A.1 Copper - Elements Known in Antiquity

Native copper

According to the French chemist M. Berthelot, mankind came to know copper more than five thousand years ago. Other scientists believe that this acquaintance is much older. Copper and its alloy with tin (bronze) had for a long time been the most widely used metals. These two materials marked a whole epoch in the history of mankind—the Bronze Age. Why did copper play such an important part? Copper is fairly abundant in nature and can readily be worked.

Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot

At first people used only native copper but later rising demand led to the processing of copper ores. It is comparatively simple to smelt the metal from ores with high copper content. As early as the third millennium B.C. copper was widely used for manufacturing various tools. The Egyptian Pyramid of Cheops was built with gigantic stone blocks each of which was hewn with copper tools.

Among the copper mines of antiquity the particularly famous ones were those on the island of Cyprus to which, as has been suggested, copper owes its name (cuprum in Latin).

Only when man had learned to produce bronze, stone tools were completely replaced with bronze ones. Most likely bronze was first obtained by chance. This is evidenced by the archaeological finds on the island of Crete dating back to about 3500 B.C. which revealed not only copper but bronze articles as well. At first bronze was rather expensive and was used mainly for jewelry and luxury articles. In ancient Egypt mirrors were made from bronze. Bronze, like copper, proved to be an excellent material for relict makers and sculptors. As early as the 5th century B.C. man learned to cast bronze statues. Particular progress in bronze sculpture was made in ancient Greece beginning with the Mycenaean period. At our times copper and bronze still retain this role.

Besides bronze, another wonderful copper alloy, brass, has been known for a long time. It was prepared by fusing copper with zinc ore. Ancient Egyptians, Indians, Assyrians, Romans, and Greeks knew copper, bronze, and brass. Both copper and bronze were used for making weapons. In excavations dated back to the 8th-6th centuries B.C. in Altai, Siberia, and Trans-Caucasus archaeologists found knives, arrow-heads, shields, and helmets made from bronze and copper. In ancient Greece and Rome copper and bronze were also used for making shields and helmets. Copper found other uses in firearms when they had been invented.

Source - Chemical Elements : How They Were Discovered

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