Some Copper History

- One of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls found in Israel is made of

copper instead of fragile animal skins. The scroll

contains clues to a still undiscovered treasure.

- Archeologists have recovered a portion of a water plumbing

system from the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt. After

5,000 years, the copper tubing was still in serviceable condition.

- A copper frying pan at the University of Pennsylvania's

museum has been dated to be more than 50 centuries old.

- When Columbus sailed to America, his ships (Nina, Pinta, and

Santa Maria) had copper skins below the water line.

The copper sheathing extended hull life and protected against

barnacles and other types of biofouling. Today, most

sea-going vessels use a copper-based paint for hull protection.

Archaeological evidence indicates that copper was used as far

back as 10,000 years ago in western Asia. During the

prehistoric Chalcolithic Period, societies discovered how to

extract and use copper to produce ornaments and

implements. As early as the 3rd-4th Millennium BC, copper was

actively extracted from Spain's Huelva region.

Around 2500 BC, the discovery of useful properties of copper-

tin alloys led to the Bronze Age.

It has been documented that Israel's Timna Valley provided

copper for the Pharaohs. Papyrus records from ancient

Egypt reveal that copper was used to treat infections and

sterilize water. The island of Cyprus is known to have

supplied much of the copper needed for the empires of ancient

Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome.

While the Greeks during Aristotle's era were familiar with brass,

it was not until Augustus' Imperial Rome that brass

became abundantly used. In South America, the pre-Columbian

Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations exploited

copper, as well as gold and silver. During the Middle Ages,

copper and bronze flourished in China, India, and Japan.

The discoveries and inventions in the late 18th and early 19th

Centuries by Ampere, Faraday, and Ohm propelled

copper into a new era. Demonstrating excellent electrical

conducting and heat transfer characteristics, copper played

a pivotal role in launching the Industrial Revolution.