The Bronze Age: A Brief History Of Metals

History of Metals

1. The earliest known metals were gold and copper. These metals were found so early but they are high unreactive and found quite abundantly in their natural state. Ancient peoples used metals for many things including jewellery and ornaments, decorative pieces, weapons and tools. Some metal were highly popular for jewellery and decorating because of its lustre and malleability. Whereas other metals were used to make tools and weapons because they could easily be shaped and were much harder than any wooden, stone or clay weapons that we previously used.

2. The Bronze Age occurred around the 3rd Century BC when the ancient civilisations started to learn how to smelt ores and that copper and tin made the solid alloy, bronze. The Iron Age started at different times in different civilisations as the bronze age did. It is believed that the Iron age first started in the middle east in the 12th century BC however the Iron age did not fully reach Europe until the 8th century BC. The Bronze age preceeded the Iron age because Bronze is lower on the reactivity scale than Iron, meaning that it is easier to remove tin and copper, the metals which make up bronze, from their ores than it is to remove iron from its ore, the metals that form bronze can also easily be found in shallow mines. The smelting process that had been formed after the discovery of bronze did not work affectively on iron as it needed to be heated to a much higher level, meaning that technology had to evolve before iron could be smelted and used. Once the iron smelting process was form it rapidly replaced the role of bronze in many civilisations as it was more durable and harder than bronze.

3. Although Aluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth, it...

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...rformance aircraft as it has an extremely low rate of corrosion. Indium can also be used in the coating of mirrors as it creates the same quality mirrors as silver but it is considered to be more resistant to atmospheric corrosion.

Titanium

Titanium is a well known metal that has only recently begun to be used in the last hundred years when many of its properties were discovered. Titanium is as strong as steel, much lighter and almost as corrosion resistant as platinum making it an extremely useful as propellers for large ships and engine parts in aeroplanes. Titanium’s lightweight and corrosion resistance also makes it very useful for artificial joints and dental implants. Titanium oxide has the ability to join to bone which makes it extremely useful in the human body, even as jewellery and earrings, as it is considered hypoallergenic as well as low corrosive.