Giannis vs Polinik on the color of bronze :)

[caiusbeerquitius]

1. well, you said the reddish bronze didn´t exist. That´s why I was arguing. However, items like Haltern #385 are not exceptions, they exist in large numbers (manly in pre-Caesarian context). I just took out one example from which I posted the complete met. analysis / alloy.
I didn't say that at all- so I think you may have misunderstood......I said this:-
whilst ancient bronzes varied, they were closer to modern 'yellowish' brass in appearance than modern 'reddish' bronze.....
note that I referred to variation, and later gave the varying percentages of ancient bronze.....and the most common are around 10%, and note I also said that the colour was 'closer' to brass than modern coppery/red bronzes, not identical and elsewhere said they could be hard to tell apart with the naked eye ( especially in differing light conditions!) I also said:-
it should be noted that 'modern' reddish bronzes such as phosphor bronze did not exist in ancient times
....in response to your reference to phosphor bronze - and you agreed that phosphor bronze did not exist back then !

Hi Paul!
I was, of course referring to this:

it should be noted that 'modern' reddish bronzes such as phosphor bronze did not exist in ancient times

The "such as", as you probably agree implies that you also mean all other reddish bronzes. Since this is not what you actually meant, we have had a nice misunderstanding.

True, I was using that helmet as an example of a 'yellow' looking bronze helmet - which it is, as even your photos demonstrate.

Well, I gave a lot of arguments why it may be not. Instead of repeating your argument, it might be better, i.e. more interesting for this discussion, for you to take position on those.

to a trained or discerning eye yellow 'bronze' can be distinguished from yellow 'brass' because one has a slightly 'warm' or 'rosy' hue and the other a 'cold' or greenish tint, but the distinction is subtle and a layman can easily mistake one for the other

I fully agree.

or even gold for that matter

I don´t agree. Gold is quite distinct.

A look at the two sites posted by Greg - Jeroen's and Neil's would seem to provide empirical evidence that 'ancient bronze' of around 10% tin is a decided gold/yellow colour ( which may have a rosy tint under certain lighting conditions). I also attach an actual example of a bronze sword found - which again is 'gold/yellow' coloured. The statements you have quoted would seem to be plainly wrong, since brass and bronze around 10% tin or zinc are 'gold/yellow' when new and polished - certainly not brownish-reddish! One need only look at Jeroen's and Neil's re-creations to see that. ( My father used to make brass artifacts when I was a boy, and used several types of brass, and coppery modern bronze, but I never saw anything a 'brownish-reddish' colour). Are those statements made in a different context perhaps??

Statements are bout how the metals reflect which wave lenghts of light at a full light spectrum.


How about this: I´ll make a 15% tin 85% copper bronze over christmas, and I´ll make a pic under natural light, after it is polished. Then we´ll see.

I don't believe you can extend a single find on a Roman site to cover Greek equipment of a different time period. Certainly only a small minority of helmets found show signs of 'tinning' - designed to give a 'silver' impression

What single find? There are quite a lot of finds there. But of course one cannot make this exemplary for the whole of antiquity... but then we don´t have that many sites, where we have hundreds of met. analyses, like Haltern.

As any restaurator will be able to tell you, tinning normally wears off in the ground. Most items that once were tinned show no or just few traces of tinning when found. I was just trying to include this as a possibility, which also has to be taken into account for our considerations.

The photographer used a reddish light because everyone knows bronze is supposed to be reddish, but in the more natural lighting conditions of the other two photos, the truer 'yellow/gold' colour is visible.......

Note that most lighting used (flash) has a certain light spectrum, which becomes even more visible when you make a picture. So any photographies made not under natural light are quite useless for a discussion of highly polished objects with an often mirror-like quality, methinks.
For a good explanation look here:
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