The Near East, with parallel developments elsewhere
Associated with
Early metalworkers
Anonymous smiths; no individual inventor is known
Plate 014
c. 3300–3000 BCE
The Near East, with parallel developments elsewhere
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Copper alloys appear in different regions at different times. Tin bronze is generally dated to the Near East around 3000 BCE, but earlier arsenical copper alloys complicate any single date.
About credit
Alloying probably developed in several places independently. It is not attributable to one person or one culture.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before Bronze Metallurgy
Stone, wood and bone tools were shaped by flaking and grinding. Pure copper could be hammered or cast but was too soft to hold an edge well.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Smiths discovered that melting copper with a small proportion of tin (commonly around one part in ten) gave a metal that cast cleanly and held a sharper edge. Because tin is rare, the new metal needed long supply routes.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
Bronze Metallurgy, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Smelting and alloying
Ore is heated with charcoal to release metal. Mixing in a second metal changes how the atoms slide past each other, making the result harder.
Smelting and alloying
Casting in moulds
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Trade
Tin was scarce, so long exchange networks grew up to supply it.
Tools and arms
Metal tools were more durable and could be re-melted and reused; metal weapons changed warfare.
Tools, weapons and ornaments could now be cast in moulds, repeated and sharpened. Trade in copper and tin connected distant regions.
V
Before and after
Life before and after Bronze Metallurgy
Before
Flaking stone, with an edge that chipped.
After
Casting a metal blade that could be resharpened and re-melted.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
Early engines relied on cast metal parts; casting is a skill with a very long ancestry.
Beyond the collection
Modern alloys
Steel, brass and aluminium alloys follow the same principle of mixing metals to change their properties.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
The tin problem
Many Bronze Age societies had copper nearby but had to obtain tin from far away. Shipwrecks such as the Uluburun wreck, off the coast of Turkey, carried copper and tin ingots.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
