Benin bronzes, it would seem, were made from metal with an origin in Germany – see https://phys.org/news/2023-04-benin-bronzes-german-brass.html … or to be exact, German brass. The Benin bronzes refer to a lot of African artwork that became very popular amongst art collectors in the developed world. They consist of heads of people, figurines, plaques, and so on, produced by the Edo people of Nigeria between the 16th to 19th centuries AD. Chemical analysis was involved. It also throws a light on trading – especially by the Portuguese explorers.
At https://phys.org/news/2023-04-unexpected-contribution-medieval-monks-volcanology.html …. by observing the night sky medieval monks unwittingly revealed some of the biggest volcanic eruptions – going back to the 12th and 13th centuries. Middle eastern records and chronicles were also sourced, with the aim to find references of eclipses. In addition, ice core data and tree rings were also consulted in order to build a multi-source record of big volcanic eruptions. All the information was collated into a Nature journal article -see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05751-z … Scribes in Japan took equal note of lunar eclipses. The darkest lunar eclipses all occur within a year or so major volcanic blow outs. They also had an effect on global weather, cooling that affected harvest around the world.