Why was copper such a valuable commodity to the people of the UAE in Bronze Age times? *
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
Copper was necessary to make brass and, of course, bronze, the metal which gave its name to the time period succeeding the Copper Age, besides many other alloys. From Phoenicia to Mesoamerica, copper was a badge of elite status before becoming more widely available.
Ancient Sumer may have been the first civilization to start adding tin to copper to make bronze. Bronze was harder and more durable than copper, which made bronze a better metal for tools and weapons. Archaeological evidence suggests the transition from copper to bronze took place around 3300 B.C.
This was literally the birth of civilization, the existence of bronze allowed the building of larger and more effective tools, and the mechanisms required for irrigation control (which caused a leap in agricultural output that made actual cities sustainable).
It is differentiated from the "Stone Age" because bronze is more durable and repairable than stone, and can be worked into more detailed and task-specific forms. For many hundreds of thousands of years, this was the primary tool of the hominids: