Why no brass age?
- Thread starter Saint
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I'm suspicious that you are actually just a sophisticated troll posing as precocious inquiring 'Malaysian' - with red hair as avatar - what you'd like to be? Anyway, as for nearly all your 'inquiring' threads, this one has an easy non-lazy answer that doesn't require forum feedback. But ironically I suppose, here it is:
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-humanity-have-a-Bronze-Age-but-not-a-Brass-Age?share=1
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Yes, I too have my suspicions.
But, just for the sake of any interested readers - he says, optimistically - the basic reason is brass is no good for most important purposes. It is too soft and does not take a edge, so useless for weapons, knives etc., whereas bronze is very hard and strong and can be shaped for a huge number of purposes.
One thing I did not realise until a few years ago is that bronze was superior to the original iron in this respect. The Iron age apparently came about due to a shortage of tin for making bronze, which then drove the necessary improvement in refining and working of iron into something that could out-compete bronze.
Interesting further historical perspective! All I knew of that matter in general was via a movie can't recall it's name, but in it the ancient Egyptians managed to acquire the 'secret sauce' recipe for making iron weapons - from the Hittite kingdom that ostensibly pioneered smelting of iron ore etc.
Bronze probably came first since it's easier to make. (Copper and tin.)
The Bible mentions brass.
Responses in computer systems usually illustrate differences between 2 ascii words very well. Demos of first tactics in war and how humans would integrate would be a complex society like in comparison between Greek and before their age. Networking this in a computer system or in human data is like integration vs complex fractions, in which one order is stood and in between, and the other is standing for the high and the low of a bound and a complex area. This network is then more of a symmetry that is standing for what was barely seen before and after a high flare, and now violence and unknowns are settling in so if there was to ever be a brass age, there would probably have to be more data to set against flags of integration that blot out high standards and reasoning for comparisons of data.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
My hovercraft is full of eels.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
when?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
St Paul 1Corinthians “sounding brass”. So not long enough ago to be surprising.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
OK
To the best of my knowledge
The beginning of the iron age(If we trust Homer) was at or near the time of the Trojan war---circa 1180 bc
and the consensus of the beginning of the iron age was circa 500 bc
and, brass is said to have been invented circa 500 bc
so
The transition from the bronze to the iron age took at least 600 years......
To the best of my knowledge
The beginning of the iron age(If we trust Homer) was at or near the time of the Trojan war---circa 1180 bc
and the consensus of the beginning of the iron age was circa 500 bc
and, brass is said to have been invented circa 500 bc
so
The transition from the bronze to the iron age took at least 600 years......
Those ages don't mention copper, silver and gold, even though all three have been known and used from the very beginning of metal-working by humans.
Bronze follows stone, iron follows bronze. Historical ages are named for the means of conquest. What comes after iron is projectile weapons of complex design: guns.
But the Explosives Age is still going on, so we just call it Modern.
Bronze follows stone, iron follows bronze. Historical ages are named for the means of conquest. What comes after iron is projectile weapons of complex design: guns.
But the Explosives Age is still going on, so we just call it Modern.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Fair enough. Looking i t up on Wiki, it seems some of these instances may have been translated from a rather imprecise term encompassing various copper alloys.
But it does look as if true Cu/Zn brass was known in the Fertile Crescent from a couple of millennia BC.
The ability to extract copper from ore was likely discovered serendipitously--perhaps a fire was built over some and the metal was left behind.
Anyway, the arrival of metallurgy apparently had a big impact on how humans lived together, and the rise of the city-state across the fertile crescent, according to this:
So copper smelting was apparently, quite an important technological advance. Bronze was more likely invented by trial and error, and it took thousands of years, after someone reasoned that if copper comes from rocks, maybe there's another metal from another kind of rock.
Gold is a metal that you don't need to smelt, so when we discovered copper smelting, when did we start using gold? Apparently it was about the same time.
Anyway, the arrival of metallurgy apparently had a big impact on how humans lived together, and the rise of the city-state across the fertile crescent, according to this:
.
So copper smelting was apparently, quite an important technological advance. Bronze was more likely invented by trial and error, and it took thousands of years, after someone reasoned that if copper comes from rocks, maybe there's another metal from another kind of rock.
Gold is a metal that you don't need to smelt, so when we discovered copper smelting, when did we start using gold? Apparently it was about the same time.
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sculptor
Valued Senior Member
And, in north america we have a copper culture circa 6000 years ago.
https://www.peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org/index.php/20-copper-artifacts/316-old-copper-culture
the more you work copper, then harder it gets
....................?
Which explains how the egyptians used copper tools to craft the pyramids?
https://www.peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org/index.php/20-copper-artifacts/316-old-copper-culture
the more you work copper, then harder it gets
....................?
Which explains how the egyptians used copper tools to craft the pyramids?