Copper in Ancient India c5.4

c5.4

As regards the important alloys of copper, India can boast nothing in comparison with the bronze colossus at Rhodes or the bronze statue of Apollo at the Roman Palatine Library; but as regards brass, India can justly claim superior knowledge about its chemistry. Owing to the much earlier discovery of zinc in India the chemistry of brass was much better understood in India than in contemporary Europe, and in fact brass was recognised in India as an alloy and prepared directly from zinc as distinguished from its ores several centuries earlier than in Europe.