Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper and other metals. The addition of other metals (usually tin, sometimes arsenic), produces an alloy much harder than plain copper. The historical period where the archeological record contains many bronze artifacts is known as the Bronze Age. Because historical pieces were often made of brasses (copper and zinc) and bronzes with different compositions, modern museum and scholarly descriptions of older objects increasingly use the more inclusive term “copper alloy” instead. The word bronze (1730–40) is borrowed from French bronze (1511), itself borrowed from Italian bronzo “bell metal, brass” (13th century) (transcribed in Medieval Latin as bronzium), from either: bróntion, back-formation from Byzantine Greek brontēsíon (11th century), perhaps from Brentḗsion ‘Brindisi’, reputed for its bronze; or early Persian birinj, biranj (برنج) “brass” (modern berenj), piring (پرنگ) “copper”, from which also came Serbo-Croatian pìrinač “brass”, Georgian brinǰao “bronze”, Armenian płinj “copper”.
