WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Ancient Sumer may have been the first civilization to start adding tin to copper to make bronze. Bronze was harder and more durable than copper, which made bronze a better metal for tools and weapons.

Detailed explanation-2: -Stone and clay moulds were used in the early Bronze Age for shaping objects such as spears and axes. On the far right is a flat stone incised with a hollow negative shape, which would have been used as a mould for molten metal (on loan from the National Museum of Ireland).

Detailed explanation-3: -Bronze tools and weapons, often interchangeable, included axes, shields and armour, swords, knives, hoards, spears, razors, helmets, cauldrons, buckets, horns and many other useful objects.

Detailed explanation-4: -3000 BC. Around 3000 BC, the manufacture of bronze spread from the early Mesopotamian cities to Persia where it was commonly used to create weapons, ornaments and fittings for chariots. One of the earliest well dated bronze objects, a knife, was found in the Gansu province of China which had been cast in a mold.