FUSE Young Reporter
iSCIENCE
Tin has been
used since
Ancient times
and probably
gets its name
from the Anglo-
Saxon word...’tin’
or the Etruscan God,
Tinia.
Tin was once as valuable as silver
and is a highly ‘workable’ metal that
could be turned into many things
like jewellery, coins and special
dishware. At
normal room
temperatures,
tin is stable and
does not rust,
corrode or react
to water or oxygen
(air). This is why it is so
oft en used alone or as a
coating to protect other metals
in ‘tin cans’, huge sheets in building
construction and even molten ‘solder’
that joins metal parts.
ODERN
ANCIENT TO M
The Bronze Age bega
n at diff erent
times across the wor
ld (between
around 3500 BC and
2000 BC) until
about 500 BC. Ancient
peoples
discovered they could
melt tin (10%)
and copper (90%) co
mpounds
together and make th
e ‘alloy’ mixture
of...bronze!
Bronze became popu
lar because it
was tougher than pu
re copper. But
tin is very scarce (aro
und the 50th
element in the Earth’s
crust -about 1
to 2 parts of tin per m
illion) and needs
to be extracted from
an ‘ore’, usually
cassiterite.
Even so, a tin ring an
d pilgrim bottle
were in an Egyptian to
mb from the
eighteenth dynasty (15
80–1350 BC)
and pure tin was foun
d at Machu
Picchu, the ancient m
ountain citadel
of the Incas.
WEB TIPS
s/z874kqt
www.bbc.co.uk/guide
n/clips/zssnfg8
atio
uc
/ed
.uk
e_timeline/145/
www.bbc.co
elines/the_bronze_ag
/tim
www.softschools.com
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