B is for Bronze

The modern definition of the word 'bronze' is an alloy consisting primarily of copper and some other metals. There's a whole period of history named after 'bronze', designating the period when this brown alloy was most in use. We refer to people who have a deep brown tan as being 'bronzed' - and understandably so. Apparently, the first recorded use of bronze as a name of a brown colour in English was in 1753.

And yet, I have been told that the Ancient Greek scholar Homer wrote about the sky being 'bronze' in colour - meaning blue. Really? It was on a TV show, a radio show, in a reference book. So, plenty of evidence. And yes - indeed, Homer did refer to the sky as bronze. Curious...

So I did some more checking - and in addition to finding a couple of sources reporting that it was a reference to blue, there was an interesting article from a Greek scholar who insisted that Homer's writings including a poetical reference to bronze, not one related to colour. Another website insisted that Homer was in fact colour-blind. Yet another told me that Homer's colour description usage was a cultural phenomenon common among the Greeks at that time.

So can we say that Homer saw the sky as 'bronze'? Possibly... did he think it was blue? Probably not.

And I've even found an additional reference to a bronze sky in Scripture:

Deuteronomy 28:23 New International Version (NIV)
The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.