There never was an Age of Brass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the ancients first started digging in the ground, they\ncollected shiny metals like Copper and Gold, and learned that these could be\nmelted and formed into different shapes. Next they discovered – surely by\naccident – that if you included other stuff in the melting process, the\nresulting mixture would still be shiny and golden, but in some ways better than\nthe original metal alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 3000 BC, in what is now Turkey, folks realized that\nthere was another metal, Tin – which looks like a weird shiny rock – and that\nif you melted ugly Tin and pretty Copper together, you would magically create a\nnew metal that was as shiny as Copper but much harder. This alloy is called\nBronze, and it would be used to create durable tools, weapons, household items,\nand all kinds of useful things. The production of Bronze and the spread of the\nBronze trade to Europe and the Middle East was part of an unparalleled burst of\nhuman development, from 3000 BC to about 500 BC. It is now referred to as the\nBronze Age, which supplanted the previous Stone Age and would end when folks\nlearned how to make Iron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout this period, different batches of Bronze might go\nall funny. Smelting techniques were pretty crude, and sometimes different ingredients\nwould get into the melty mix, creating results that were often worse, but\nsometimes better. For example, there was a fairly rare thing that looks kinda\nlike pink glass, and if a little of THAT was added to a smelting it would\ncreate a variant that was as shiny and tough as Bronze, but that was a little\neasier to work with. So it was perfect for making precise instruments, screws,\nand detailed coins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This cousin of Bronze is called Brass. And the magic\ningredient that you need to make it is Zinc. Unfortunately, Zinc doesn’t exist\nmuch as a metal, and is more often found as powdery Zinc Oxide (which today\nyou’ll see on a baby’s bottom or a lifeguard’s nose), or as Zincite, that pink\nglass the ancients found. In any form, Zinc is also pretty rare, so the\ncapacity for making Brass was limited for a very long time. Think of it this\nway: when the Greeks went to war with the Trojans, they were protected by\nBronze armor and shields, they wielded Bronze swords, and they fought with\nspears with Bronze points. But probably the only Brass they had was the coins\nin their pockets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Romans were pretty good at making Brass, but after the\nfall of the Empire Brass-making declined and didn’t recover until the Middle\nAges. Even then Brass was expensive and limited to items that needed to be made\nprecisely, such as religious artwork, candlesticks, and coins. But the capacity\nto make it slowly grew and improved, so by the 1700’s Brass was the preferred\nmetal for making scientific instruments, gears and clocks, pipes, knobs and\nhinges and screws, and musical instruments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the Industrial Revolution onward, it became\nstandardized and available around the world, but was still limited to specific\napplications. Here in America, Brass production was long limited to the\nNaugatuck Valley in CT, home of Waterbury, which is still known as the Brass\nCity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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