Copper Atomic number 29 Copperness Commentary

Middle East elements

Copper

• A copper pendant found
• in northern Iraq
• from 8700 BCE.
• Copper beads buried
• in Anatolian ruins
• at Çatalhöyük
• around 7500 BCE.
• By this time people knew
• how to work native copper,
• how to anneal it,
• how to smelt it from copper ore
• and how to cast it using the lost wax method.
• The Romans mined it in Crete
• hence our name for it:
• coper, cuprum, Kuprios, Kupros.

Atomic number 29

• People began to depend on copper
• in the Copper Age, the Chalcolithic,
• between the Neolithic
• and the Bronze Age.
• Copper is associated
• with Venus and Aphrodite
• because of its beauty, its use in making mirrors,
• and its source in Cyprus, sacred to the goddesses.
• Bronze is an alloy of copper
• and arsenic or tin to make the metal harder.
• The earliest copper-tin bronze, from 4500 BCE,
• has been found in Serbia.
• Trading of copper and tin
• influenced the development of culture.
• Tin ore from Cornwall
• was traded as far as Phoenicia.
• Julius Caesar made his coins of brass
• an alloy of copper and zinc.
• Octavianus Augustus Caesar made his
• of an alloy of copper, lead, and tin.
• The gates of the Temple of Jerusalem were
• an alloy of copper, silver, and gold.
• The telescope mirrors
• of Newton, Herschel, and Parson
• were speculum, an alloy
• of copper and one-third tin.
• Bells are cast of bell metal,
• an alloy of copper and one-fifth tin,
• and Buddhist singing bowls are made
• of bell metal, too, with 23% tin.
• Lanthanum barium copper oxide
• was the first material
• found to be superconducting
• above the boiling temperature of liquid nitrogen.

Copperness

• Aged verdigris
• of gutters, downspouts, and Miss Liberty,
• or copper pennies
• tarnished or shiny
• copper pipes and wires
• and the copper bottoms of
• Mom’s Revere Ware pots
• have warm associations
• ember of campfire
• color of sunset
• evoking the joy of being curious.