Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest known tin-copper alloy artifact dates to 3000 BCE. This object was unearthed in a Vinča culture site at Pločnik in Serbia and is believed to be smelted from natural tin-copper ore known as stannite.
Early examples of bronze appeared in Egypt, Susa in Iran, and ancient sites in China, Luristan, and Mesopotamia by the late 4th millennium BCE. These regions adopted the material gradually as trade networks for tin developed.
A catastrophic disruption of the tin trade between 1200 and 1100 BCE caused the Bronze Age to end. Population migrations reduced tin shipments from the Mediterranean and Britain, causing prices to skyrocket and supplies to dwindle.
The Assyrian king Sennacherib, who reigned from 704 to 681 BCE, cast monumental bronze statues weighing up to 30 tonnes using two-part molds. This method replaced the lost-wax technique for these specific large-scale works.
Bell metal typically contains about 23 percent tin. Professional cymbals often use B20 bronze, which consists of roughly 20 percent tin and 80 percent copper to offer a desirable balance of durability and timbre.
Bronze mirrors survive from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, which spanned from 2040 to 1750 BCE. In China, bronze mirrors were produced from at least 1500 BCE.