Among the Indians, copper was part of the surgical instruments used by doctors. Copper occurs naturally in the oceans, earth's crust, lakes, and rivers.
One will find bits of copper metal in smart phones, computer chips, large industrial motors, digital cameras, and industrial transformers.
Furthermore, copper is also used in heating systems, electrical, and electronic equipments. Foods that contain copper include lentils, meat, nuts, barley, almonds, liver, beets, and avocados among others. Some of the health benefits of copper to humans include curing arthritis, growth, regulation of melanin production, prevents premature aging, brain stimulation, increase in energy production, and helping in absorption of iron and sugar among others.
Hence, like in the past, copper is still beneficial to man as medicine to improve their health. A copper smelter. Sharon Omondi May 16 in Society. All About the "Stan" Countries. Most Dangerous Countries For Women. Humans may have smelted iron sporadically throughout the Bronze Age , though they likely saw iron as an inferior metal.
The use of iron became more widespread after people learned how to make steel, a much harder metal, by heating iron with carbon. The Hittites—who lived during the Bronze Age in what is now Turkey—may have been the first to make steel. The Iron Age began around B. Ancient cities including Troy and Gaza were destroyed, trade routes were lost and literacy declined throughout the region.
The cause for the collapse of these Bronze Age kingdoms remains unclear. Archaeological evidence suggests a succession of severe droughts in the eastern Mediterranean region over a year period from to B. Earthquakes, famine, sociopolitical unrest and invasion by nomadic tribes may also have played a role. Some experts believe that a disruption in trade routes may have caused shortages of the copper or tin used to make bronze around this time. Metal smiths, as a result, may have turned to iron as an alternative.
In Scandinavia, it ended closer to AD with the rise of the Vikings. Greece had become a major hub of activity and culture on the Mediterranean during the late Bronze Age.
The Mycenaean civilization was rich in material wealth from trade. Mycenaeans built large palaces and a society with strict class hierarchy. But around B. Mycenaean Greece collapsed. Greece entered a period of turmoil sometimes called the Greek Dark Ages.
Major cities with the exception of Athens were abandoned. As urban societies splintered, people moved toward smaller, more pastoral groups focused on raising livestock. Mycenaean Greece had been a literate society, but the Greeks of the early Iron Age left no written record, leading some scholars to believe they were illiterate.
Few artifacts or ruins remain from the period, which lasted roughly years. Classical Greece was an era of cultural achievements including the Parthenon , Greek drama and philosophers including Socrates. During the Iron Age in the Near East, nomadic pastoralists who raised sheep, goats and cattle on the Iranian plateau began to develop a state that would become known as Persia. The Persians established their empire at a time after humans had learned to make steel. Steel weapons were sharper and stronger than earlier bronze or stone weapons.
The ancient Persians also fought on horseback. The Sumerians and the Chaldeans living in ancient Mesopotamia are believed to be the first people to make wide use of copper, and their copper crafting knowledge was introduced to the ancient Egyptians.
The Egyptians, famously fond of personal beautification, made mirrors and razors out of copper and produced green and blue makeup from malachite and azurite, two copper compounds with brilliant green and blue colors. By comparing the purity of copper artifacts from both Mesopotamia and Egypt, scientists have determined that the Egyptians improved upon the smelting methods of their northern neighbors in Mesopotamia. Most copper items in Egypt were produced by casting molten copper in molds.
Put simply, wax is formed into the shape of the end product, then covered in clay. The wax is melted out leaving a clay mold, which is then filled with molten copper. The mold is broken off when the metal is cool. The Egyptians may have been the first group to discover that mixing copper with arsenic or tin made a stronger, harder metal better suited for weapons and tools and more easily cast in molds than pure copper.
Since copper ore often contains arsenic, this may have been the unintentional result of smelting copper ore that included naturally occurring arsenic. This alloy of copper with arsenic or tin is called bronze, and there is archeological evidence that the Egyptians first produced bronze in 4, B. Bronze may have also been developed independently in other parts of the Middle East and other parts of the world. Regardless of where it originated, bronze metallurgy soon overtook copper in many parts of the globe, thus ushering in the Bronze Age.
In parts of the world that lacked deposits of tin, copper was used alone or alloyed with other metals until iron was introduced. The smelting process for bronze made with arsenic would have produced poisonous fumes. People may have preferred tin-based bronze or found that it was easier to control the amounts of tin added to copper than it was to control the amount of arsenic, which often occurred naturally in copper ore.
Whatever the reason, bronze made with tin soon became the bronze of choice throughout the Middle East. Tin deposits were more confined to certain geographical areas than copper, which was readily available in many parts of the Middle East as well as other parts of the world.
As people began using bronze instead of pure copper to make weapons and tools, trade in tin developed. The availability of bronze led to more advanced tool and weapon making, and with better weapons, armies could better conquer neighboring societies and plunder their tin and copper resources. The island of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean was a major destination for European and Middle Eastern Bronze Age people looking to buy or loot copper. Cyprus was the major supplier of copper to the Roman Empire.
As copper helped humans to advance warfare, it also has played a role in the religious and spiritual life of people around the world through time. To the people of the Andes in South America, who developed the most advanced metallurgy in pre-Columbian America, copper metallurgy was more than a secular craft for producing tools. Using native copper, Andean artisans made religious items from pounded copper foil and gilded copper.
In many pre-colonial sub-Saharan cultures as well, coppersmiths were believed to have powers as shamans, magicians, and priests because of their intimate knowledge of earth, minerals, and fire and their ability to produce metal from ore.
In some parts of the continent coppersmithing was an inherited position with master smiths passing secret knowledge on to their sons. Mining, smelting, and casting of copper ore were preceded by elaborate ceremonies to ensure that the endeavors were safe and fruitful. Copper also plays a role today in many New Age beliefs.
In some modern religions, it is seen as having healing powers, both spiritually and physically. Some people wear copper to help alleviate the symptoms of arthritis.
The people of the Indian subcontinent have been using copper and its alloys as long as anyone. Bronze casting was extensive in ancient times and bronze was used for religious statues and artwork. This practice also spread to Southeast Asia where copper and its alloys are used extensively even today in Buddhist artwork. Copper was first used in China around BC.
The Chinese quickly began using bronze as well, and used different percentages of tin in bronze for different purposes. They used copper and bronze extensively for coinage.
During the flourishing economic activity and expanded foreign trade in the Sung dynasty, circa to AD, the use of cash—round copper coins with a square hole in the middle—exploded. Copper production was now reaching almost industrial proportions in some civilizations, though probably nowhere more than in ancient Rome. Although iron and lead were in use by the era of the ancient Romans, copper, bronze, and brass an alloy of copper and zinc were used by the Romans for coins, aspects of architecture such as doors, and some parts of their extensive plumbing system although pipes were made of lead.
They also developed pipe organs made with copper pipes. The Romans controlled extensive copper deposits throughout their empire.
Scientists analyzing copper isotopes and trace metals present in Roman copper coins have determined that Rio Tinto, Spain still a working copper mine , Cyprus, and to a lesser extent Tuscany, Sicily, Britain, France, Germany and other parts of Europe and the Middle East were sources of copper for the Empire.
Increased purity of Roman copper coins over time also shows that their smelting methods improved quickly. The Romans in their heyday produced nearly 17, tons of copper annually, more than would be produced again until the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
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