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60 free Bronze trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bronze was the first great engineered material, and this quiz covers the alloy from every angle: what it is made of, why tin trade shaped ancient empires, how the Bronze Age ended, and the bells, cymbals, coins, propellers, mirrors and statues it has been cast into ever since. Easy questions ask which two metals make classic bronze and what a third-place Olympic medal is called; harder ones dig into the Serbian artefact from 4650 BC, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Roman emperor whose statue survived because he was mistaken for Constantine, the Nebra sky disc and why bronze tools are used where sparks would be deadly. It suits science and history quiz nights, metalwork and sculpture fans, and anyone who has ever wondered why so few ancient Greek bronzes survive. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on bronze, the Bronze Age, bronze sculpture and the individual objects mentioned, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01Roughly what proportion of typical modern bronze is copper?
88%
The rest is mostly tin, though aluminium, nickel, zinc, phosphorus or arsenic can be added for special properties.
Q 02Which metal is the main non-copper ingredient of classic bronze?
Tin
Brass, by contrast, is copper alloyed with zinc, and old documents so often confused the two that museums now say "copper alloy".
Q 03Which alloy is copper mixed mainly with zinc rather than tin?
Brass
So-called "commercial bronze" (90% copper, 10% zinc) is really a brass by that definition.
Q 04Which harder material, learned by blacksmiths working iron, eventually out-competed bronze for blades?
Steel
Bronze is actually harder than wrought iron, but steel holds a sharper edge longer.
Q 05Which age followed the Bronze Age in the three-age system?
The Iron Age
The Danish archaeologist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen devised the stone-bronze-iron sequence while sorting a museum collection.
Q 06What is the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age called?
The Chalcolithic
The name means "copper-stone", the era when pure copper tools appeared before tin alloys.
Q 07The earliest known tin-copper alloy artefact, dated to about 4650 BC, was found in which modern country?
Serbia
It came from a Vinča culture site at Pločnik and was probably smelted from stannite, a natural tin-copper ore.
Q 08Before tin, what element was commonly alloyed with copper to make an early bronze?
Arsenic
Arsenical copper had a silvery hue and was easier to work, but tin took over because its fumes are not toxic and the alloy was easier to control.
Q 09Which part of Britain was a major ancient source of tin, traded as far as Phoenicia?
Cornwall
Copper and tin ores are rarely found together, so serious bronze-making always depended on long-distance trade.
Q 10The Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age partly because of a disruption in the trade of what?
Tin
Migrations around 1200 to 1100 BC cut tin shipments and raised prices, just as ironworking was improving.
Q 11Which mysterious seaborne raiders are among the suspects for the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BC?
The Sea Peoples
The Hittite Empire fell and Mycenaean Greece slid into a dark age, while Egypt and Assyria survived weakened.
Q 12What is the approximate melting point of bronze?
About 950 °C
Copper alloys melt lower than iron or steel, and bronze conducts heat and electricity better than most steels.
Q 13What useful property makes bronze suited to hammers and wrenches used near flammable vapours?
It does not spark when struck
Beryllium copper shares the trait, and bronze wool is used on oak where steel wool would discolour the wood.
Q 21Which wedding anniversary is traditionally associated with bronze?
Eighth
Most "copper" coins are actually bronze too, with about 4% tin and 1% zinc.
Q 22Which 1958 New York skyscraper was the first to be entirely sheathed in bronze?
The Seagram Building
Mies van der Rohe's tower used 3.2 million pounds of bronze, and even the window screws were brass.
Q 23What unusual property of common bronze alloys makes them ideal for casting detailed statues?
They expand slightly just before setting
Q 14Which chloride-driven corrosion process, named like an illness, can completely destroy a copper-alloy object?
Bronze disease
It looks like a fuzzy green coating and is a chemical reaction, not an infection, usually from seawater or salty soil.
Q 15Roughly how much tin is in bell metal, the bronze used for casting bells?
About 22 to 23%
The high tin content makes the metal stiffer and more resonant; as tin rises in a bell or cymbal, the timbre drops.
Q 16Nearly all professional cymbals are made from what?
Bronze
B20 cymbal bronze is about 20% tin and 80% copper; Zildjian has been making cymbals since 1623.
Q 17The world's oldest instrument maker, founded in Constantinople in 1623, makes cymbals under what name?
Zildjian
Founder Avedis Zildjian was an Armenian metalsmith and alchemist; the firm is now based in Massachusetts.
Q 18Big Ben, the Great Bell of Westminster, weighs about how much?
13.5 tons
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast it, and the nickname honours the tall Sir Benjamin Hall who oversaw its installation.
Q 19Bronze is used for the windings of the lower strings on which keyboard instrument?
Piano
Bronze-wound strings also appear on double basses, harpsichords and guitars.
Q 20At which Olympics were gold, silver and bronze first awarded for the first three places?
1904 St. Louis
In 1896 winners got silver and runners-up bronze; the trio echoes the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of Greek myth.
The metal pushes into the finest details of the mould, then shrinks a little as it cools so it comes away cleanly.
Q 24Which Assyrian king claimed to be the first to cast monumental bronze statues using two-part moulds?
Sennacherib
His statues reportedly weighed up to 30 tonnes and bypassed the usual lost-wax method.
Q 25Why do so few large ancient Greek bronze statues survive?
They were melted down for reuse
Many famous Greek bronzes are known only through Roman marble copies, which were far more likely to survive.
Q 26The Riace bronzes, two rare original Greek warrior statues, were found where in 1972?
In the sea off Calabria, Italy
Statue A dates to around 460 BC and Statue B to around 430 BC; they are now in Reggio Calabria.
Q 27The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of which god?
Helios
Chares of Lindos built it around 280 BC to about 33 metres, and an earthquake toppled it in 226 BC.
Q 28What destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes in 226 BC?
An earthquake
It had stood for barely half a century; parts of the fallen giant were preserved for hundreds of years.
Q 29The bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius survived because medieval Rome mistook him for whom?
Constantine the Great
More than 20 other bronze equestrian statues of emperors were melted down; his is one of only two surviving bronzes of a pagan emperor.
Q 30The Bronze Horseman in Saint Petersburg depicts which ruler?
Peter the Great
Catherine the Great commissioned Falconet's statue, whose pedestal, the Thunder Stone, is the largest stone ever moved by humans.