Bronze

Bronze is the traditional name for a broad range of alloys of copper. It is usually copper with zinc and tin but it is not limited to those metals. First used during the Bronze Age, to which it gave its name, bronze made tools, weapons and armor that were either harder or more durable than their stone and copper predecessors. During the Bronze Age, arsenic was often included in the bronze (mostly as an impurity), which made the alloy harder still. The earliest copper alloys date to the late 4th millennium BC, and are found in the context of the Maikop culture.

See also

• brass, a subset of the bronze alloys in which zinc is the principal additive
• cupronickel, an alloy used on ships
• lost-wax casting