These free-standing statues were usually marble, but also the form rendered in limestone, bronze, ivory and terracotta.

Acid rain also increases the corrosion rate of metals, in particular iron, steel, copper and bronze.

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.

Aluminium is also used for the structural metal aluminium bronze.

It is also widely used for cast bronze sculpture.

Indian Hindu artisans from the period of the Chola empire in Tamil Nadu, used bronze to create intricate statues via the lost wax casting method with ornate detailing depicting the Gods of Hinduism mostly, but also the lifestyle of the period.

In antiquity other cultures also produced works of high art using bronze.

Mail can also be made of titanium, aluminium, bronze, or copper.

The style was used in bronze by Bernini for his spectacular St. Peter's baldachin, actually a ciborium ( which displaced Constantine's columns ), and thereafter became very popular with Baroque and Rococo church architects, above all in Latin America, where they were very often used, especially on a small scale, as they are easy to produce in wood by turning on a lathe ( hence also the style's popularity for spindles on furniture and stairs ).

Handheld crossbows with complex bronze trigger mechanisms have also been found with the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shihuang ( r. 221 – 210 BC ) that are similar to specimens from the subsequent Han Dynasty ( 202 BC – 220 AD ), while crossbowmen described in the Qin and Han Dynasty learned drill formations, some were even mounted as cavalry units, and Han Dynasty writers attributed the success of numerous battles against the Xiongnu to massed crossbow fire.

The Ming Chinese also mounted over 3, 000 cast bronze and iron cannon on the Great Wall of China, to defend against the Mongols.

The Chalcolithic ( khalkos " copper " + lithos " stone ") period or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic / Æneolithic ( from Latin aeneus " of bronze "), is a phase of the Bronze Age in which the addition of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained yet unknown by the metallurgists of the times.

Those of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, of the 8th and 9th century, are wrought in bronze, and the west doors of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle ( 9th century ), of similar manufacture, were probably brought from Constantinople, as also some of those in St. Marks, Venice.

It also gathers the H. Moore and Chillida's sculptures and the Humboldt's bronze head.

There stood there also a brass bronze tube and from it flew much fire against one ship, and it burned up in a short time so that all of it became white ashes ..."

The beginning of the Iron Age in Europe and adjacent areas is characterized by certain forms of implements, weapons, personal ornaments, and pottery, and also by systems of decorative design, which are altogether different from those of the preceding age of bronze.

Recent archaeological work has modified not only the above chronology, but also the causes of the transition from bronze to iron.

Elsewhere in his Church History, Eusebius reports seeing what he took to be portraits of Jesus, Peter and Paul, and also mentions a bronze statue at Banias / Paneas, of which he wrote, " They say that this statue is an image of Jesus " ( H. E.

As a member of the American water polo team, he also won a bronze medal.

Following his mother's example, Mao also became a practising Buddhist from an early age, venerating a bronze statue of the Buddha which was in their home, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years.

Small bronze figures for collector's cabinets, often mythological subjects with nudes, were a popular Renaissance form at which Giambologna, originally Flemish but based in Florence, excelled in the later part of the century, also creating life-size sculptures, of which two joined the collection in the Piazza della Signoria.

In classical antiquity, mirrors were made of solid metal ( bronze, later silver ) and were too expensive for widespread use by common people ; they were also prone to corrosion.

There are also a handful of short inscriptions found on archaeological artefacts, including a number of bronze mirrors.

The Inca bronze alloys were also of this type.

Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was the first alloy discovered, during the prehistoric period now known as the bronze age ; it was harder than pure copper and originally used to make tools and weapons, but was later superseded by metals and alloys with better properties.

* Red brass is both an American term for the copper-zinc-tin alloy known as gunmetal, and an alloy which is considered both a brass and a bronze.

Since copper metallurgy was already known to have existed in Europe since 7000 BC, with heavy axes of natural bronze produced in bulk since 5500 BC, and since true bronze, made by deliberately alloying copper with tin had already been used in parts of east-central Europe since 3700 BC, Ötzi's axe came as no surprise to archaeologists.

While Bannister was well known in the artistic community of his adopted home of Providence, Rhode Island and admired within the wider East Coast art world ( he won a bronze medal for his large oil " Under the Oaks " at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial ), he was largely forgotten for almost a century for a complexity of reasons, principally connected with racial prejudice.

Javanese bronze breech-loaded swivel-guns, known as meriam, or erroneously as lantaka, was used widely by the Majapahit navy as well as by pirates and rival lords.

Copper alloys have been known since prehistory — bronze gave the Bronze Age its name — and have many applications today, most importantly in electrical wiring.

For the purposes of making cannon and the baldacchino in St Peters, massive bronze girders were pillaged from the portico of the Pantheon leading to the well known lampoon: quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini, " what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did.

The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze, a time known as the Copper Age, or more technically the Chalcolithic, " copper-stone " age.

These are known as bronzes ; an example is sodium tungsten bronze.

On the grounds of the cathedral, toward the south, are several buildings ( including a Synod Hall and the Cathedral School ), and a Biblical garden, as well as a large bronze work of public art by the cathedral's sculptor-in-residence, Greg Wyatt, known as the Peace Fountain, which has been both strongly praised and strongly criticized.

* The oldest known bronze handgun in the world is dated to this year, a Chinese gun found in Acheng District that was once used to suppress the rebellion of the Christian Mongol Prince Nayan in 1287 – 1288.

It built heavily fortified settlements, engaged in bronze metallurgy on an industrial scale and practiced complex burial rituals reminiscent of rituals known from the Rigveda and the Avesta.

Casting processes have been known for thousands of years, and widely used for sculpture, especially in bronze, jewellery in precious metals, and weapons and tools.

The earliest known depiction of the Pleiades is likely a bronze age artifact known as the Nebra sky disk, dated to approximately 1600 BC.

In 1915, a perfectly preserved iron and bronze Roman cavalry helmet, known as the Nijmegen Helmet, was uncovered on the left bank of the Waal in Nijmegen.

Afterwards a population to whom bronze was known left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on the Aniva Bay.

* Fabrizio Macchi known as “ Cuky ” ( born 1970 ), an amputee cyclist and bronze medal winner at the 2004 Summer Paralympics.

* Polykleitos starts making the bronze statue Achilles ( also known as The Spear Bearer or Doryphoros ), which he finishes about ten years later.

The Serpent of bronze in Numbers 21 is a well known image for Christians because of its use by Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Cetonia aurata, known as the rose chafer, or more rarely as the green rose chafer, is a beetle, 20 mm ( ¾ in ) long, that has metallic green coloration ( but can be bronze, copper, violet, blue / black or grey ) with a distinct V shaped scutellum, the small triangular area between the wing cases just below the thorax, and having several other irregular small white lines and marks.

A bronze statue of Kairos is known in literature, made by the famous Greek sculptor Lysippos.