Giannis vs Polinik on the color of bronze :)

[Polinik]

This is to shift the discussion(we had long ago) form the artwork section because I don't want to spoil it any more. I address all but since I had a conversation with Giannis I will address him directly.

Giannis,
Sorry for replying so late but I have drifted away from my hobby for a while..More importantly we agree on the most of the stuff,but I also agree we disagree one some.

1. If you think all all non yellow color on helmets is just patina, than it would have to be 'fine’ natural protective layer that would be visible on every bronze item,including the golden ones you provided,regardless of where they lay and how well they are preserved.(and I have seen better preserved helmets than those greaves)So it is obviously alloy that makes them different in appearance.

2. I may be wrong but how can we know what is,for LATE CLASSICAL Xenophon, polishing to preserve bronze from rust,and what is ''Manning imperial'' 2500rpm high polish? Patina is a natural protective layer of bronze but it too has to be maintained in order to keep the bronze healthy and not develop ‘bronze decease’. Low polish is not the same as ''Manning Imperial'' polish,but both are de facto polishes. I have seen the statue that is maintained by polish(not high polish),and will be happy to take pictures as soon as I can.

3. You gave good examples for greaves,but I argue that has to do with alloy only,not preservation (and are those archaic even?)..I have seen many south italian pieces made from softer bronze,even in 6th BC,and even in the poorest ones you can see golden color in some places.While Greek yellow ones mostly came from ‘cheap’ Classical times,that is hardly a coincidence..and especially 4th BC onward.Don't know why is that however,probably due to cost and overall cheapness of late Classical times.

4. If it was typical for bronze to be gold like don’t you think Helots would be able to tell apart those two very different metals after Plateia, and not mix them up.Since as even you say they would be in enough contact with bronze,either looking or polishing? But on the other hand if they are not used to golden appearance of bronze,they could have mixed it up with gold logically.

5. Why would they polish helmet for example to the high shine golden (and not all bronzes must be golden shine when high polished but never mind that for now) if all other bronzes even armor were not? From furniture pieces,garments,statues etc..many could not even be polished to high shine,even if someone wanted to..Laconian pottery samples are even painted in black to mimic the(grey olive color of) bronze? So according to you they have what - double standards to what is pretty?

6.What is the purpose of wearing golden pieces of armor or, on armor (heroes, kings), if everything already looks like gold,even the poorest hoplite?

7. And finally,how in a World do you high polish these? (please forgive for the number of pictures below and the length of post,I have more but restrained myself from posting all)




As for my assumptions, I base them on much stronger grounds than many ‘facts’ known about Spartans for example.

- What is the evidence of linen armor in late archaic or any other Spartan? (you defend this one)
- What is the evidence of checkered crest holders made of non metal material...pottery and absence of evidence right??
- What is the evidence of ‘red’ chiton uniformity prior to 430-420 BC?
- What is the evidence of so called ‘muscle curiass’ ever being used in Sparta,or any other city in Persian wars?
- Evidence of painting horsehair in vivid colors – there are few horsehair colors in horses, but I never saw bright red horse,or blue one ?
- And more controversially,what is the evidence of shield paintings in Archaic era...pottery??

I already debated colors in pottery had to be used both for materials and paint?How do we tell them apart?
They had to be used as symbols (purple armor could have been only symbolizing the high status hoplite,not his actual color)
And in most cases colors were just for the purpose of contrast and pure artistic license...And Aristotle put artists in a well deserved place... completely ignorant of their representations

Etc..not wanting a discussion really, just illustrating

I don’t argue golden is wrong(anymore) I rather argue it is far from uniform color of bronze,with probably 120 shades existing,from golden,over liverish to gray. And gray examples are not just natural patina. Asked...Same as I argue bronze devices are a standard and paint is a REPLACEMENT for those who could not afford it..Most could probably not afford breastplate but we don’t say breastplate was a parade luxury. :!:

I did stress over and over my respect to the reenactor work,especially of the few who actually do research. But to quote Athanasios Porporis, ‘’There will always be a difference of opinion between historical academia and reenactor’s (their poorer cousine)’’

And honestly I think much of the facts are twisted more or less to fit what reenactor can afford or are able to manufacture in modern times,very different than ancient.
Most of you probably think if you acknowledged the unrecoverable failure in some area,such as shield rimming,chiton material or devices you will become mediocres..(I don't think that by the way)
And because of that we have some theories out of nowhere such as bronze shield rims and devices are for parades only,and metal decoration in engrave or emboss is also for parade...and paint that we have never ever found for archaic hoplites is a way to go – because that is something reenactors can reconstruct, and afford..

What suits you, you will defend vigorously and try to milk the vaguest of pottery interpretations, but what doesn’t you will discard even if material evidence exists. And I think all went way to far in terms of credit for authenticity given to the reenactors,sorry to say that. I understood your work as reenactors as a hobby paying respect to the ancestors and enjoying making all the stuff yourself.But using you(reenactors) as a reference in history books, or tv is a bit over the top. You are not museum curators or work on museum reconstruction. That is what I think Porporis wanted to say,or I say at least. Again,no offense meant.

And I will not ever try to remedy that,as i realize I am in the shrine of reenactors. But that is the fact.

Again, you can answer but I am not asking for it.I barely have the time for this as it is,so my reply may come late.
But even though we disagree I hope our hot temper won’t cause it to go too far,as I still have much respect for your work of course,especially as a Greek.

Keep up the good work,Giannis,and I wish you all best

[Polinik]

I could not find this one before...I would really want to know how could that illustration from the left be accurate if porpax was not made out of pure gold???

How do you high polish this much detail,and in those dimensions?

[Athena Areias]

Jumping in really late!

Anecdote: I just purchased some bronze wire for another project. It is 90% copper and 10% tin. No trace elements of any kind, It looks like yellow 22 carat gold. I was very surprised. If we could get 90/10 bronze sheet, we would all be golden! Just sayin'...

As to a high polish for detailed bronze pieces, don't. Use a vinegar/salt mix to remove the bronze oxidation/patina, rinse, dry, and buff the piece by hand to bring down the "pink" - you pull some copper to the surface chemically. That's what I will be doing to my new decorated greaves to clean the forge grunge from them.

[M. Demetrius]

Someone suggested using talcum powder on a moist cloth to bring up a high polish. I have not tried that yet.

[Gregory J. Liebau]

Some good examples of polished bronze made with typical bronze age alloys would be from Jeroen Zuiderwijk's and Neil Burridge's reproduction castings. The two men cast using historic methods and often smelt their own bronze using period-correct percentages of alloy. As far as I'm aware, all of the images I linked below are hand-polished. I own some bronze reproductions that maintain their shine if they are wiped down with oil or even just buffed every month or so. A very gold-like finish can be achieved and maintained with relative ease as long as the bronze is not neglected for long periods of time in poor conditions. I cannot see how anyone could ever consider it logical to allow bronze that was in use to develop its natural patina... This finish would long periods of time to create and would also be extremely hard to maintain during use.

As to the example about the helots and their confusion of the metals... Well, the helots would hardly have any contact with gold, as even their Spartan masters had little use of the metal considering their Lycurgan attitude towards superfluous material wealth. If helots were suddenly put into contact with typical polished bronze and gold items, I can see it being very easy to mistake one for the other. If they were used to bronze being green on the other hand, it would be obvious what was gold or not...

Anyway, some of the men's bronze work.

Jeroen's Site

Neil's site

Some examples of the finish on their hand-polished works.

Jeroen...





Neil...

[Paullus Scipio]

Polinik wrote"

How do you high polish this much detail,and in those dimensions?

Easy one, as anyone who has had to polish ornate military badges ( like the famous Australian rising sun badge) can tell you!! :wink:

You work up the crevices with a toothbrush and soft brush, such as a clean shoe-polishing brush.......

Here is a photo from Peter Connolly's "Greece and Rome at War" of an ORIGINAL late 6 C BC (c.500 BC)Corinthian helmet from Sicily which was found with equally 'yellow' greaves......

I am a little surprised to see this debate, since I thought most people knew that whilst ancient bronzes varied, they were closer to modern 'yellowish' brass in appearance than modern 'reddish' bronze.....

[Matthew Amt]

I'll just throw in a few comments/responses.

5. Why would they polish helmet for example to the high shine golden (and not all bronzes must be golden shine when high polished but never mind that for now) if all other bronzes even armor were not?

Sure, why not? And are we sure that things like furniture parts were not generally shiny? (Just curious, I have not researched this!)

Laconian pottery samples are even painted in black to mimic the(grey olive color of) bronze? So according to you they have what - double standards to what is pretty?

Sure, why not? Different standards of "appropriate" for different items. We don't tend to see cars decorated like neckties, after all--well, okay, different materials! How about things like modern window drapes, carpets, and even the fabric coverings of office cubicles, those are never the same as business suits, yet all are fabric, and even found in the same offices. It's just style. IF black pottery was supposed to mimic bronze (does an ancient source say so?), all it means is that cookpots got blackened, or that bronze storage vessels were not polished.

6.What is the purpose of wearing golden pieces of armor or, on armor (heroes, kings), if everything already looks like gold,even the poorest hoplite?

Gold is different enough from bronze that those who are important can tell. Plus, the "poorest" hoplite won't have nearly so much metal as the wealthier ones.

I did stress over and over my respect to the reenactor work,especially of the few who actually do research. But to quote Athanasios Porporis, ‘’There will always be a difference of opinion between historical academia and reenactor’s (their poorer cousine)’’

In my experience, the average reenactor knows a LOT more about arms and armor in general than the average academic! Even archeologists come up with howlers on a regular basis.

And honestly I think much of the facts are twisted more or less to fit what reenactor can afford or are able to manufacture in modern times,very different than ancient.

That does happen, though it shouldn't. Sure, we have to go with what we can get or make ourselves, but we just need to acknowledge to our audience if we deviate from reality or normality.

What suits you, you will defend vigorously and try to milk the vaguest of pottery interpretations, but what doesn’t you will discard even if material evidence exists.

That's a little harsh, though again it certainly does happen. Could be worse, we could be environmental scientists...

You are not museum curators or work on museum reconstruction.

You mean the curators that buy modern acid-dipped Indian-made $75 trooper helmets for tens of thousands of dollars? Those curators? Being able to handle numerous artifacts is a huge advantage, obviously, but if a curator has never seen a piece of *polished* bronze, he can hardly claim to know that much more about the subject than a reenactor.

I would really want to know how could that illustration from the left be accurate if porpax was not made out of pure gold???

Looks just like polished bronze to me! At least, it's no shinier than all *my* brass and bronze armor and weaponry, if I don't let them get all tarnished and finger-printy. Gold just has a different color.

In other hopefully less-snarky comments, I'm still a little curious about the idea that ancient bronzes were more like modern brass in color. That isn't what I'm seeing when I compare polished modern brass items (I have a couple different brass Roman helmets) to copper-tin alloys such as Neil Burridge's swords. Brass just has a more yellow-white shade, while the bronze has a rosier tint. The modern "bronze" that I have is probably mostly "commercial bronze", 90/10 copper/*zinc*, and it's different from both the "yellow" brass and the bronze. It can be subtle! Obviously the shades varied according to the exact alloy, which could include lead and other trace elements as well as copper and tin, but I still don't see them looking quite like modern yellow brass.

Khairete,

Matthew

[Athena Areias]

Matt,

If I have any wire left, I will get a piece to you. My brass helmet is a richer, deeper yellow than the 90/10 bronze wire. The wire is a paler yellow. Since it is fully polished, it glistens in the light. My helmet is closer to the wire shade than commercial bronze - that's definitely "pinkish".

[caiusbeerquitius]

The colour simply depends on the amount of tin. While alloys under 10 % have a reddish colour, alloys over 10% tin have a more yellowish colour. You can also "play" with the colours, as on the Haltern helmet, which had a reddish brow guard and a yellowish skull. Generally it seem: the earlier, the less tin. But there are also early examples with high tin content. Zink alloys are rather rare before Caesar, but exist here and there, e.g. there seems to be a "brass" Negau helmet from the black sea area. Then there are the arsenic and phosphorous bronze alloys, which also are of the reddish variant, unless zinc / tin in enough quantities is also present.

[Paullus Scipio]

The colour simply depends on the amount of tin. While alloys under 10 % have a reddish colour, alloys over 10% tin have a more yellowish colour. You can also "play" with the colours, as on the Haltern helmet, which had a reddish brow guard and a yellowish skull. Generally it seem: the earlier, the less tin. But there are also early examples with high tin content. Zink alloys are rather rare before Caesar, but exist here and there, e.g. there seems to be a "brass" Negau helmet from the black sea area. Then there are the arsenic and phosphorous bronze alloys, which also are of the reddish variant, unless zinc / tin in enough quantities is also present.

Whilst the above is largely true, it should be noted that 'modern' reddish bronzes such as phosphor bronze did not exist in ancient times. Most ancient 'bronze' can not be distinguished from brass by the naked eye. ( bronze is technically copper and tin, with often traces of other metals, while brass is copper and zinc)
Indeed, ancient varieties are so different from modern 'bronze', that there is a trend for museums to label artifacts "copper alloy" rather than "bronze".

Bronze is any alloy that is 85-95% copper, with the other 5-15% made up of mainly of tin or arsenic, though other metals can be present in small amounts. It turns out that this range of chemistry produces an alloy that is harder than copper even though it melts at a lower temperature. A low amount of tin or arsenic does not improve the copper enough, and a higher amount makes the alloy so brittle that it is useless. Tin bronze is not too difficult to work, and melts at 950 degrees C rather than the 1084 degrees C of copper, making it easier to cast. Both bronzes make strong hard tools and weapons that retain an edge as well or better than stone, once they are strengthened by hammering. Other metal alloys were not available to bronze-smiths. Zinc (which alloys with copper to make brass) or nickel are rarer and much more difficult to smelt, and antimony/copper alloys are brittle......

Copper smelting needs a great deal of fuel, especially if the ore supply is dominantly sulfide. About 300 kg of charcoal are needed to produce 1 kg of copper by smelting 30 kg of sulfide ore. A tonne of charcoal needs somewhere between 12 and 20 cubic meters of wood - and that is a lot of wood!

.....Theodore Wertime suggested that massive deforestation of the eastern Mediterranean began about 1200 BC, for construction, lime kilning, and ore smelting. Probably it began earlier in the drier regions further east. King Hammurabi's laws (around 1750 BC) carried the death penalty for unauthorized felling of trees in Mesopotamia. The problem may have been even worse in intensive metal-working regions like Anatolia. Metal smelting and forging had been going on in Anatolia for at least 3000 years by 1200 BC......

As an example,Cyprus has extraordinary copper deposits that were mined in ancient and classical times: the name for the metal in all Western European languages is derived from the Latin 'aes cyprium' which means "Cypriot copper."
Once smelting of sulfide ores became economic from about 1600 BC, Cyprus became a vital link in the trade of Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age cultures for 500 years, serving not just as a convenient island in the center of many trade routes, but producing large quantities of copper for export. Every major copper body mined in the early 20th century in Cyprus had already been discovered and mined in ancient and/or classical times. Altogether, Cyprus has more than 40 slag heaps containing more than 4 million tonnes of historic slag, showing the massive scale of the industry over time. The Cyprian copper/bronze industry collapsed around 300AD, not because ore ran out but because there was no fuel - the once fully forested island having become completely de-forested, with consequent erosion etc providing an early example of man's ability to destroy an environment......

[Matthew Amt]

Most ancient 'bronze' can not be distinguished from brass by the naked eye.

Well, if ancient bronze is anything like the alloys used by Neil Burridge for his swords (copper with 10 to 15 percent tin), the difference is very obvious to me! Unfortunately I seem to have only one small crappy photo of different items side-by-side:



The second, third, and fourth swords from the top are by Neil (I did the hilts). The knife at the bottom I made myself from regular yellow brass stock. Even in this poorly-lit photo you can see the color difference, and it is just as apparent. (The other 3 blades are "mystery meat", don't even worry about them!) Neil is widely recognized for his expertise in ancient metallurgy, so I really don't think he's gotten something significantly wrong. Ancient bronze and modern brass just don't look at all the same to me. How the heck are we looking at supposedly the same alloys and apparently seeing very different colors? It's puzzling...

Copper smelting needs a great deal of fuel, especially if the ore supply is dominantly sulfide. About 300 kg of charcoal are needed to produce 1 kg of copper by smelting 30 kg of sulfide ore. A tonne of charcoal needs somewhere between 12 and 20 cubic meters of wood - and that is a lot of wood!

I used to think the same thing, but Jeroen Zuiderwijk (another recognized expert bronze caster) has recently done some smelting.

http://1501bc.com/smelting/copper_smelting_en.html

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_C ... topic=1482

Granted, there could be a big difference in ore types and quality, charcoal quality, furnace efficiency, etc. So where did we get those bigger numbers?

More puzzles! Khairete,

Matthew

[Gregory J. Liebau]

I too have owned Neil's tin-bronze blades and compared them to modern brasses. The colors are quite distinctive, as Matt says. If you have a similar finish on almost any alloys of differing ingredients, there are typically going to be noticeable differences between them when viewed under scrutiny, most often regarding the color.

-Gregory

[John Conyard]

This is all very interesting. I have a house full of copper alloy helmets etc. including some of Neil's swords. But I am cetainly no expert!

I have always understood as others have said that the colour comes down to the exact alloy of copper used, and that zinc gives a more yellow brass-like colour compared to tin which gives a redder colour. I also have been given to believe that copper/zinc is something we find in the Italy and the west (Roman) while copper/tin is more Hellenistic and eastern.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Whilst the above is largely true, it should be noted that 'modern' reddish bronzes such as phosphor bronze did not exist in ancient times. Most ancient 'bronze' can not be distinguished from brass by the naked eye. ( bronze is technically copper and tin, with often traces of other metals, while brass is copper and zinc)
Indeed, ancient varieties are so different from modern 'bronze', that there is a trend for museums to label artifacts "copper alloy" rather than "bronze".

Paul,
1. please look, e.g., at the metallurgical analysis of finds at Haltern or Kempten. What you say is not true.
2. ancient bronze can not be distinguished from brass when there is a patina on it. That´s why the museums label "copper alloy", when there is no metallurgical analysis. Good publications try to find out the difference with metallurgical analysis (Haltern again, e.g.)
3. removing patina does not necessarily show the original colour. When in ground or in water e.g. the tin may "move" towards the surface of the metal over time, resulting in a different colour on the surface than the one it originally had. Same can happen when heating a metal. If you want to see the original colour, you need to know the alloy and re-make it.

The "yellow" helmet from munich / sicily looks in natural light like this:

[Dan Howard]

I have to agree. It is very easy to tell the difference between a copper-tin alloy and a copper-zinc alloy if they are new-cast and polished. There is more red in the tin alloy. It is a "warmer" colour. I tend to see a "greenish" hue in bass. As has been said, once they develop a patina and/or have been buried for a long time, you need metallurgical analysis to tell them apart.