New finds from the Antikythera wreck

[Duncan Head]

Including a "giant bronze spear", but it's probably only from a statue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29557384

[Jim Webster]

Including a "giant bronze spear", but it's probably only from a statue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29557384

Certainly if the shaft was bronze you'd assume so.

Interesting thought, did they use different bronze alloys for statues and weapons?

Jim

[Imperial Dave]

I will leave the definitive to those better placed to answer other than to say that the modern analogy does exist with reenactment weapons. If you want a fancy looking sword or spear, you can have one made relatively cheaply. If you want one that will put up with the rigeurs of combat, you can get one made and the two will be made differently. I am guessing that potentially, statue bronze would not be as tough/hard/expensive/complicated to make (circle all those that apply!) as combat versions?

[Patrick Waterson]

According to this Wikipedia article there were two basic types of bronze in use in the 'Bronze Age' and these seem to have set the pattern for those which followed.  To quote:

In the Bronze Age, two forms of bronze were commonly used: "classic bronze", about 10% tin, was used in casting; and "mild bronze", about 6% tin, was hammered from ingots to make sheets. Bladed weapons were mostly cast from classic bronze, while helmets and armor were hammered from mild bronze. On one definition, modern "statuary bronze" is 90% copper and 10% tin.

Statues seem to have used, then as now, 'classic bronze', and numbers of them seem to have been melted down to make weapons during difficult times.  Bronze has the appealing quality (for sculptors) that it expands while cooling, thus taking into itself every detail of the mould, and then shrinks slightly, which makes it easy to part from the mould.

Hence it looks as if 'weapons grade' bronze was also 'statue grade' bronze, with armour (including helmets) instead being made from the more malleable 'mild bronze'.

[Dave Beatty]

Indeed, we found a number of Hellenistic and Roman period shipwrecks in the Med in the mid-1990s that turned out to be carrying scrap bronze obviously meant to be taken somewhere to be melted down.  I don't recall the particulars, we (I was serving with the US Navy at the time) merely located the wrecks (using various methods, mostly forward or side-scanning sonar, sometimes in conjunction with the US NOAA and the folks at Woods Hole) and notified various national authorities (we also found quite a few aircraft wrecks, most from WW II).

Here is some of what we found: http://www.helleniccomserve.com/mcannlecture.html

Dave

[Sharur]

Fascinating, Dave. Be interesting to know if similar work has been carried out elsewhere - Red Sea, Gulf, coastal Indian Ocean, for instance - given the evidence for water-borne trade across those waters anciently too.