07-23-2013, 01:18 PM
Copper oxides, like those often found in bronze or brass cookpots and other containers, are toxic. As with most metal poisoning, the toxins are cumulative. In other words, the mercury you played with as a kid, some of which entered your body, is still there.
Metal poisons don't go away. If you want to make a canteen of metal, I'd suggest tin instead of copper. It is not toxic. The often copied metal "canteen" was more likely an oil container. Oils soak into pottery, and can go rancid, which affects the next oil that's put into the container. So pottery amphorae for oil were not used over and over. Too much risk of spoiling the next batch. Tin: that's the ticket.
Then the question becomes what shape to make it. We don't really know much about individual water containers, but most likely they were water-skins, such as are used by peoples everywhere before the entrance of Evian and its genre of bottled water. Glass is another possibility, but it has its own set of difficulties.
Metal poisons don't go away. If you want to make a canteen of metal, I'd suggest tin instead of copper. It is not toxic. The often copied metal "canteen" was more likely an oil container. Oils soak into pottery, and can go rancid, which affects the next oil that's put into the container. So pottery amphorae for oil were not used over and over. Too much risk of spoiling the next batch. Tin: that's the ticket.
Then the question becomes what shape to make it. We don't really know much about individual water containers, but most likely they were water-skins, such as are used by peoples everywhere before the entrance of Evian and its genre of bottled water. Glass is another possibility, but it has its own set of difficulties.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
