page_title: Brass
section_title: Brass making in the medieval period
hierarchical_section_title: Brass / History / Brass making in the medieval period
caption_attribution_description: Northern Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim (?) Aquamanile (Ewer), circa 1250 Metalwork, Brass (copper alloy), 10 1/2 x 11 7/8 x 3 7/8 in. (26.67 x 30.16 x 9.84 cm) Gift of Varya and Hans Cohn (AC1992.152.100) Wikipedia Loves Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art This photo of item # AC1992.152.100 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was contributed under the team name "team_a" as part of the Wikipedia Loves Art project in February 2009. Los Angeles County Museum of Art The original photograph on Flickr was taken by howcheng—please add a comment to the original Flickr page whenever a use has been made on Wikipedia or another project. Project galleries on Flickr: this institution, this team
context_page_description: Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, in proportions which can be varied to achieve varying mechanical and electrical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other within the same crystal structure.
  Brass is similar to bronze, another alloy containing copper that uses tin in place of zinc; both bronze and brass may include small proportions of a range of other elements including arsenic, lead, phosphorus, aluminum, manganese, and silicon. The distinction between the two alloys is largely historical, and modern practice in museums and archaeology increasingly avoids both terms for historical objects in favor of the more general "copper alloy".
  Brass has long been a popular material for decoration for its bright gold-like appearance, e.g. for drawer pulls and doorknobs. It has also been widely used for all sorts of utensils due to many properties, such as low melting point, workability, durability, electrical and thermal conductivity.
context_section_description: Little is known about the production of brass during the centuries immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Disruption in the trade of tin for bronze from Western Europe may have contributed to the increasing popularity of brass in the east and by the 6th–7th centuries AD over 90% of copper alloy artefacts from Egypt were made of brass. However other alloys such as low tin bronze were also used and they vary depending on local cultural attitudes, the purpose of the metal and access to zinc, especially between the Islamic and Byzantine world. Conversely the use of true brass seems to have declined in Western Europe during this period in favour of gunmetals and other mixed alloys but by about 1000 brass artefacts are found in Scandinavian graves in Scotland, brass was being used in the manufacture of coins in Northumbria and there is archaeological and historical evidence for the production of calamine brass in Germany and The Low Countries, areas rich in calamine ore.
  These places would remain important centres of brass making throughout the medieval period, especially Dinant.  Brass objects are still collectively known as dinanderie in French.  The baptismal font at St Bartholomew's Church, Liège in modern Belgium (before 1117) is an outstanding masterpiece of Romanesque brass casting, though also often described as bronze.  The metal of the early 12th-century Gloucester Candlestick is unusual even by medieval standards in being a mixture of copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, iron, antimony and arsenic with an unusually large amount of silver, ranging from 22.5% in the base to 5.76% in the pan below the candle.  The proportions of this mixture may suggest that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins, probably Late Roman.  Latten is a term for decorative borders and similar objects cut from sheet metal, whether of brass or bronze.  Aquamaniles were typically made in brass in both the European and Islamic worlds.
  The cementation process continued to be used but literary sources from both Europe and the Islamic world seem to describe variants of a higher temperature liquid process which took place in open-topped crucibles. Islamic cementation seems to have used zinc oxide known as tutiya or tutty rather than zinc ores for brass-making, resulting in a metal with lower iron impurities. A number of Islamic writers and the 13th century Italian Marco Polo describe how this was obtained by sublimation from zinc ores and condensed onto clay or iron bars, archaeological examples of which have been identified at Kush in Iran. It could then be used for brass making or medicinal purposes. In 10th century Yemen al-Hamdani described how spreading al-iglimiya, probably zinc oxide, onto the surface of molten copper produced tutiya vapor which then reacted with the metal. The 13th century Iranian writer al-Kashani describes a more complex process whereby tutiya was mixed with raisins and gently roasted before being added to the surface of the molten metal. A temporary lid was added at this point presumably to minimise the escape of zinc vapor.
  In Europe a similar liquid process in open-topped crucibles took place which was probably less efficient than the Roman process and the use of the term tutty by Albertus Magnus in the 13th century suggests influence from Islamic technology. The 12th century German monk Theophilus described how preheated crucibles were one sixth filled with powdered calamine and charcoal then topped up with copper and charcoal before being melted, stirred then filled again. The final product was cast, then again melted with calamine. It has been suggested that this second melting may have taken place at a lower temperature to allow more zinc to be absorbed. Albertus Magnus noted that the "power" of both calamine and tutty could evaporate and described how the addition of powdered glass could create a film to bind it to the metal. 
  German brass making crucibles are known from Dortmund dating to the 10th century AD and from Soest and Schwerte in Westphalia dating to around the 13th century confirm Th
caption: Brass aquamanile from Lower Saxony, Germany, c. 1250
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