Bronze. History of invention and production

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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, OBJECTS AROUND US
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Bronze. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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In the 3rd millennium BC. people began to widely use metals in their economic activities. The transition from stone to metal tools was of tremendous importance in the history of mankind. Perhaps no other discovery has led to such significant social changes.

Copper was the first metal to be widely used. Constantly looking for the stones they needed, our ancestors, one must think, already in antiquity paid attention to reddish-green or greenish-gray pieces of native copper. In the cliffs of the banks and rocks, they came across copper pyrite, copper sheen and red copper ore (cuprite). At first, people used them as ordinary stones and processed them accordingly. They soon discovered that when copper was worked with a stone hammer, its hardness increased significantly and it became suitable for making tools. Thus, the methods of cold metal working or primitive forging came into use.

Bronze
ancient bronze vessel

Then another important discovery was made - a piece of native copper or surface rock containing metal, falling into the fire of a fire, discovered new features that were not characteristic of a stone: from strong heating, the metal melted and, cooling, acquired a new shape. If the form was made artificially, then a product necessary for a person was obtained. This property of copper was used by ancient craftsmen first for casting jewelry, and then for the production of copper tools.

This is how metallurgy was born. Melting began to be carried out in special high-temperature furnaces, which were a slightly modified design of well-known pottery furnaces. Generally speaking, copper is a soft metal, much less hard than stone. But copper tools could be quickly and easily sharpened. (According to the observations of S.A. Semenov, when replacing a stone ax with a copper one, the cutting speed increased by about three times.)

The demand for metal tools began to grow rapidly. People began a real "hunt" for copper ore. It turned out that it is not found everywhere. In those places where rich deposits of copper were discovered, their intensive development arose, ore and mine business appeared. As the discoveries of archaeologists show, already in antiquity the process of ore mining was staged on a large scale. For example, near Salzburg, where copper mining began around 1600 BC, the mines reached a depth of 100 meters, and the total length of the drifts extending from each mine was several kilometers.

The ancient miners had to solve all the problems that modern miners face: strengthening the vaults, ventilation, lighting, lifting the mined ore up the mountain. The galleries were reinforced with wooden supports. The mined ore was smelted nearby in low clay furnaces with thick walls. Similar centers of metallurgy existed in other places.

At the end of the 3rd millennium BC. ancient masters began to use the properties of alloys, the first of which was bronze. The discovery of bronze should have been prompted by an accident, inevitable in the mass production of copper. Some grades of copper ores contain an insignificant (up to 2%) admixture of tin. Smelting such ore, the craftsmen noticed that the copper obtained from it is much harder than usual. Tin ore could get into copper-smelting furnaces for another reason. Be that as it may, observations of the properties of ores led to the development of the value of tin, which they began to add to copper, forming an artificial alloy of bronze.

When heated with tin, copper melted better and was easier to cast, as it became more fluid. Bronze tools were harder than copper ones, sharpened well and easily. Bronze metallurgy made it possible to increase labor productivity several times in all branches of human activity. The production of tools itself was much simpler: instead of long and hard work to beat and grind the stone, people filled the finished forms with liquid metal and got results that their predecessors never even dreamed of.

The casting technique has been gradually improved. At first, casting was carried out in open clay or sand molds, which were simply a depression. They were replaced by open forms carved from stone that could be reused. However, the big disadvantage of open molds was that only flat products were obtained in them. They were not suitable for casting products of complex shape. The way out was found when closed detachable molds were invented.

Before casting, the two halves of the mold were tightly connected to each other. Molten bronze was then poured through the hole. When the metal cooled and solidified, the mold was dismantled and the finished product was obtained. This method made it possible to cast products of complex shape, but it was not suitable for figured casting. But even this difficulty was overcome when the closed form was invented. With this casting method, an exact model of the future product was first molded from wax. Then it was coated with clay and fired in a kiln. The wax melted and evaporated, and the clay took an exact cast of the model. Bronze was poured into the void thus formed. When it cooled down, the mold was broken.

Thanks to all these operations, the craftsmen were able to cast even hollow objects of a very complex shape. Gradually, new techniques for working with metals were discovered, such as drawing, riveting, soldering and welding, which supplemented the already known forging and casting.

With the development of metallurgy, bronze products everywhere began to displace stone ones. But do not think that it happened very quickly. Non-ferrous metal ores were not available everywhere. Moreover, tin was much less common than copper. Metals had to be transported over long distances. The cost of metal instruments remained high. All this prevented their wide distribution. Bronze could not completely replace stone tools. It turned out that only iron could do it.

Author: Ryzhov K.V.

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