of materials (not just of stone, iron, and bronze) pre-dated written economic and social history. The dramatists, philosophers, and sociologists appeared it seems some time after the craftsmen and technicians philosophy and certain other studies somewhat later than materials science. 

Zinc oxide is a very old technological material. Already in the Bronze Age it was produced as a byproduct of copper ore smelting and used for healing of wounds. Early in history it was also used for the production of brass (Cu-Zn alloy). This was the major application of ZnO for many centuries before metallic zinc replaced the oxide [149]. With the start of the industrial age in the middle of the nineteenth century, ZnO was used in white paints (chinese white), in rubber for the activation of the vulcanization process and in porcelain enamels. In the following a number of existing and emerging electronic applications of ZnO are briefly described. 

Mankind has used copper throughoutrecorded history. People learned to refine it from copper ore near 5000 BC. It was used for pottery, tools, coins and jewelry. Because ofits softness, Cu was no t useful for weapons and tools until itwas hardened by alloying it with other metals brass is Cu and zinc bronze is Cu and tin. Modern alloys are copper-aluminum and copper-nickel. Copper is one of the best conductors of electricity, so that it is widely used commercially for wiring. Its resistance to tarnishing by oxidation makes it a popular but expensive roofing material. 

The family history was significant for a maternal uncle, who had died at the age of 18 years from sepsis and who was reported to have bronze skin, both of which presumably resulted from unrecognized adrenal insufficiency, and for another maternal uncle, who had been diagnosed with mental illness and was living in an adult residence. In addition, the 70-year-old maternal grandmother had been confined to a wheelchair for almost 15 years due to weakness, the cause of which had not been previously identified. Biochemical studies to detemine VLCFA ratios confirmed the carrier status of the patient s mother and revealed that his only sibling, a 9-year-old brother, had the biochemical defect.Two of his three maternal aunts also were found to be carriers of X-ALD, one of whom was found to have an affected 1-year-old son. 

As you know from Chapter 4, solid solutions of metals are called alloys. Adding even small quantities of another element to a metal changes the properties of the metal. Technological advances throughout history have been linked closely to the discovery of new alloys. For example, bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Bronze contains only about 10% tin, but it is much stronger than copper and more resistant to corrosion. Also, bronze can be melted in an ordinary fire so that castings can be made, as shown in Figure 8.3. 

The biblical Old Testament period overlaps with the Copper, Bronze, and Iron Ages, so it is natural that these metals are mentioned frequently in the Bible and in other ancient manuscripts. For example, iron is mentioned about 100 times in the Old Testament, copper 8 times, and bronze more than 150 times. Other metals that were easily obtained (tin and lead) are also described numerous times. In fact, production of metals has been a significant factor in technology and chemistry for many centuries. Processes that are crude by modem standards were used many centuries ago to produce the desired metals and other materials, but the source of raw materials was the same then as it is now. In this chapter, we will present an overview of inorganic chemistry to show its importance in history and to relate it to modern industry. 

A consequence of the afore-mentioned slow transitions would be a rather strong dependence of the actual structure observed at room temperature upon the previous thermal history of the sample. For example, quenched samples around Na0i35WO3 may be cubic, while slowly annealed samples would be tetragonal (II). Conversely, samples of low sodium content may be cubic if they have been prepared by extracting sodium vapor at temperatures of 600° to 700°. The existence of two-phase regions may account for some of the difficulties we (and others) have had in growing single crystals of low-sodium bronzes by the electrolytic method. 

The ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron are well-known periods in the history of civilization. Not so well known is the Chalcolithic Age (4300-3200 b.c.). The name comes from the Greek for copper and stone, and the Chalcolithic Age is the period between the Stone and Bronze Ages when implements of both stone and copper were used side by side. This age might have remained obscure to all but a few specialists except for one remarkable discovery—the Iceman. 

History.—Pure copper, or an alloy with tin in the form of bronze, appears to have been known for at least 7000 years. The metal was probably familiar to the Chaldeans before the year 5000 b.c.,3 and seems to have been worked by the Egyptians about the same period, since Egyptian copper tools supposed to date from about the year 4400 b.c. have been discovered. The copper mines of the Sinai Peninsula were extensively worked by the Egyptians about the year 3700 b.c.4... 

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