The World Copper Factbook 2019 International Copper Study Group 4 Images co urte sy of th e British Mu seu m the Copper Deve lopment Association and IC SG Copper in History A rchaeological evidence demonstra tes that cop p er was one of th e first metals used by humans and was used at least 1 0 000 years ago for items such as coins an d orname nts in we stern Asia During the prehisto ric Chalcolithic Period d erived fro m chalkos the Gree k word for c o p p e r man d i scov ered h o w to extract and use c o p p e r to p r od uce or naments an d imp l emen ts A s early as the 4th to 3rd millennium B C workers extracted cop p er from Spains Huelva regi on The disco v ery that co ppe r whe n allo ye d with ti n p r od uc es bronze led t o the Bronz e Age c 2500 BC Isr a els Timna Valley provided copper to the Pharaohs a n Egypti an papyrus records the use of copper to treat infections and to sterilize water Cyprus supplie d much o f the Phoenician Gre e k and Roman nee d s for co ppe r C o ppe r is derive d fro m the latin Cyprium literally Cyprian metal The Greeks of Aris totl es era w e re f a miliar with brass as a va lued copper alloy In South America th e preColumbian Maya A z tec and Inca civilizations exploit e d copper in addi tion to gold and sil v er During the Midd le Ages copper and bronze w o rk s flourished in China India and J a pan The discov eries and inventions relating to ele c tricity and magnetism of the late 18t h and early 19th cen t uries by sci e ntists such as Ampe re Faraday and Ohm and the pro d uc ts manufacture d fro m co ppe r helped launch the Indu strial Revo lution and pro p e l co ppe r into a ne w e r a Today co p p e r co ntinue s to se rve so cie t ys needs Altho u gh co ppe r has be e n in use fo r at least 10000 years innovative appli c ations for copper are st ill being dev e loped as ev idenced by t h e dev e lopment of the copper chip by the s e micond u ct ors ind u stry