ShmoopTube

00:02

Bet we know the question that keeps you up at night… [Person asleep in bed with an eye mask on]

00:05

"If copper was so mushy, why didn't people just use bronze?

00:09

No, just us at night thinking about that?

00:11

…well, good for you…we haven't had a good night's sleep in decades. [Man slurps his coffee]

00:14

Anyway, bronze isn't a naturally occurring metal. [Man picks lump of bronze off a tree]

00:17

It has to be intentionally made by humans.

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People couldn't just whip up a batch of bronze on a leisurely Sunday afternoon. [Woman in kitchen making bronze]

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First, we need copper.

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And through a little movie magic…boom.

00:28

Copper.

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Done.

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Then we need another natural metal called tin. [Several empty tins]

00:34

And believe it or not, ancient folks couldn't just root around in their cupboards for tin [Caveman opens a cupboard to find tinfoil]

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foil…

00:39

…they usually only had Saran wrap back then.

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But most major centers of civilization did manage to trade or mine it. [Man trading cattle for tin]

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So after we have our copper and tin ready to go, we need to mix them together.

00:52

That means that both metals have to be heated to blistering temperatures. [Woman puts copper and tin in a mixing bowl]

00:55

We're talking 1000 degrees, which is roughly the temperature of soup after we try to microwave [Soup in a microwave]

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it.

01:01

This turns them into liquids.

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The two liquids can then be mixed and poured into molds to cool.

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Like Jello molds…

01:09

…but deadly.

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Sometimes those molds were the shape of the final product, like daggers or shields. [Collection of daggers and shields]

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And sometimes the molds were just generic blocks that could be heated and reworked later.

01:19

No word on whether or not they used the always-classy poop emoji mold. [Woman pouring molten bronze into a mold]

01:24

So there are several reasons why bronze rules and copper drools. [Bronze looking happy and copper looking sad]

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First of all, bronze is way harder, its a firmer metal.

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Seriously, bronze is just as hard as early iron, which made it the perfect material for

01:36

hacking apart your enemies limbs. [Man chucks a bronze sword and kills 3 soldiers]

01:38

…We said that more cheerfully than we meant to.

01:41

…We promise, we're not sociopaths.

01:42

…Moving right along…

01:44

Bronze doesn’t corrode. [Bronze statue]

01:46

Copper corrodes like crazy, and even iron rusts. [Copper looks worried as it begins to corrode]

01:49

That's why most sculptures you see in parks are made out of bird poop. [Statue covered in bird poop]

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…Oh, and bronze.

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Sometimes it's hard to see underneath the layer of poop.

01:58

Alright well here’s the kicker…

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Even though bronze was a much harder metal, all the copper in it made it more flexible [Iron gets tired doing jumping jacks and copper carries on]

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than iron.

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That meant it was less likely to snap or crack under pressure. [Man snaps his back doing yoga]

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Unlike us.

02:13

…Seriously, we're not sociopaths…

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So why didn't everyone run out and get a grab bag of bronze weapons? ['Bronze' handing over a bag of bronze weapons to a kid at a birthday party]

02:19

Like most things in life, it was all about the Benjamins.

02:22

Bronze was just too expensive. [Man looks shocked at bronze receipt]

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Copper wasn't cheap, but there was a lot more of it lying around.

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Plus, tin was rare enough that long trade routes crisscrossed the Old World just to [Man chucks a spear at a wild boar]

02:32

support the tin trade.

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And to top it all off, the process of making bronze required oodles of skill, time, and [Man working on bronze]

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fuel to make a 1000 degree fire.

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They couldn’t just stick it in a microwave back then.

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Which…come to think of it…would’ve been a bad idea for multiple reasons. [The microwave explodes]

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All these things meant that arming an entire army with bronze weapons was pretty pricey.

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Actually…scratch that: it was impossible.

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Sorry, to crush anyone’s bronze army dreams.

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Now if you'd excuse us, we're going to go see how expensive a poop emoji jello mold

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is….

03:02

….don't judge us, it really does sound hilarious. [Man pouring molten bronze into the poop mold]

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