Abstract
Bronze has been utilized by human civilization for the past five millennia, and societies across the globe have mined, extracted, and purified copper and tin to create bronze alloys. Due to the different mineral composition of ores and the varying techniques involved with metal smelting, bronze artifacts from around the world often have very different chemical compositions. The determination of chemical composition is often invasive and expensive, and is usually conducted in laboratories. We previously developed an inexpensive and mobile test to identify metal alloys based on their magnetic signatures. We demonstrated that metals of different compositions would exhibit different electrical conductivity, and thus different magnetic field strengths when evoked by different levels of electric current. In this manuscript, we now detail the experiment protocol to produce evoked dynamic electromagnetic signals from bronze alloys, and the capture of signals with the smartphone magnetometer.
Highlights
Copper was the first metal widely utilized across the ancient world
Copper and bronze metal disks were mounted onto the platform and the smartphone was stabilized above the specimen for magnetic field detection
Bronze artifacts are valued for their luster and durability and have been continuously produced across the world since the dawn of the Bronze Age in 3300 BC
Summary
Copper was the first metal widely utilized across the ancient world. Shiny luster, and natural existence as native copper allowed this metal to be noticed and collected. Mesopotamian metalsmiths were able to cold hammer native copper into pins and awls around 6500 - 5500 BC (Gale et al, 1985). The supply of native copper was limited. Copper only became widely available after man learned to harvest copper through smelting ores, from which pure copper could be isolated after a series of heating and reduction-oxidation reactions using forced air and charcoal (Muhly, 1985). Copper was soft and had limited durability as tools and weapons (Curry, 2020).
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