Bronze

Bronze refers to a broad range of copper alloys, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon. (See table below.) It is strong and tough, and has myriad uses in industry. more...

It was particularly significant in antiquity, giving its name to the Bronze Age.

History

The introduction of bronze was significant to any civilization which encountered it. Tools, weapons and armor made of bronze were harder and more durable than their stone and copper ("Chalcolithic") predecessors. In early use, the natural impurity arsenic sometimes created a superior natural alloy; this is termed arsenical bronze.

While copper and tin can naturally co-occur, the two ores are rarely found together (although one ancient site in Thailand provides a counterexample). Serious bronze work has therefore always involved trade. (In fact, archaeologists suspect that a serious disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition to the Iron Age.) For Europe, the major source for tin was Great Britain.

The earliest tin-alloy bronzes date to the late 4th millennium BC in Susa (Iran) and some ancient sites in Luristan (Iran) and Mesopotamia.

Bronze was stronger than the era's iron; quality steels were not available until thousands of years later. But the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age, perhaps because the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean (or from Great Britain) became more limited during the major population migrations around 1200 – 1100 BC, which dramatically limited supplies and raised prices . Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, but for many purposes the weaker iron was found to be sufficiently strong. As ironworking improved, iron became both cheaper and stronger, eclipsing bronze in Europe by the early to mid-Middle Ages.

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