The Bronze Age, which began about 5,000 years ago, marked a significant shift in human civilization. The advent of metallurgy allowed for the creation of new tools and weapons that were much more effective than the previous materials, such as stone. Copper was particularly useful because it hardened when struck with a hammer and could be melted and poured into molds to make standard items. Additionally, copper could be improved by mixing it with tin, forming a new alloy that was even stronger and easier to work with.
The earliest bronze artifacts date back around 8,000 years, while gold objects appeared several thousand years later. At this time, the technology needed to extract iron from rock had not yet been developed. However, the ancient Egyptians did make some objects from meteoric iron. One such object is a dagger found in the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun, which was made from meteoric iron and dates back to around 1323-1324 BC (bottom). This dagger has been studied extensively over the years and is currently on display at the British Museum (top).
Initially, prehistoric people could only exploit metals in their primary form, meaning they existed in lumps and were not mixed with other elements in rocks. Therefore, they did not need to go through an extraction process but could be collected by sifting in rivers or digging in the soil. However, as technological advances continued during the Bronze Age, humans began to experiment with adding zinc and other metals to copper. These experiments led to the creation of many different alloys that had various uses. For example, bronze was used for creating tools and weapons because it was softer than pure copper but still strong enough to be worked with easily.
Eventually, humans figured out how to smelt iron from rock using high-temperature furnaces and blowpipes. This discovery marked the end of the Bronze Age and led to the Iron Age. While iron is harder than bronze alloys when struck with a hammer
