Giannis vs Polinik on the color of bronze :)

[Paullus Scipio]

It is a curious thing, but a quick survey reveals that whilst there could be a variety of shades of bronze, depending on the exact mixture in the alloy, most ancient bronzes are around 10% or so tin, and are distinctly 'yellowish' rather than coppery red. The British Museum, for example, refers in its various literature to "the bright golden colour of bronze", and a Chinese museum, when creating a 'virtual new' representation of a cauldron from 800 BC refers to "returning the bronze to its original shiny gold colour", and between these two are many more references to 'golden' or 'yellow' being the normal most common colour for ancient bronze....

Ancient literature and iconography too refers to 'yellow' and 'golden' bronze, and in painting bronze is almost invariably depicted in yellow, not orange or red.....

In looking at various modern shades we find that 20% tin gives a very golden colour, 10% a distinctly golden yellow colour, but at 8% tin the bronze starts to take on a distinctly 'pinkish' tone quite suddenly.....

[unfounded ad hominem remarks culled by moderator]

I don´t agree. Gold is quite distinct.

I think that depends on the experience of the beholder - after all, we have the fact of Helots believing gold was bronze, and in Giannis' post he refers to asking if the shiny 'yellow' bronze greaves were gilded, and I have even seen museum descriptions describing 'yellow' bronze armour as "gilded" when it is not.....

[unfounded ad hominem remarks culled by moderator]

What single find? There are quite a lot of finds there. But of course one cannot make this exemplary for the whole of antiquity... but then we don´t have that many sites, where we have hundreds of met. analyses, like Haltern.

Apologies for any confusion - I meant that Haltern is a single site from a fairly narrow period ( even if many artifacts are found there), and as you yourself point out, it can hardly be regarded as exemplary for the whole of antiquity, and certainly not for the Greek/Hellenistic period.

Note that most lighting used (flash) has a certain light spectrum, which becomes even more visible when you make a picture. So any photographies made not under natural light are quite useless for a discussion of highly polished objects with an often mirror-like quality, methinks.

I think we are all in agreement on this - see my earlier post, and also Dan and Giannis' posts....