Cupromanganese instead of traditional bronze?

This is something I am interested in applying in my timeline down the road... perhaps by 1500 BCE or even earlier. However, I’m not as versed in metallurgy as I would like to be, as the linguistic/anthropological aspects of my timeline take up a LOT of research time.

If I’m not mistaken, cupromanganese is harder than bronze, but is it more ductile and does it corrode? Does it need to be cast or can it be forged?

Also, where are the primary deposits of the specific manganese ores best suited for the production of cupromanganese? I know that there are some in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and a whole lot more in China and India. What would be the long term economic effects of a switch from bronze to cupromanganese between 1700-1400 BCE?
 
This paper from 1940 is a very thorough summary of the metal. That and a search of some old reports (it looks like there was a bunch of research on cupromanganese about a century ago) indicate a couple possible barriers:

First it seems very susceptible to impurities and at least two reports I found mentioned that in early experiments around the 1870's it would tear and crack when being worked. That was resolved by improving purity but it seems to be a rather scientific process. The paper above indicates they used an acid/electrolytic process to get pure manganese although Mad Bad Rabbit's post shows a chlorine process would work too.

Second, normal heat treating doesn't work because it rapidly oxidizes at high temperature.

On the other hand it looks like adding a small percentage of manganese to bronze (rather than a copper-manganese alloy alone) does improve hardness of the bronze and would hypothetically be less susceptible to impurities in the manganese.
 
The problem is there's no naturally occuring sources of free maganese to tap. Its mostly only found mixed in with iron, and if you've figured out how to do iron metallurgy effectively enough to seperate it out your society is behyond the point it would be using bronze for common weapons, tools, ect.
 
The problem is there's no naturally occuring sources of free maganese to tap. Its mostly only found mixed in with iron, and if you've figured out how to do iron metallurgy effectively enough to seperate it out your society is behyond the point it would be using bronze for common weapons, tools, ect.

I never saw this comment, so I apologize for coming back to this 3 months later, but having the knowledge of how to work with something "better" doesn't necessarily mean that this "better" option is going to take hold right away, or at all. We know for example, that people in the earliest centuries of 1st millennium BC had knowledge of how to work advanced steel (the Vered Jericho Sword comes to mind), and yet this quality of steel-working doesn't appear to have become the norm until many, many centuries later. We also know that some people in the Late Bronze Age knew how to work iron and steel, but it appears to have been used for jewelry. A more modern example of a more efficient item not being accepted for some time is the lever action rifle, which was apparently presented to the US Army prior to the Civil War, but rejected on the grounds that being able to rapidly reload 7 shots would result in soldiers being careless with their bullets. For a contemporary example, we can see aquaponics farming as a viable, more productive, and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional farming methods for most crops, but the entrenched nature of traditional methods commercially and politically has thus far prevented a revolution in agriculture, here. So, I guess I don't understand entirely why knowledge of how to separate manganese from iron automatically means that bronze will be discarded, especially when it is being separated from iron with the expressed purpose of adding it to bronze to make the bronze stronger. I can think of bigger technological blunders in history, really.

Besides, can rudimentary methods of ironworking even compete with manganese-strengthened bronze alloys for strength and ductility? I would be interested in knowing the answer, cuz I don't know. However, even if it can, so what? Bronze is totally entrenched, and there are entire institutions that center around it, from local mining operations to entire schools of smiths who specialize in working with it and whose smithies aren't designed to work iron, and then of course lucrative trade routes whose primary impetus is the movement of metals like copper and tin. Granted, changes in smithies would have to be made and some knowledge of how to work iron would have to be acquired, but merely knowing how to separate out the components of ferrous alloys doesn't mean that you know all the secrets of what makes iron tick.
 
I never saw this comment, so I apologize for coming back to this 3 months later, but having the knowledge of how to work with something "better" doesn't necessarily mean that this "better" option is going to take hold right away, or at all. We know for example, that people in the earliest centuries of 1st millennium BC had knowledge of how to work advanced steel (the Vered Jericho Sword comes to mind), and yet this quality of steel-working doesn't appear to have become the norm until many, many centuries later. We also know that some people in the Late Bronze Age knew how to work iron and steel, but it appears to have been used for jewelry. A more modern example of a more efficient item not being accepted for some time is the lever action rifle, which was apparently presented to the US Army prior to the Civil War, but rejected on the grounds that being able to rapidly reload 7 shots would result in soldiers being careless with their bullets. For a contemporary example, we can see aquaponics farming as a viable, more productive, and more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional farming methods for most crops, but the entrenched nature of traditional methods commercially and politically has thus far prevented a revolution in agriculture, here. So, I guess I don't understand entirely why knowledge of how to separate manganese from iron automatically means that bronze will be discarded, especially when it is being separated from iron with the expressed purpose of adding it to bronze to make the bronze stronger. I can think of bigger technological blunders in history, really.

Besides, can rudimentary methods of ironworking even compete with manganese-strengthened bronze alloys for strength and ductility? I would be interested in knowing the answer, cuz I don't know. However, even if it can, so what? Bronze is totally entrenched, and there are entire institutions that center around it, from local mining operations to entire schools of smiths who specialize in working with it and whose smithies aren't designed to work iron, and then of course lucrative trade routes whose primary impetus is the movement of metals like copper and tin. Granted, changes in smithies would have to be made and some knowledge of how to work iron would have to be acquired, but merely knowing how to separate out the components of ferrous alloys doesn't mean that you know all the secrets of what makes iron tick.

This isent exactly the same situation. If I want to open up more land for conventional farming, I don't have to build a hyroponic farm underneath first. If I want to produce more iron or bronze, I dont produce steel as a biproduct of the process as a matter of course. But if you want to get the manganese nessicery to produce cupromanganese, you HAVE to set up a system in which people have the facilities and skills to mass produce and process purified iron, and mines producing large amounts of iron ore, and basic ironsmithing is not fundimentally different from beating bronze. What you're suggesting is somehow, even if the nobility and such are provided with cupromanganese as requested, the poor and the resource econonical smiths are just going to throw away vast amounts of cheap metal without trying to find some use for it, and realizing they can produce tools ect. for public sales out of "waste product" (IE, free if you're needing the maganese anyways) at a much lower cost than the bronze counterparts. It won't take long for such a market advantagious idea to take root, and in fact feeds off the demand for the higher-class goods to produce something just as durible for a fraction of the cost. Practicality kicks in.

The initial investment cost and risk that accompanies and disuades adoption of new technology isent there is your proposed world. One that still uses copper-tin bronze? Sure. But without cheap iron and the widespread basic knowledge on how to process and use it, you don't have a large supply of maganese period.
 
This isent exactly the same situation. If I want to open up more land for conventional farming, I don't have to build a hyroponic farm underneath first. If I want to produce more iron or bronze, I dont produce steel as a biproduct of the process as a matter of course. But if you want to get the manganese nessicery to produce cupromanganese, you HAVE to set up a system in which people have the facilities and skills to mass produce and process purified iron, and mines producing large amounts of iron ore, and basic ironsmithing is not fundimentally different from beating bronze. What you're suggesting is somehow, even if the nobility and such are provided with cupromanganese as requested, the poor and the resource econonical smiths are just going to throw away vast amounts of cheap metal without trying to find some use for it, and realizing they can produce tools ect. for public sales out of "waste product" (IE, free if you're needing the maganese anyways) at a much lower cost than the bronze counterparts. It won't take long for such a market advantagious idea to take root, and in fact feeds off the demand for the higher-class goods to produce something just as durible for a fraction of the cost. Practicality kicks in.

The initial investment cost and risk that accompanies and disuades adoption of new technology isent there is your proposed world. One that still uses copper-tin bronze? Sure. But without cheap iron and the widespread basic knowledge on how to process and use it, you don't have a large supply of maganese period.

Are we talking about the same thing here, though? Cuz I know I started out the thread talking about cupromanganese proper, but it was established pretty quickly that manganese primary component in an alloy is outside of the technological scope of the Bronze Age, but that adding manganese to the bronze could be lucrative in strengthening the bronze. I genuinely do not know that much about metallurgy, so forgive my ignorance, but do you need the kind of smithing capacity that would lead to steel to be able to isolate manganese from iron? Because if so, the idea is out, and it's a crying shame, cuz it would have made for some fun socio-political developments. But if not, I don't see why smiths might not experiment with adding ferrous materials to bronze if their furnaces have the capacity to melt iron in the first place.
 
Are we talking about the same thing here, though? Cuz I know I started out the thread talking about cupromanganese proper, but it was established pretty quickly that manganese primary component in an alloy is outside of the technological scope of the Bronze Age, but that adding manganese to the bronze could be lucrative in strengthening the bronze. I genuinely do not know that much about metallurgy, so forgive my ignorance, but do you need the kind of smithing capacity that would lead to steel to be able to isolate manganese from iron? Because if so, the idea is out, and it's a crying shame, cuz it would have made for some fun socio-political developments. But if not, I don't see why smiths might not experiment with adding ferrous materials to bronze if their furnaces have the capacity to melt iron in the first place.

Well, I'm not saying they woulden't do it or coulden't do it. Cupromanganese / "New Bronze" could be a great status/prestige symbol, with the upper class wanting their arms and armor distinct from the iron being used by the lower level soldiers. But you woulden't be delaying the Iron Age is what I'm saying. You could have a system that produces iron, iron and cupromaganese, or neither, but not just the later without the former.
 
Well, I'm not saying they woulden't do it or coulden't do it. Cupromanganese / "New Bronze" could be a great status/prestige symbol, with the upper class wanting their arms and armor distinct from the iron being used by the lower level soldiers. But you woulden't be delaying the Iron Age is what I'm saying. You could have a system that produces iron, iron and cupromaganese, or neither, but not just the later without the former.

What about adding the manganese to bronze, as was suggested by @Escape Zeppelin?
 
What about adding the manganese to bronze, as was suggested by @Escape Zeppelin?

You could, as I just said I the post you quoted related to prestige objects / high ranking equipment (Same as the idea behind designer bags noble silverware; it's not any better than other options but if you can afford it it acts as a sign of your wealth and willingness to spend it). But bronze would still be expensive relative to iron, and now that you have large quantities of iron and the facilities and skills to work and process it in order to get the manganese, than its not going to be long until your average Joe is using iron tools rather than bronze. A noble may be willing to pay for a fancy manganese-bronze weapon for his own use, but is he really going to blow those resources on his estate worker's tools when he can get just as good results for a fraction of the tool cost?
 
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