What kind of Bronze did Koreans use?
Hi.

I was looking to have a historically accurate replica of a Liaoning Region, Late Bronze Age, Korean "Violin" dagger made, and the smith asked me if I knew what the tin percentage of the bronze they would have used was.

I just assumed it was high tin, like Chinese bronzes, and not lower tin like the rest of the world. But to be honest, I have no idea whatsoever.

Do any of you guys know?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about:

http://www.emuseum.go.kr/pages/eng/archae/archae_01_1_4_view.jsp

Thanks you guys...
Hi Bennison,
I finally managed to look at the book mentioned in the other thread about korean daggers.
According to this, the korean bronzes were significantly different from chinese bronzes. The amount of zinc (I hope this was not a translation mistake from Mrs. Nelsons Korean sources, but as an archaeologist, she should have made it clear) varies between 7-13 %, other objects, bronze mirrors for example may contain up to 25% zinc. Especially the Liaoning-Daggers also contained 5-9% of lead.
I hope I `ve been of some help.
Felix Kunze wrote:
Hi Bennison,
I finally managed to look at the book mentioned in the other thread about korean daggers.
According to this, the korean bronzes were significantly different from chinese bronzes. The amount of zinc (I hope this was not a translation mistake from Mrs. Nelsons Korean sources, but as an archaeologist, she should have made it clear) varies between 7-13 %, other objects, bronze mirrors for example may contain up to 25% zinc. Especially the Liaoning-Daggers also contained 5-9% of lead.
I hope I `ve been of some help.
The zinc is a translation error, which should be tin (no zinc was used in any bronze age culture instead of tin, so this would be very unlikely here too). 7-13% sounds like the same as European bronzes. So I'm assuming that they did do workhardening as well.

B.t.w. I've found that these daggers aren't unique to just Korea, but are found on the central plain of China as well. The cushion shaped pommels are either bronze or stone (they mention iron ore, which if I'd have to guess would be black hematite). The bronze hilts are hollow with an opening much larger then the back of the blade, and would have been filled with something in which the dagger would be fixed (perhaps a similar resin as used in Indian tulwars?). There is also evidence of wood on some blades, so wooden hilts had been used as well (with the above mentioned pommels).

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