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Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper,
usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle,
and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so
that the Bronze Age was named after the metal. However, since
"bronze" is a somewhat imprecise term, and historical pieces
have variable compositions, in particular with an unclear
boundary with brass, modern museum and scholarly descriptions
of older objects increasingly use the more cautious and
inclusive term "copper alloy" instead.[1]
The word Bronze is believed to be cognate with the Italian:
bronzo and German: brunst, perhaps ultimately taken from the
Persian word birinj ("bronze") or possibly from the Latin name
of the city of Brindisi (aes Brundusinum—Pliny).[2]
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