Copper in Ancient India c10.s5.1

c10.s5.1

From the fact that brass was designated as an alloy by the thirteenth century, it might follow that at least from that time onwards brass was manufactured in India by melting the two metals. But as zinc was not generally recognised as a metal, and as brass was not generally recognised as an alloy of zinc before the sixteenth century, we cannot be certain of the fact that brass was manufactured in India directly from its constituent metals before that century. It is true that zinc was first distilled in India, as has already been stated, as early as the seventh century so that it may be presumed that brass was manufactured directly from zinc from that time onwards, but as direct evidence on that point is lacking the point cannot be urged with sufficient emphasis. Again we might be permitted to assert that brass was manufactured in India directly from zinc from the thirteenth century (i.e. at least three or four centuries earlier than in Europe) as it was recognised as an alloy at that time, but as the fact of its being prepared directly from the metals copper and zinc has been openly mentioned only in works of the sixteenth century and later (see before), it is safest to conclude that brass was undoubtedly manufactured in India directly from zinc from the sixteenth century onwards. Even then India was ahead of Europe in this respect by a century, as in Europe brass was manufactured directly from zinc not earlier than the last part of the seventeenth century.