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The Bronze Age (c. 3300 – c. 1200 BC) was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system, following the Stone Age and preceding the Iron Age. [1]
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids, such as arsenic or silicon.
A study in the journal Antiquity from 2013 reported the discovery of a tin bronze foil from the Pločnik archaeological site dated to c. 4650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from Serbia and Bulgaria dated to before 4000 BC, showed that early tin bronze was more common than previously thought and developed independently in Europe 1,500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East.
Bronze weapon from the Mesara Plain, Crete. Copper came into use in the Aegean area near the end of the predynastic age of Egypt about 3500 BC. The earliest known implement is a flat celt, which was found on a Neolithic house-floor in the central court of the palace of Knossos in Crete, and is regarded as an Egyptian product.
Other bronze artifacts include birds with eagle-like bills, tigers, a large snake, zoomorphic masks, bells, and what appears to be a bronze spoked wheel but is more likely to be decoration from an ancient shield. Apart from bronze, Sanxingdui finds included jade artifacts consistent with earlier neolithic cultures in China, such as cong and zhang.
Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs , and small statuettes and figurines , as well as bronze elements to be fitted to other objects such as furniture.
These deposits were exploited as early as 1000 AD in the manufacture of tin bronze by Andean cultures, including the later Inca Empire, which considered tin bronze the "imperial alloy". In North America , the only known exploitable source of tin during ancient times is located in the Zacatecas tin province of north central Mexico which supplied ...
The Pyrenean Bronze (also known as Northeastern Bronze) is a regional European Bronze Age culture, known from archaeological facies, that spread through the Spanish provinces of Girona, Barcelona, Lleida and the eastern half of Huesca; also it spread through the French departments of the Pyrenees-Orientales and Aude.